Just Yesterday: An Al Stewart Retrospective

Laurie over at Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans did a post about Al Stewart in which she suggested that I do a post compiling the links to my Al Stewart concert reviews. On the off chance someone follows her link over here, here it is:

In MY SHOCKING CONFESSION!!!, I let the cat out of the bag regarding my unnatural fondness for Al Stewart's music. And then I proceeded to post reviews that I'd written of some of Al's past shows, like Al Stewart: May 26, 2001, Austin, Texas, and Al Stewart: September 2002, Austin, Texas, and Al Stewart: July 11, 2003, Houston, Texas. Then I felt the need to explain what I'd just posted in my aptly titled post, MY SHOCKING CONFESSION!!! explained. And then a few months later, I saw a couple Al shows in Houston, and I wrote a few words about Al Stewart at the Mucky Duck, September 8, 2005, and Al Stewart at the Mucky Duck, September 9, 2005.

I've also done a few album reviews over the years, and I've decided to include them here in the interest of completeness. Those would be Time Passages Live, Live at the Roxy Los Angeles 1981, and Orange/Past Present Future/Modern Times.

Although I've never gotten around to reviewing them (hence the links to Amazon), Year of the Cat and Time Passages are both great albums, but anyone who was alive during the 1970s should already know that. There's not a bad track on either (although some fans find "Song on the Radio" on Time Passages to be too "commercial").

There are also couple lesser-known albums that I haven't gotten around to reviewing but that I highly recommend. One is Between the Wars, which Al once told me he thought was his best album. I tend to agree:



The other is A Beach Full of Shells, which came out just recently and is really really good:



Finally, anyone who's interested in going a bit deeper would do well to pick up a copy of Just Yesterday from Amazon's UK site. It really is an excellent set, and it contains a lot of good stuff from albums that have been out of print for years. The packaging is about as nice as I've seen too. It's in book form with 70 pages of pictures and text and pockets for the discs.



It's $90 on Amazon.com, or about $60+shipping from some of the other Amazon sellers, but the best way to get it is from Amazon.co.uk (which is where I got mine). For U.S. orders, the total with shipping and after deducting the VAT is £26.03, or just a little under $50. And apart from being cheaper, it's fun to get a package from overseas now and then.

If $50 seems like too much to spend on a set from a guy who hasn't had a hit since the 70s, there's a shorter two disc anthology called Piece of Yesterday: The Anthology that can be had for about $20 on Amazon, or a little less (even with overseas shipping) from Amazon.co.uk.