‘Originals’ Delivers Memorable Stewart Cuts

As a singer and/or a songwriter, John Stewart has been involved with a remarkable range of pop and rock groups.

He joined the Kingston Trio in 1961, replacing Dave Guard. He wrote “Daydream Believer,” which was a No. 1 single in 1967 for the Monkees, and he wrote “Never Goin’ Back,” which was a modest hit the following year for the Lovin’ Spoonful.

But Stewart’s most memorable work may have been “California Bloodlines” and “Willard,” the two solo albums that he recorded in 1969 and 1970, respectively, for Capitol Records.

“John Stewart/American Originals,” a CD retrospective just released by Capitol, combines 13 tracks from those two albums plus seven other selections from the singer’s solo and Kingston Trio days.

“California Bloodlines” spent only three weeks on the Billboard magazine list of the 200 best-selling albums, peaking at No. 193, and “Willard” didn’t make the chart at all. Both, however, were important parts of the early ‘70s’ folk-tinged singer-songwriter movement.

Stewart’s songs about independence and desire were rich with a point of view that found much to admire in American traditions and saw much of that spirit in a new generation’s criticisms of the existing order.

The retrospective collection opens with “If You Don’t Look Around,” a Stewart song that was inspired by the Southern civil rights protests of the ‘60s and was recorded by the Kingston Trio.

It is followed by another Kingston Trio recording--”Chilly Winds,” which was co-written by John Phillips. The tune expresses the wanderlust that is so much a part of Stewart’s music:

Wish I was a headlight on a westbound train I’d shine my light in the cool, Colorado rain.

The “California Bloodlines”/”Willard” selections include “Clack Clack,” an especially touching song that was begun by Stewart while riding the campaign train in California with presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and was finished after the senator was assassinated.

The album concludes with “Armstrong,” an optimistic expression of eventual social harmony and progress that was written in 1969, just days after Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

Stewart has continued to make affecting albums, but these Capitol works--including his own version of “Never Goin’ Back”--may well be his defining art: music that also captured the craft and compassion of the singer-songwriter movement.