Al Stewart fans have been rather well-served in recent years.  The historically-minded troubadour recently released a new live album with the band The Empty Pockets, preserving a concert set on 2 CDs.  Earlier this summer, Al received a volume of Rhino's Now Playing series of vinyl compilations.  Last year, TSD teamed up with Real Gone Music for Songs on the Radio: The Complete U.S. Singles 1974-1981, and in 2022, Madfish issued The Admiralty Lights, a massive 50-CD box set featuring (almost) all of Stewart's catalogue.  (Those U.S. singles were a notable exception!)  Throughout all this activity, Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings arm has been revisiting key Stewart albums in deluxe editions.  Earlier in the summer, Esoteric revisited the singer-songwriter's fifth album, 1973's Past Present and Future, on 3 CDs and 1 (all-region) Blu-ray.  This set, following the slipcased book-style format of Esoteric's Year of the Cat and Time Passages reissues, features the remastered original album, bonus singles, new stereo and 5.1 surround mixes of the album, and a previously unreleased live concert from 1974 at The Howff in Hampstead.

Past, Present and Future, produced by John Anthony, was Stewart's final album before teaming with producer-engineer Alan Parsons for 1975's Modern Times and moving towards the commercial breakthrough that would greet him in 1976 with the Parsons-helmed Year of the Cat.  Among the many musicians enlisted was guitarist Tim Renwick on electric guitar, Isaac Guillory and Peter Berryman on acoustic guitar, B.J. Cole on pedal steel, The Attractions' Bruce Thomas on bass, Yes' Rick Wakeman and Brinsley Schwarz's Bob Andrews on keyboards, and John Wilson on drums.  Biographer Neville Judd makes the bold assertion in his new essay that "Past, Present and Future is Al Stewart's best album."  To these ears, it certainly may be one of them.  Inspired by his earlier song "Manuscript" (chronicling the outbreak of World War II including the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand), Stewart conceived an entire album of historical songs exploring various aspects of the 20th century.  He's quoted by Judd: "I want to call it something like Pieces of the 20th Century, because they are just little fragments that are left on the trail...little glimpses of the 20th century, only not on a huge scale, just from individual, small lives of people..."

Before long, Stewart's canvas had grown larger, beyond just the 20th century.  The opening track, "Old Admirals," opened with the lyric, "I can well recall the first time I ever put to sea/It was on the old Calcutta in 1853..."  With Richard Hewson's horn and string orchestrations complementing a rhythm track with prominent guitar and organ, the melancholy but majestic "Old Admirals" was inspired by the life of Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher, but took on universal resonance with a story of both aging ("I may be old now in your eyes/But all my years have made me wise...") and becoming unwanted ("But the war, it ran it course, and they could find no use for me...").

Elsewhere, the incisive songwriter imagined scenarios about Warren Harding, 29th President of the United States as seen through the eyes of an immigrant bootlegger ("Warren Harding," with a steel band performance evoking the laissez faire attitude of the President who was reportedly more interested in carousing than in running the country), and the French seer/astrologer "Nostradamus" (1503-1566).  The latter epic remains one of Stewart's most beloved compositions and most often requested in concert.

Much as "Manuscript" had looked back at the outbreak of World War I, "The Last Day of June 1934" soberly reflected on The Night of the Long Knives, when then-Chancellor Adolf Hitler consolidated his power by purging (read: executing) those who might have stood in his way.  His narrator sits "by the banks of the Rhine, dipping my feet in the cold stream of time...The couples pass me by, they're looking so good/Their arms 'round each other, they head for the woods/They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should..."  The German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941 is the setting for the stunning, ambitious "Roads to Moscow" (with another evocative Hewson chart and a dramatic choir) while "Post World War II Blues," a narrative in a Dylanesque vein set to an ironically rocking and rollicking melody, connects Stewart himself to Churchill and Mountbatten, Dylan and Hendrix, and Allen Ginsberg and Robert F. Kennedy.

The vivid, uptempo, and autobiographical "Soho (Needless to Say)" conjured Stewart's days compering at the club Les Cousins.  A recent live version can be heard on Al Stewart and The Empty Pockets Live.  Al crafted a spiritual successor to The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" with impressionistic rocker "Terminal Eyes," or "The Suicide Song of the Walrus," as he's described it.

