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AL STEWART: "ZERO SHE FLIES" 1970
A hot June afternoon ten years ago, a friend and I were wandering through the hills of Prato in his white Deux Chevaux. At a certain point, the notes of a song began playing on the radio, a song I had heard somewhere but didn't know the artist. It didn’t fully align with my musical tastes, which at the time were much more rock than now, but I was struck by the extraordinary beauty of the arrangement. I asked Alessio if he knew the song, and he immediately said, "Of course! It's "Year Of The Cat" by Al Stewart!"
This afternoon I was reminiscing with some nostalgia about that carefree moment, and it brings a smile to my face to think that today, Al Stewart's CDs are among my favorites in my entire discography. To be clear, perhaps none of his works could be considered among the great masterpieces of all time, yet Al Stewart remains, in my opinion, a tremendously underrated artist as all his songs throughout his production have always proven to be very enjoyable and relaxing. Probably, it didn’t benefit him that he never sold out nor submitted to the will of the major record labels. A case in point: in 2000, he even went so far as to record an album, "Down in the Cellar", entirely dedicated to one of his great loves: wine. I think very few would have the courage to publish a work on such an unoriginal theme, and even fewer artists would know how to do it with such mastery as he did.
Al Stewart was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1945 and began to gain some recognition in the local folk circles from a very young age, so much so that at 22, he released his first album "Bedsitter Images", followed two years later in 1969 by "Love Chronicles". The following year came this beautiful "Zero She Flies" with a more robust tone than its predecessors, which proved a perfect mix between acoustic and rock. Even after forty years, the album still feels fresh and played with that masterful blend of technical skill combined with some slight roughness or imperfection that I so love in records from that era. A work that is at times delicate, at times a bit harsh but always very strong and unmistakable in style, particularly in Al's nasal timbre. The rhythm is impeccable throughout, demonstrating how he has always been able to surround himself with excellent and professional musicians throughout his career.
The album opens with a poem by Peter Morgan "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices" that is distinguished by the skillful use of the double bass. There are also instrumental tracks with a marked folk key like "Burbling" and "Room of Roots", and references to another of his great passions, history, in "Manuscript" and "Gethsemane Again". However, the three most compelling tracks are the wonderful "Electric Los Angeles Sunset," where the sharp sound of the guitar blends perfectly with an intentionally raw but incredibly incisive bass and drums, the titular "Zero She Flies", and "Stormy Night", a small masterpiece unfortunately only available as a bonus track on the 2007 reissue, featuring an intensely distorted guitar solo enhanced by a pounding bass line.
I admit that I don't have much more information on this "obscure" work or on Al Stewart, but from the little I know, he seems to be a very modest and spontaneous person, the ultimate anti-star, and just for this, he deserves even more admiration in my opinion. An album not for everyone; probably more suited to those who in the '70s were great admirers of the likes of Bob Dylan, Donovan, or Simon And Garfunkel. These artists were undoubtedly among his inspirations, but from whom he always managed to distance himself with class and originality.
Tracklist and Lyrics
05 Electric Los Angeles Sunset (03:48)
Shots split the night, a bullet lodged in his brain
He must have died instantly, he felt no pain
A crowd quickly gathered to the feast of the gun
Waiting for the ambulance and cops to come
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Sirens wail in the concrete
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Headlight lit the faces by the tabernacle door
Gazing at the bloodstains on the damp sidewalk
As the crowd turned to go, a man was heard to say
"He must have had it comin' to him anyway"
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Blood wagon rolls through the dragnet
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Cadillacs roll through the smoggy perfume
The buildings are choking on oxygen fumes
Evangelists praying in rented rooms, in the afternoon
Which way do the signposts read
African eyes in the sunrise
The gates of the city are rusted over and mouldering
The violence of the evening decays into the night
While shadows press like moths against the neon light
Movie queues diffuse into the Cinerama haze
While libertines read pornozines in street cafes
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
The madman swings in the pulpit
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
06 Manuscript (04:43)
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights down low
Silently sifting through papers sealed with a crown
Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more Dreadnoughts
The houses in Hackney are all falling down
And my grandmother sits on the beach in the days before the war
Young girl writing her diary, while time seems to pause
Watching the waves as they come one by one to die on the shore
Kissing the feet of England
Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late, yet there's nothing to touch
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much
And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Smiling a secret smile as she goes to the door
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
And the sun sets gently on England
Ah the day we decided to drive down to Worthing, it rained and rained
Giving us only a minute to stand by the sea
And crunching my way through the shingles, it seemed there was nothing changed
Though the jetty was maybe more scarred that I'd known it to be
And Mandi and I stood and stared at the overcast sky
Where ten years ago we had stood, my Grandfather and I
And the waves still rushed in as they had the year that he died
And it seemed that my lifetime was shrunken and lost in the tide
As it rose and fell on the side of England
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights
08 Anna (01:47)
Anna, turns out the light
Sits down alone
The echo of his foot on the stair
Turning to stone
No, he didn't take very much
Just your flesh from the bone
It's gonna be hard for a while
Trying to get by
On your own
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Other reviews
By Danny The Kid
Zero She Flies has on its side the charm of simplicity, a natural refinement, and a distinctive feature.
The eclecticism, energy, and more contemporary sound that Stewart would develop in later years rests on these traditional and solid foundations.
