AL STEWART
Year Of The Cat: 45th Anniversary Box Set CHERRY RED
What’s new, pussycat? Live albums and are new mix are added to this classic.
That acoustic guitar solo gives way to that electric guitar solo, which in turn gives way to that alto sax solo, as the piano holds the melody together and we ponder Al Stewart’s romantic tale of deciding to stay in Africa a little longer with a mysterious woman. Is there a more perfect coda in the history of soft rock than the showboating play-out of Year Of The Cat? Exquisite, swoon-inducing, deeply unfashionable, it’s perhaps a Marmite moment, its class and politeness anathema to rioting punks. But if you’re sold on its beauty it never, ever grows old.