Al Stewart - Merry Monks (1988)

After the release of 'Modern Times' in 1975, Al Stewart's contract with CBS Records expired, and he signed to RCA Records for the world outside North America, and with Arista in the US. His first album for the new label, 'Year Of The Cat', turned out to be his breakthrough record, and the change in style paved the way for his future releases, with Stewart commenting when he'd finished recording that he thought "If this isn't a hit, then I can't make a hit. We finally got the formula exactly right." He followed 'Year Of The Cat' with 'Time Passages' in 1978, and both albums reached the top ten in the US, with 'Year Of The Cat' peaking at No. 5 and 'Time Passages' at No. 10, and with both albums producing a number of hit singles in the US. In 1980 he released '24 Carrots', and the following year saw his first live album 'Live/Indian Summer', with both featuring backing by Peter White's band Shot In The Dark. Despite '24 Carrots' producing a No. 24 US single with 'Midnight Rocks', it actually sold less well than its two immediate predecessors, so Stewart was dropped by Arista, and his popularity declined. Despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he continued to tour the world, record albums, and maintained a loyal fanbase, and his next album was the highly political 'Russians And Americans' in 1984, followed after a four-year gap by the upbeat pop-oriented 'Last Days Of The Century' on the small DRO/Enigma labels in 1988. As with his previous recording sessions, extra tracks were left off the finished albums and later turned up on expanded re-issues, although some were still kept hidden, eventually appearing on the 1996 fan-made bootleg 'Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time'. For this second volume of Stewart rarities I've collected the unreleased songs from 1976 to 1988, including an unused demo of the title song for the 1982 Robin Williams film 'The World According To Garp', and two 1988 co-writes with Tori Amos in 'Ten Cents' and 'Dreaming'.   

Track listing

01 Belsize Blues (previously unreleased 1976)
02 The Ringing of Bells (previously unreleased 1980) 
03 Tonton Macoute (previously unreleased 1980)  
04 The World According To Garp (previously unreleased 1982) 
05 Candy Came Back (previously unreleased 1984) 
06 In Red Square (previously unreleased 1984)
07 How Does It Happen (previously unreleased 1984) 
08 Merry Monks (previously unreleased 1988) 
09 Ten Cents (previously unreleased 1988) 
10 Dreaming (previously unreleased 1988) 

Thanks to Private Beach for the suggestion of more volumes of Stewart rarities.