Al Stewart -- "Year of the Cat" (1976)

Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" represents a phenomenal landmark for the "soft rock era" where you had the magical combination of a picturesque yet obtuse song alluding to sleeping with an exotic woman in a foreign country, the production wizardry of Alan Parsons (of Project fame), and it was all 100% sap free. "Year of the Cat" was almost a progressive rock song, considering how unlikely it was to be a hit.

I don't know how many times in college I played my acoustic guitar to most of the album, and even got a lot of the "Year of the Cat" solo down. I could do the whole song on piano and from the very first Cmaj7 D Em chords, anybody within earshot knew exactly what I was playing.

Like Seals & Crofts, it took quite a while for Al Stewart to be a household name. He was a mere folk/rock singer with some passable early albums that barely registered anywhere outside the US. His first US album, Past Present & Future, had the cult folk song "Nostradamus," a lengthy retelling of the famous seer's predictions. Stewart hooked up with Parsons for Modern Times, which featured slicker pop production values and brought a little more attention.

But then Parsons really cranked it up and went wild for Year of the Cat, in very much the same elaborate production he devoted to The Alan Parsons Project, and his work for Ambrosia (Somewhere I've Never Traveled), John Miles (Rebel), and Pilot ("Magic"). He hired the finest UK studio musicians and gave Stewart's songs more creative, cinematic arrangements to fit the highly literate stories of historical sweep ("Lord Grenville," "On The Border") and dramatic scenarios ("Broadway Hotel," "One Stage Before").

Stewart was a pioneer of the "singing/talking style," it was a combination of both, with a very distinct English accent. The singing took a back seat to the songs themselves and the remarkable production and arrangement Parsons gave them.

I'd say that "Year of the Cat" was one of the most literate pop hits of the 70's.

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime.

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat.

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears.

By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat.

Stewart's musical and writing partner was acoustic guitarist Peter White, who sort of belong to that old Jim Croce tradition of the singer/songwriter having a brilliant accompanist. White's trademark picking and melodic solos truly lifted the material.

"Year of the Cat" was an epic album closer, and unlikely for a hit single because of its length and intellectual lyrics. You definitely could not dance to this mid-tempo number. As always when I look back, you couldn't hear anything anywhere like this song, with its carefully orchestrated sax, acoustic and electric guitar solos, all stretched out to a six-minute classic. The fact that the album is still in print is a testimony to its connection with listeners.

The video below is Stewart and band doing a live version of "Year of the Cat" from the great German music variety series "Musikladen." The pianist does a longer, more showy intro than the record. What's notable is that this must have been after the band had been performing on the show for a while, so they're already worked up when they launch into it.

Ray, Goodman & Brown -- "Special Lady" (1980)

For more than dozen or so years, doo wop-influenced singing groups ruled the carts, starting with the early 70's Philly boom of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, The O'Jays and The Intruders, right through several years later to The Manhattans and Blue Magic.

These were the trademarks: impeccable string and horn arrangements, multiple harmonies, light on the funk and heavy on the "smooth," precision dance moves during live performance, and a not very subtle male chivalry in the lyrics.

Ray, Goodman & Brown fit into this mold perfectly. I didn't know until recently that they were originally The Moments who performed the classic slow dramatic "Love On A Two Way Street," but it clicked when I realized the vocal similarities ("oh yeah, they do sound like each other!").

In a tribute to those doo wop roots, the song starts out with the trio singing the chorus a Capella and snapping their fingers in time, instructing each other on who sings what ("Harry, man, I'm singing second!" "Al, bring that bass out!"). They all join in for "Sittin' on top of the world, sittin' on top of the world!" and the horns pop in -- bom bom bom bomp!

This is not really a slow dancer, but the kind you imagine yourself slipping and sliding across the floor in unison, snapping those fingers, showing off those teeth. Lots of nice little bells during the verse, electric piano chords sitting in with the bass and drums, a gritty clavinet during what they call the "pre-chorus." This is prime 70's smooth soul.

We have two videos below. The first is for audio, since it's the complete recording with the opening a Capella part, which is to me is an essential trademark of this song. The second is the group lip-synching on some variety show of the time, with the a Capella part dramatically shortened, but worth seeing for their appearance, disco ball lighting, and the screaming from the audience.

Spirit -- "I Got A Line On You" (1968)

Part of the great San Francisco rock boom of the 60's which gave us Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, Spirit never achieved the long-lasting success of either of those bands, and still remain under appreciated to this day.

They started as a psychedelic rock band, but gradually incorporated jazz and world music with each new album. Unquestionably, they were an acquired taste with their experimental excursions. Remarkably, they were produced by the legendary Lou Adler, who seems to have had his hand in so many influential artists from The Mama and Papas and Johnny Rivers to Carole King and, well, Cheech and Chong.

Their biggest hit by far was "Got A Line On You" from their aptly named second album The Family That Plays Together (guitarist Randy California's stepfather was drummer Ed Cassidy). The song was about as commercial a hit as they could write, but unquestionably a classic. A landmark blues rock riff in B and E major, a boogie piano echoing the chords, and it's a hip-swaying carefree beat with all kinds of hippie-idealism words:

Let me take you baby, down to the river bed
Got to tell you somethin', go right to your head
Cause I (I), I got a line,
I got a line on you babe.

Gotta put your arms around me
With every bit of your love
If you know what to do, I'll make love to you
Cause you got the right line to make it through these times
Cause I (I), I got a line,
I got a line on you babe.


There was no way this song was not going to blast off. It was just too good.

I am very surprised that more bands have not covered this, as this was about as perfect a 60's rock dance tune as there could be. Periodically, there'll be a video of something called Spirit 0f '84 on VH1 Classic, which seems to be most of the band playing "Got A Line On You" with a more percussive beat and other musicians sitting in (most visibly, ex-Steely Dan guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter).

The Georgia garage rock band The Woggles do a terrific version that can be heard once in a while on Sirius Satellite Radio's Underground Garage channel.

But I did find two other notable covers which I have put below the original -- Alice Cooper in a heavy metal crank from the Iron Eagle II soundtrack from 1988, and blind guitarist Jeff Healey opening a 2005 Germany show with an absolute smoking overdriven version with his band.

ALICE COOPER (1988)

JEFF HEALEY (2005)