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From the tempo of the beat you can feel the optimism of the public in the roaring twenties. I think this is my favorite Al Stewart CD. There is no hint of the depression quickly approaching. I love the way Stewart's songs manage to capture the feel of a particular historical event or decade. The song about Lindbergh is probably my favorite. I was never particularly interested in history until Al Stewart, but his songs bring the people and times alive for me. I've learned more about obscure (and famous) historical people from his songs than in all my history classes in school (and it was much more enjoyable).
I relate this personal experience, since it shows how easily one can be diverted away from good music when chasing whatever is in vogue at the time. What's added here are some nice Klezmer-style and swing jazz flourishes on "Night Train to Munich" and "Age of Rhythm" performed by Stewart and ex-Wings guitarist Laurence Juber. Not to begrudge the talents of Pavement and Archers of Loaf any, but I could seldom understand what many lo-fi bands were singing about. Swept up in the whirl of lo-fi and post-grunge, I passed this one by when it was originally released in 1995 on Mesa. The album is a bargain now that it is back in print so go ahead, splurge and enjoy a delightfully melodic and sharply literate record by one of the great under-rated songwriters of our time. I re-read the Music Hound review of "Between the Wars" and contrary to Patrick McCarty and Gary Graff's observation that this record, "doesn't sound much like the older Stewart", I'd argue that "Between the Wars", with it's emphasis on acoustic guitars and soft jazz arrangements, does typify many of the musical ideas that Stewart and Peter White worked out on previous efforts like "Modern times", "Time Passages" and "Famous Last Words".
As another reviewer accurately noted, the aim on "Between the Wars" is 'much smaller' than epic Stewart works like "Roads to Moscow" and with this tighter temporal focus, Stewart paints a richly detailed series of sonic vignettes that capture the essence of the world in the '20's and '30's from Lindbergh to Stalin.
On his great record "Past, Present and Future", Stewart conjured up the neat thematic idea of writing a song about every decade of the 20th Century and what emerged were such Stewart classics as "Warren Harding" and "The Last Day of June 1934".
These songs should be listened to as a piece since that is what Stewart intended.
I finally acquired "Between the Wars" when it was re-issued on Collector's Choice in 2007, and after a blitzkreig of listens to this fine record, I can assure you I will be reaching for "Between the Wars" rather than "Wowee Zowee" or "VeeVee" when I'm sitting in my retirement home looking for musical succor 20 odd years from now.
Nonetheless, I whole heartedly agree with McCarty's and Graff's assessment that "Between the Wars" is one "terrific album".
Stewart nicely captured the giddy unrealistic exuberance of the '20's and the conscious ignoring of the rise of true evil in the '30's in those songs.
On "Between the Wars", Stewart delivers a masterpiece that fully realizes (at least for two decades) the ambitious but somewhat unwieldy thematic structure he first presented on "Past Present and Future".
Yet one can sample each tune and still get the gist of the theme, since each song is a self-contained story.
4 ½ Stars.
Never heard about this album i Norway, where I live. But did of course knew Al Stewart from The Year Of The Cat years. The album Between Two Wars is medicin for Your heart and soul (and ears). Buy it :-)
From the jaunty opener, Night Train to Munich, to the last track, the very eerie and poignant Laughing into 1939, this album quintessentially chronicles the era between the wars. Okay, I'll be the first to admit, I'm a huge Al Stewart fan. But that aside, this CD is terrific. And does so in typical Stewart style -- pithy, evocative lyrics, catchy tunes, and the wit we've all come to know and love.If you're missing this one in your collection, get it. If you don't have a collection yet, you couldn't go wrong starting off with Between the Wars.
This is a series of intricate, acoustic-guitar based songs that are heavily dependent on the delicate, remarkable interplay between Al and Lawrence Juber (formerly of Wings, circa Back to the Egg). But after the cd arrived, I quickly concluded that this was not in the league of Past, Present, and Future, and put it aside for a while.But a few weeks ago I decided to give it another chance. When I saw they were finally re-issuing this little-noted album from the latter part of Al's catalog, I was very excited. The two of them sketch beautiful tone poems that touch on the era between the two world wars, but are much smaller in scale and feel. I had misjudged it. Sure, there are no "Roads to Moscow" or "Nostradamus" epics on this record, but that's because its aim is much smaller. For example, the song about Stalin, "Joe the Georgian," is not the epic you might expect, but a much more intimate, waltz-like song that still manages to articulate the mass of fear and menace that surrounded that dictator.Other songs evoke particular events or locations, like the wonderfully witty, gorgeous "Sampan." I felt like I was re-watching Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles as I was listening to that one. "Always the Cause," about the Spanish Civil War, and "A League of Notions," are similarly well-crafted and grow in my estimation with each listen.This is a must-have record in my opinion, not quite in the league with Modern Times or Past, Present, and Future, but certainly very close.
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