Al Stewart Album: “Acoustic Evening with Al Stewart”

Despite the title, this is not a new live recording by Al Stewart. It is a compilation of both live and studio acoustic tracks from throughout his career, from 1970's "Zero She Flies" through "Between The Wars." "Intro/Year Of The Cat" is from a promotional-only radio station album, so it may be rare to US fans, though it was on the UK reissue of "Russians & Americans."

.... This album of various acoustic recordings is a mixture of live and studio material spanning his entire career, from 1970 ("A Small Fruit Song") to two songs from his import-only 1995 album "Between The Wars". In between are 2 live songs ("Year Of The Cat" and "On The Border") from "Rhymes In Rooms" and 1 ("Roads To Moscow") from 1981's "Live/Indian Summer". Also included are "The Candidate" from "Russians & Americans", and, finally, the live "Intro/Year Of The Cat", which clocks in at over 9 minutes. The "Intro" is a very nice piano segment that teases with hints of "Year Of The Cat" before finally launching into the song. It sounds like it might have been performed with the same band as on "Indian Summer". The back cover of the CD attributes "Intro/Year Of The Cat" to the album "Russians & Americans", but it isn't on my copy of that album. Another ... says that in fact this song originally was from a promo-only radio station album, and that it later appeared as a bonus track on a UK reissue of "Russians & Americans". The overall effect of listening to this rather odd compilation is not unlike hearing an unplugged concert, but I was disappointed, as I already had all but one of these songs in my collection.

To explain the comments by others, realise that this was original issued by EMI Holland as a sales item for Al's tour of The Netherlands in 1996. The track listing is representative of the things Al was likely to include in his set lists at the time.

One for the collector, really. Original editions contain a card listing the 'Concert Agenda '96.'

Boy, for this pricetag was I disappointed!

They sucker you in with the the title, but then you find out everything is a copy from other albums.

It isn't an evening, and some tracks aren't even live, or even mostly accoustic! It looks like a "Greatest Hits" album based on who knows what. What on earth is the 2:09 studio track "The Candidate" doing on there, anyway?

Sheesh.

While it's true that this material all exists elsewhere, I find this nice collection of acoustic tracks to be my favorite Al Stewart CD, and it's devilishly hard to find some of these in the US. THe longer version of Year of the Cat with its terrific Piano intro is worth the price alone, as are the Peter White guitar licks on the first two tracks.