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Rating: It is difficult if not impossible to harbor doubts about Al Stewart, a singer-songwriter and musician of intelligence, compositional depth, and sublime melodic taste, perhaps one of the most undeservedly underrated artists in history. Yet, besides the obvious curiosity, there is still a bit of uncertainty about the final outcome of an album like "Uncorked", a live record from 2009, the latest release to date by the great Scottish storyteller who opts for the classic unplugged formula: just two guitars, his and Dave Nachmanoff's, an American guitarist and songwriter who has been a faithful companion since the second half of the '70s. Indeed, although Al Stewart fundamentally started as an acoustic artist, he has evolved throughout his career to express a wide range of sounds and styles that have inevitably left a distinctive mark on his songs. Going through the tracklist, I especially think of "News From Spain" with its twilight organ solo, the orchestral restless magnificence of "Bed-Sitter Images", the Latin-tinged grit of "Running Man", the scenic flirtation with the new wave of "Last Days Of The Century", and the elegant and impeccable arrangements of "Midas Shadow" and "Palace Of Versailles", and it almost seems natural to wonder if this basic dimension can truly do justice to such unique tracks.
Among the reinterpretations, Al and Dave present a couple of unreleased tracks, a simple and enjoyable diversion like "Princess Olivia", a delightful tune based on a reimagining of the famous "Ode to Joy" melody, and especially a ballad in the most classic and crystalline Stewart style: "Coldest Winter". The theme it addresses, the invasion of Russia by King Charles XII of Sweden, relentlessly defeated by the so-called General Winter like Napoleon and Hitler after him, immediately and inevitably draws a comparison with "Roads To Moscow", although there are very few other analogies; "Coldest Winter" is a simpler, calmer song that does not aim to evoke the drama and historical significance of the moment but rather to recall a distant past with a tinge of sweetness and melancholy.
As for the rest, the proposed selection is undoubtedly peculiar; unfortunately there's no hint of Stewart's production from 1993 onwards, even though it could have provided countless opportunities for great reinterpretations, and on the other hand, there aren't even those two songs that everyone would expect to find, dispelling any doubts about potential nostalgia operations and/or slightly increasing the commercial appeal of the product. "Uncorked" is not an acoustic best-of but a very careful and considered selection, covering almost all of Al Stewart's artistic milestones from 1967 to 1988, successfully uniting them in a common language, the most essential and traditional musical language that exists.
The live dimension also allows for the appreciation of a characteristic of AS that obviously remains hidden in his studio production: you discover an excellent communicator, capable of creating the right empathy with the audience thanks to his affable and ironic attitude, and this makes the show even more interesting and enjoyable, excellently structured, opening with a medley that combines "Last Days Of The Century" with the vigorous "Constantinople", ensuring an incisive overture and immediately appreciating the fascinating interplays between the two guitars, the instrumental beauty inherent, and the raison d'être of "Uncorked". Bringing back "Bed-Sitter Images" is both a risky and necessary choice, considering what this wonderful song originally represents: the pursuit of happiness, balance, a place in the world, particularly the restlessness and the crucial significance of such a pursuit; "You know I can't go back until I either win or crack", and what was a declaration of intent in 1967 now becomes the perfect closure of a circle, a more serene and mature interpretation in which time inevitably mitigates the moment’s spleen, turning it into a beautiful and glorious memory. Another highly impactful episode is certainly "Warren Harding", which, with the same brilliance and irony as in 1973, recalls the rapid rise and fall of the libertine, gambling, pro-business president, while the profound simplification to which "Palace Of Versailles" is subjected elevates it to a much more songwriter-focused dimension, concentrating solely on the message and not on the magnificence of the arrangement, a message that is the same as "Midas Shadow" expressed on a different level: a sense of imperfection, incompleteness, and restlessness that inexorably makes its way among appearances and proclamations. "Life In Dark Water" adds to the narrative the indecipherability and intrinsic allure of an unresolved mystery, "Running Man" the tension of fleeing from an ineluctable fate, and "Carol" the bitterness of a misunderstood life, burned out between drugs and easy pleasures.
Remaining are "News From Spain", freed from the confines of a limited album like "Orange", twilight, painful but tremendously captivating in its flow of images and thoughts, which does not suffer at all from the absence of the organ originally played by Rick Wakeman, and finally, "Old Admirals", humorously placed as the show's closing act: Al Stewart acknowledges that he belongs to another era, sidelined by a world that seems no longer to need a figure so hard to pin down to pre-set coordinates and apparently "out of touch" with a modernity often superficial and facade-based, but he does not trouble himself with it at all. A serene, quiet, and silent "farewell" will be the just reward after a life spent pursuing his own goals without ever worrying about having to please everyone or speak in a more accessible and compelling language for the masses, but rather foreign to his own inclinations.
