Al Stewart - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: Early Band Versions, 1968-1976

I've posted two albums of Al Stewart's acoustic BBC sessions from the early part of his music career. This is a companion album of his BBC sessions played with a band during that same time period. Generally speaking, he mostly played acoustic during the earliest years of his career. Then, in the early 1970s, he increasingly used a band. The first five songs here are from 1968, but all the rest are from 1972 to 1976.

All but the last two songs come from typical studio BBC sessions. Those typically have comments by either a BBC DJ or Stewart before the songs. The last song is his biggest hit, "Year of the Cat," in 1976. Around this time, it seems he largely abandoned using BBC studio sessions to promote his material. This one song was done on a BBC TV show, "The Old Grey Whistle Test," instead.

To be honest, I forgot why I edited "Absolutely Sweet Marie." Maybe there was some talking over the music that I erased. But I do want to take a moment to note that no other version of this Bob Dylan cover has never been officially released. He also did a Dylan cover for the solo acoustic BBC album, "I Don't Believe You (She Acts like We Never Have Met)," although he did an album version of that one in 1972.

All but three performances here are from his mega-box set "The Admiralty Lights," released in 2022. Those three are tracks 4, 5, and 12.

It's a shame that his BBC sessions petered out right as he found widespread commercial success. So you won't find most of his best known songs here, with the notable exception of "Year of the Cat." I'll see if I can make up for that by posting a live album from a few years later, at another time.

This album is 53 minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 29, 2023, I drastically updated the mp3 download file. I had previously made a version of this album containing almost all unreleased material. But I finally got around to updating it using what was on the box set mentioned above. As a result, I made too many changes to detail here. It's mostly different material now. Previously, most of the songs were from a 1974 BBC concert. But I'll be posting that concert separately, now that I have all of it, thanks to that box set.

01 In Brooklyn (Al Stewart)
02 Old Compton Street (Al Stewart)
03 I Don't Believe You [She Acts like We Never Have Met] (Al Stewart)
04 You Should Have Listened to Al (Al Stewart)
05 Life and Life Only (Al Stewart)
06 Zero She Flies (Al Stewart)
07 A Small Fruit Song (Al Stewart)
08 You Don't Even Know Me (Al Stewart)
09 Old Compton Street Blues (Al Stewart)
10 Absolutely Sweet Marie [Edit] (Al Stewart)
11 All Along the Watchtower (Al Stewart)
12 Year of the Cat (Al Stewart)

NOTE: Unfortunately, the download link had to be removed due to a copyright issue.

The cover photo was taken in 1973. I don't know anything other than that.