AL STEWART : A BEACH FULL OF SHELLS

  1. The Immelman Turn
  2. Mr. Lear
  3. Royal Courtship
  4. rain Barrel
  5. Somewhere in England, 1915
  6. Katherine of Oregon
  7. Mona Lisa Talking
  8. Class of '58
  9. Out in the Snow
  10. My Egyptian Couch
  11. Gina in the Kings Road
  12. Beacon Street
  13. Anniversary

Label : EMI

Release Year : 2005

Length : 48:45

Review (AllMusic) : Al Stewart has always had a distinctive vocal style - making his radio hits like "Year of the Cat" immediately recognizable - while also possessing a knack for writing tuneful pop songs. A Beach Full of Shells qualifies as his first U.S. release since 1995, and while it's been some time since the singer conquered the pop charts, both his vocal style and craftsmanship remains intact. It would be a mistake, however, to view Stewart as no more than the maker of pop confections specially designed for a mass radio audience. The cover of A Beach Full of Shells offers the first clue of a playful mind that enjoys the weight of words: there are two types of shells on the beach, one from the sea, the other for use in a gun. The complexity of his approach is best experienced on "Somewhere in England 1915," a lengthy song (nearly seven minutes) with shifting dream imagery. Weaving fantasy with brief references to World War I, the narrator eventually wakes up 90 years later to find himself on the edge - the song seems to suggest - of yet another war. Stewart accomplishes all of this without ever being obvious, giving the song a subtle quality as it reveals its surprises to the listener. This, however, is only one of many moods on A Beach Full of Shells. "Katherine of Oregon" is as light as air, a pleasant, flowing ballad with nice acoustic guitar and light percussion, while "Mona Lisa Talking" shifts through a number of intriguing chord changes to offer a little common sense advice. A Beach Full of Shells probably doesn't spell Stewart's return to the Top 40, but it is a solid effort that will certainly please fans.

Review (Wikipedia) : A Beach Full of Shells is the seventeenth album by Al Stewart, released in 2005. Like most of Stewart's later works, much of the content of the CD alludes to people or moments in history. "The Immelman Turn" refers to the aerobatic maneuver of the same name. The narrator, a Barnstormer, pilots a Curtiss "Jenny". "Mr. Lear" is about the nineteenth-century English poet Edward Lear. Lear's cat Foss is mentioned, and his poems "The Pobble Who Has No Toes" and "Uncle Arly" are referenced. "Somewhere in England, 1915" : The narrator, living in 2005, dreams many scenes, including the 1945 film Brief Encounter, the British poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in the trenches of World War I and the last farewell of Violet Asquith (daughter of British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith) and Rupert Brooke. He then wakes up, and sees on that day's newspaper "a man on the cover we all know, defying the fates" who "seems very sure" of himself. "Katherine of Oregon" : the titular character's name is a play on Catherine of Aragon, whose marriage to King Henry VIII of England was annulled in 1533. The chorus' tune is adapted from the work of Beethoven. The Scottish musician Lonnie Donegan is mentioned. When playing this song in concert, Stewart has jokingly suggested that he may write a sequel entitled "Anne of Cleveland" as a play on Anne of Cleves. "Class of '58" : Stewart originally wrote the song "Class of '58" as 13 minutes long. When the record company rejected it, he rewrote it to the truncated 4-minute version on the album. The long version was subsequently released as a single. In the blurb on the single, it is suggested that the album A Beach Full of Shells was originally intended to focus around this song, which describes the life of a musician on the 1950s rock and roll scene.

Review (Only Solitaire) : Down In The Cellar gave us an Al Stewart that was cozily settling in. And for an artist that did not really make too many wild, unexpected, dangerously experimental moves even at his youthful peak, «settling in» means providing precious little food for us reviewers. Pleasant, but never over­whelming melodies, intelligent, but never unpredictable lyrical subjects and flourishes, good sense of taste so steady it's almost boring - what is there to say? In Al's case, this means thirteen more folk-rock tunes that grow, although slowly, upon each en­suing listen, and more of his little stories, sometimes fantasies, sometimes nostalgia pieces. And, as usual, although the acoustic-based arrangements are generally similar, there is enough mood diversity to sit through the entire thing if not in an enthralled, then at least in a cutely satisfied manner. Every once in a while, Al's «modest perfection» may really get to you in all of its perfect modesty, and all of that accumulated niceness may make you want to throw up in disgust and reach out for your collection of hardcore classics - but in 2005, everyone who puts on a new Al Stewart album is either supposed to know what to expect, or is completely crazy and throws up on a regular basis all the same. For the record, this particular issue of «Where In The World Is [W]Al[do] Stewart?» covers such topics as limerick father Edward Lear; David Lean's Brief Encounter; American barnstorm fliers of the 1920s; one of the wives of Henry VIII subtly transplanted into a personal fantasy; and far more obscure subjects that I am unable to decipher at all (what the hell is 'Rain Barrel' about, and who the hell is Mr. Williams? Perhaps Al should consider having his albums come packaged in news­paper clippings, à la Thick As A Brick?). Also for the record, rumors state that the entire thing was originally thought to be centered around a thirteen-minute version of 'Class Of '58', with Al's inevitable nostalgic impulse targeted at gray-haired rock'n'roll grandaddies of his generation. The full version, it is said, has seen single release, but it is hard to see why this fun, but insignificant retro-rockabilly stomp should have been any longer than four, which it is here. And for the final record, my personal favourite song is easily definable here as 'Mona Lisa Tal­king' - not because Al pretends to have found a simple, but most probably wrong decipherment of the most famous smile in history, but because he has actually found a gorgeous musical/vocal hook to go along with the decipherment: the "go home, pretty baby..." is one of those subtle heart-tugs that I so like to collect in relatively obscure locations and strongly recommend to all the other heart-tug connoisseurs out there. Oh, and thumbs up, of course. These particular shells on the beach are hardly worth a million, but all are fairly solid, and it's not that easy these days to fall upon a solitary beach with thirteen solid shells. This one's definitely not for the tourists. Odd coincidence of the day: Why does the Middle Eastern-ish strings riff that introduces 'Rain Barrel' sound so much like the opening riff of ABBA's disco hit 'Voulez-Vous'? Either the two must have a common source, or Al Stewart has a really sick subconscious.