Al Stewart – Year of the cat (Epic #304)

The Epic 2017 Project #304: 171031

Al Stewart – Year of the cat (1976)

Year of the Cat is the seventh studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1976 and was produced and engineered by Alan Parsons; it is considered his masterpiece and certainly always features in my ever-changing top 100 albums. Its sales were helped by the hit single “Year of the Cat”, “one of those ‘mysterious woman’ songs,” co-written by Peter Wood. The other single from the album was “On the Border”.

Stewart had all of the music and orchestration written and completely recorded before he even had a title for any of the songs. In a Canadian radio interview he stated that he has done this for six of his albums, and he often wrote four different sets of lyrics for each song. The title track derives from a song Stewart wrote in 1966 called “Foot of the Stage” with prescient lyrics about Tony Hancock, one of Britain’s favourite comedians who tragically committed suicide two years later. When Stewart discovered that Hancock was not well known in the United States, he went back to his original title “Year of the Cat”.

While Stewart is known for his guitar virtuosity, the song is recognized for producing amazing interplay of multiple guitars, piano, saxophone, violin and drums.

Simply Seventies #7 – 1976

Jemtunes is revisiting the 1970’s over ten days in November by featuring a track from an album released in each year of the decade. Today it’s 1976 and ‘Year of the Cat‘ from Al Stewart.

This was his 7th studio album released in the July of what subsequently became known (by those of us who were there) as ‘the long hot summer’. Released on the RCA Victor label, it featured a Hipgnosis designed gatefold sleeve and gave Mr Stewart two massive hits in the form of its title track and ‘Borderline’.