Past, Present and Future is presented here in three unique mixes, all of which have something to offer.  The new stereo mix boasts more clarity and separation than the original, but those with a surround setup will almost certainly find the new DTS-MA 5.1 mix by Stephen W. Tayler (who also remixed the stereo version) to be the most preferable and certainly most exciting.  Not only is the instrumentation more discrete in surround, but Stewart's vocals are crisp and clear, too, so as to savor each and every lyrical turn of phrase.   "Terminal Eyes" is just one of the strongest tracks in surround, with Stewart's vocals answering one another from speaker to speaker.  "Nostradamus," too, is happily immersive with some ear-opening panning of instruments.

Live at The Howff, Hampstead 5th July 1974 features the majority of Past, Present and Future in a live setting, including "Soho (Needless to Say)," "Old Admirals," "Terminal Eyes," "Post World War II Blues," "Roads to Moscow," and "Nostradamus."  Stewart doffed his hat to Dylan with a rip-roaring "All Along the Watchtower," and looked back to his earlier albums for "Clifton in the Rain" (Bedsetter Images, 1970 reissue), "Small Fruit Song' (Zero She Flies, 1970), and "Amsterdam" (Orange, 1972).  He's accompanied on the set by a band including Laurie Wisefield on lead guitar, Francis Monkman on keyboards, Cliff Williams on bass, Mick "Cookie" Cook on drums, guitarists Andy Powell and Isaac Guillory, and a trio of background singers.  Sound is superb as sourced by Tayler from the original 16-track masters.

A trio of single bonus tracks are also appended to the album: the unique U.K. CBS single versions of "Terminal Eyes" and "Nostradamus" as well as non-LP A-side "Swallow Wind."  In addition to the 5.1 mix, the Blu-ray Disc also contains the original and new stereo mixes in high-resolution sound.

Echoing Year of the Cat and Time Passages, the slipcased packaging is superb.  The 64-page squarebound book features Neville Judd's essay, the original sleeve notes and full lyrics, galleries of period advertisements and newspaper clippings, master tape scans, and credits.  The discs are held in slots within a folder, and a foldout poster is also included.

Though Alan Parsons would use the full powers of the studio to nudge Stewart's literate, widescreen compositions in a direction more palatable to FM radio over the course of his next three albums, the roots of those successes can be heard here.  Blending folk and rock with classical and theatrical flourishes, Past, Present, and Future remains a cornerstone of Al Stewart's discography - one which the singer himself notes is essentially completed, as he has no intentions of releasing any further studio albums.  If you only know Stewart from his hits, Esoteric's reissue is a great place to start digging into his many other treasures.

Al Stewart, Past, Present and Future (CBS 65726, 1973 - reissued Esoteric/Cherry Red ECLEC 42873, 2024) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: The Original Album

1. Old Admirals
2. Warren Harding
3. Soho (Needless to Say)
4. The Last Day of June 1934
5. Post World War II Blues
6. Roads to Moscow
7. Terminal Eyes
8. Nostradamus
9. Terminal Eyes (U.K. Single Version) (CBS single S 1791, 1973)
10. Swallow Wind (CBS single S 2397, 1974)
11. Nostradamus (CBS single S 2397, 1974)

CD 2: Live at The Howff, Hampstead 5 July 1974 (previously unreleased)

1. Soho (Needless to Say)
2. Old Admirals
3. Terminal Eyes
4. Post World War II Blues
5. Clifton in the Rain/Small Fruit Song
6. Roads to Moscow
7. Nostradamus
8. All Along the Watchtower
9. Amsterdam

CD 3: The New Stereo Mix

1. Old Admirals
2. Warren Harding
3. Soho (Needless to Say)
4. The Last Day of June 1934
5. Post World War II Blues
6. Roads to Moscow
7. Terminal Eyes
8. Nostradamus
9. Swallow Wind (New mix of CBS single S 2397, 1974)

Blu-ray: 5.1 Surround Mix / New Stereo Mix / High Resolution Original Mix

1. Old Admirals
2. Warren Harding
3. Soho (Needless to Say)
4. The Last Day of June 1934
5. Post World War II Blues
6. Roads to Moscow
7. Terminal Eyes
8. Nostradamus
9. Swallow Wind (CBS single S 2397, 1974)