Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Hackett, Steve
Label: Camino Records
Released: 1983
Length: 44:26
Rating: 4/5
Over his rich career, legendary guitarist Steve Hackett has tried his hand, with more or less success, at a colorful assortment of musical styles. From album to album they stretched from his first love, symphonic prog rock, through less familiar territory like AOR and blues, all the way to acoustic and orchestral classical music. “Bay of Kings” was Steve’s first instrumental release with an exclusively acoustic, classical bent. On it he gave his huge love of the acoustic guitar and the classics a generous showcase, with his main idol Andrés Segovia front and center. He’d wanted to take this ambitious studio step into the world of acoustic instrumental classical music for quite a while, but other plans kept getting in the way, and in this period of his career they were mostly tied to his label’s appetite for quick melodic rock radio hits.
That direction was embodied by his two previous albums, the dreadful “Cured” (1981) and the solid “Highly Strung” (1983), which, unlike “Bay of Kings”, have aged pretty badly. After those AOR/pop experiments, Steve increasingly longed to step out of the spotlight for a while and retreat into the more familiar, subtler world of the acoustic guitar. He’d been a master in his own right in this area since his early days, even though he won his worldwide fame as an electric guitarist. His commercially unambitious plans were something his then label Charisma Records wanted to thwart, hoping to cash in big with yet another AOR-leaning record. Steve rebelled against this kind of pressure and released the album on a different label. As a result, it had a noticeably smaller print run and was considered quite a rarity for years. Today it’s easy to get hold of via Hackett’s own label, Camino Records. There was also a rather annoying, if not downright funny, mishap during the making of the album. It happened to Steve’s wife and muse Kim Poor, who designed most of his album covers: she was forced to replace the original cover, which showed a naked woman in the middle of the water, with a generic cover of her husband.
On “Bay of Kings”, maestro Hackett got plenty of room to show off his acoustic guitar skills, which impress both in expression and in technique. Most of the compositions are built on gentle, pastoral motifs and wonderfully inventive combinations and sequences of chords. Steve has always been known for his refined sense of softness in the way he picks chords and for an unusual ear for crafting subtle Celtic arrangements. In that respect “Bay of Kings” is one of the peaks of his career, since pretty much every piece on the album captures that unique pastoral mysticism of his, the thing that earned him the greatest respect among music connoisseurs. Helping him with most of the orchestral arrangements were his two indispensable musical collaborators: his brother John on flute and keyboards, and keyboard wizard Nick Magnus.
It’s hard to single out individual pieces on the album, since each one offers something distinctive and easily charms any fan and player of classical guitar. The opening title track already delivers a special kind of acoustic pastoral magic, conjuring up a romantic idyll in an instant through a sequence of gentle chords. The highlights include pieces like “Marigold”, made up of tender baroque arrangements, “St. Elmo’s Fire” with its dramatic tempo, the mystical and enchanting “Petropolis”, “Black Light”, steeped in Latin melos, and the classic “Time Lapse at Milton Keynes”, one of the most honest cross-sections of Steve’s guitar portrait.
The tracklist also includes two newly arranged pieces from the maestro’s past, with barely noticeable changes from the original versions. The first of the two is “Kim”, a short love serenade to Steve’s wife. It originally appeared on his second album, “Please Don’t Touch” (1978). Even though he’s played it at almost every one of his concerts since, which is a bit pathetic to some degree, it’s still one of his most beautiful acoustic guitar instrumentals. The other newly arranged instrumental is the legendary “Horizons”, which is without a doubt still his best-known and most beloved acoustic guitar classic. Most music fans first heard it on the Genesis masterpiece “Foxtrot” (1972). Ever since, it’s enjoyed cult status as a must-have on Steve’s live setlist. Closing the album, “Tales of the Riverbank” and “Skye Boat Song” are artfully arranged takes on traditional works. In that respect they’re a rarity, since maestro Hackett spent most of his career creating completely original arrangements.
“Bay of Kings” is a splendid, classically flavored album that offers a deeply honest portrait of a prog rock legend in the role of acoustic guitarist. It’s certainly not his last classical-acoustic album, as Steve would venture into this lesser-known corner of his musical journey several more times in the future. At a time when he was practically forced to play melodic rock and pop, “Bay Of Kings” was a hugely welcome breath of fresh air, one that let him return for a moment to his romantic musical roots and pay tribute to some of the classical guitar masters who shaped his development as an instrumentalist and composer.
Lineup
Steve Hackett – guitar, keyboards
Nick Magnus – synthesizer, keyboards
John Hackett – flute, keyboards
Production
John Acock and Steve Hackett
Tracklist
1. Bay Of Kings
2. Journey
3. Kim
4. Marigold
5. St Elmo’s Fire
6. Petropolis
7. Second Chance
8. Cast Adrift
9. Horizon
10. Black Light
11. Barren Land
12. Calmaria
13. Time Lapse At Milton Keynes
14. Tales Of The River Bank
15. Skye Boat Song
