AL STEWART – Original Album Series 1967-1978 (5CD) - EU Remastered Edition

A very tastefully released, five-disc box set, containing five albums by this artist endowed with a very pleasant, warm, though "intelligent" voice. The debut (Bedsitter Images from 1967) is a very nice, slightly 'Donovan-like' album full of charming soft-rock melodies, often adorned with plush orchestrations. But the best was still to come! The second in the discography, released two years later, the LP Love Chronicle is already an absolute REVELATION! This fantastic album, unfortunately completely unknown in Poland, was made with the participation of 3 Fairport Convention musicians (under pseudonyms) and with Jimmy Page on electric guitar! It is a folk-psych-rock masterpiece - full of both brilliant melodies and unexpected changes of mood and also not free of early-progressive influences (Hammond organ; an 18-minute, folk suite). Everyone who hears this record is instantly smitten with it - including fans of dense, progressive sweeping... And even despite the fact that it was precisely there that the word "fuck" appeared for the first time in the history of British music (several times...)! Beautiful music! The progressive no. 4 is worth every penny and contains probably the most atmospheric solo in the career of the Led Zep guitarist! The third album was more acoustic than the brilliant predecessor, but still fascinating. The fourth disc contains the artist's most popular album - Year of the Cat (1976) - a great, very melodic and quite ambitious record, which can be described as soft-prog-rock. The fifth disc is Al Stewart's eighth studio album, Time Passages, released in 1978, and at the same time one of his greatest commercial successes. The record combines Stewart's characteristic folk-rock and singer-songwriter narration with a more refined, soft rock-pop production, for which Alan Parsons was responsible. Highly recommended! A MUST!