By Ian Elliott Shircore
Al
Stewart is something of a phenomenon on the British music scene
. He has been playing his own distinctive brand of rhythmic acoustic rock
since the days when solo performers had backing groups called the Dakotas
and singers were still being sent to elocution teachers with Scouse accents.
He naturally gravitated
towards the folk clubs , simply because they were the only venues at which
people were prepared to sit and listen to a solo performer accompanying
himself on an acoustic guitar. For several years he travelled the circuit
, improving his song writing and gaining both experience and a a strong
grass roots reputation and it is only since the musical climate has changed
over the last few years that he has had the chance to record and to play
to a wider audience.
