Al Stewart

year of the tw*t.

Met Al Stewart a few times back in the late 60's / early 70's, in those days he was a folk singer before he went on to sell a couple of million records. And previously he had been in Tony Blackburn's backing group down in Bournemouth, apparently they use to argue a lot because Blackburn kept saying Stewart always played too loud.

One Saturday night in Sept.1970 we went to the Troubadour Folk Club in Clifton, Bristol. Al Stewart was singing there that night, and he said to us if you lot aren't doing anything tomorrow we are all going to this festival in a field near Glastonbury. And this was the very first Glastonbury festival, it was nothing like it is now, and it was just one day on a Sunday in Sept.. Wasn't even called the Glastonbury Festival back then, it was The Pilton Pop, Folk & Blues Festival or something like that.

We all just piled into a car and went, there was no hassle about passes or parking, we just drove on to the site. It was just like the Woodstock spirit but a very sparse crowd, probably about 1,500. This large group of folk singers (we called them the Bristol folk mafia) made an unscheduled appearance including Al Stewart who just joined in clutching a tambourine.

As they were all about to go on stage they were asked to hold back and it was announced over the speakers that Jimi Hendrix had just died, and everyone went very quiet, it did cast a big pall over their appearance when they did come on stage.

The Kinks were booked to headline that first Glastonbury but they pulled out and Marc Bolan and T.Rex replaced them at the last minute. Remember they played 'Ride A White Swan' which was about a month before it was released and mega stardom for him.