Tracklist and Lyrics
03 Warren Harding (03:10)
I'm leaving my home in Europe behind
Heading out for a new state of mind
New York town is calling to me
Dollar an hour from the company
Warren Gameliel Harding
Alone in the White House, watching the sun
Come up on the morning of 1921
I just want someone to talk to
To talk to
To talk to
I've got no shoes upon my feet
I've been all day with nothing to eat
It sure gets hard down here in the street
But I know where I'm going to be
Warren Gameliel Harding
Playing cards in a smoke-filled room
Winning and losing, filling the time
I just want someone to talk to
To talk to
To talk to
Don't go down to the docks tonight
The cops are nosing around for the site
We moved the booze just before daylight
They won't find it now, it'll be alright
Warren Gameliel Harding
In Alaska running out of days
Leaving the ladies, God moves in strange ways
I just want someone to talk to
To talk to
To talk to
Don't leave me here on such a lonely day...
Don't leave me here on such a lonely day...
05 Bedsitter Images (04:15)
The subway station's closed again
Sleeps beneath its veil of rain
My footprints broken trail behind
Steals the nightlights from my mind
The dark deserted streets then clear
Today has lived and died in here
So I leave the chapel gloom
To find the shelter of my tiny room
But it's alright while the lights of the city shine so bright
It's all right till the last winding train fades from sight
Then alone in my room I must stay to lose or win
While these wild bedsitter images come back to hem me in
The paneled patterns on the door
Chase shivering shadows to the floor
Upon the pillow worn and thin
The memories of hopes begin
The carpet with its flowers in shreds
Expires a foot before my bed
The crack that won't return again
Advancing through my broken window pane
But it's alright while the lights of the city shine so bright
It's all right till the last winding train fades from sight
Then alone in my room I must stay to lose or win
While these wild bedsitter images come back to hem me in
The friends I've left back home all write
With laughing words that warm my sight
Saying "Tell us, how's the city life?"
And I reply and say just fine
And so you see I can't go back
Until I either win or crack
I'm standing in a one way street
The stage is set
The story incomplete
But it's alright while the lights of the city shine so bright
It's alright till the last winding train fades from sight
Then alone in my room I must stay to lose or win
While these wild bedsitter images come back to hem me in
06 Midas Shadow (03:53)
You got your ticket and your hotel keys
And your overnight bag at your feet
You're looking down on the tropical trees
While the Spanish maids pick up the sheets
Conquistador in search of gold
For all the jackdaw reasons
The Midas shadow that's so hard to please
And follows wherever you go
Nothing ventured, nothing gained they said
So you played for the winner takes all
And tossed the dice high up and craned your head
To see how the numbers would fall
You stole the game so easily
Your luck ran with the seasons
But still the shadow that the night won't free
Just follows wherever you go
Another day, another boarding card
As you wait for your seat on the 'plane
The movie runs but you're still working hard
And you don't touch your food or champagne
I know that when your well runs dry
You'll want to know the reason
The empty night will bring you no reply
As it follows wherever you go
12 Carol (05:01)
Sometimes it seems unimaginable
That you were ever any other way
With your white rose face and your orphan clothes
Embroidered jeans and silver chains
You're a well known face in all the hang-out places
Where the lost souls congregate
You sit all night, but you talk too fast
I don't know what you're trying to say
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
I know your daddy said he'd talk to you
But he never really found the time
And your TV mother with her cocktail eyes
Could never really reach your mind
So you fixed your star to a passing dream
And took a cocaine holiday
Now the years flow round you in a muddy stream
And you need another place to stay.
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
Reach down, silvery ship from the stars, I know you're there
I know you'll understand me, you can take me anywhere
I know you must be there
Well, sometimes it seems impossible
That the game could get that rough
But the stage is set, the exit's barred
And the make-up won't come off
So you make your bow to the balcony
You light another cigarette
And the lights grow dim as the music starts
And it's easy to forget
Oh Carol, I think it's time for running for cover, a-ha
Believe me, you're everyone's and nobody's lover, a-ha
You've got a one-way ticket for all your yesterdays
Reach down, silvery ship from the stars, I know you're there
I know you'll understand me, you can take me anywhere
I know you must be there
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