When Al Stewart last played at Bournemouth Pavilion, his half-century as an acclaimed singer-songwriter was still ahead of him.

He was a young guitarist from Wimborne, performing in the venue’s ballroom in a band called the Saviours – the backing for a young singer named Tony Blackburn.

“I was 17 – now I’m 71,” says Stewart, who is about to return to the Pavilion with his Back to the Bedsit tour, taking in hits from albums such as Year of the Cat, Time Passages and Modern Times.

Young Alastair Stewart grew up at Canford Bottom near Wimborne, and remembers the number 21 and 22 buses that took him the 11 miles into Bournemouth.

“Bournemouth was the centre of the universe for my young teenage self,” he recalls.

He can still reel off the names of many of the bands and musicians from the town’s music scene of 1960s. He would frequent the record shops with friend Jon Kremer – who recalled the period in a memoir, Bournemouth A Go! Go!

The friends specialised in telling Minns Music, on Westover Road, what records they should stock.

“Jonny and I got really good at that,” he says.

“I had a habit of walking in, saying ‘This going to be number one and you need to stock up’. I was 14 so you can tell how much attention they paid to me, which was zero. If I’d worked as an A&R man for Decca I would have been really good.”

They also spent a lot of time at Bourne Radio in Gervis Place. “There was this girl called Sandy who everyone fell in love with,” he says.

Customers could spend hours sampling records in the listening booths. “It was nirvana, looking at this fantastic girl and listening to a record,” Stewart recalls.

He took guitar lessons from Don Strike in Westbourne Arcade and also from another future star, Robert Fripp.

Stewart became increasingly interested in folk, and in sophisticated lyrics, after hearing Lonnie Donegan performing Grand Coulee Dam.

“Into the midst of this stepped Bob Dylan. I went to Bourne Radio and listened. Even Sandy was pronouncing his name ‘Bob Die-lan’. I listened to Hard Rain and Masters of War.”

As his fascination with folk grew, a small turning point in pop history occurred at Fortes coffee shop in Westover Road.

Present were three future stars: Stewart, Greg Lake (later of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer) and Lee Kerslake (who would join Uriah Heep).

Stewart fancied his chances of joining local act the Dowland Brothers.

“We were all teenagers sitting in Fortes discussing forming a trio,” says Stewart.

“I thought either I do this, or my second option was to try and join the Dowland Brothers, or I go to London with an acoustic guitar and see what the folk scene is all about.

“Nothing became of Stewart, Lake and Kerslake – and the Dowlands didn’t want me. I got on a train and went to London.”

The year 1965 was “completely charmed” for him. He landed a gig in a coffee bar within a couple of weeks and found himself sharing a social worker’s home with Paul Simon.

“I listened to him writing songs through the wall – better still, he came out and played them to me,” he says.

He was there the day the post brought a copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s single The Sound of Silence. The record was already a hit and Simon was flown back to the States.

Stewart rang some of the folk clubs where Simon had been booked, telling them: “I know all the songs and I’m cheap.”

Decades of success and acclaim were ahead of him, including two platinum-selling albums, Year of the Cat and Time Passages. Through it all, Stewart’s aim was to use the kind of language you don’t often hear in pop songs.

“I love words, I’m constantly reading a book,” he says.

“It just strikes me that there are a lot more interesting words that never get used. I’ve always said what you should do is write songs about things that no one else writes about and use language that no one else uses.”

Al Stewart is at the Pavilion on Tuesday, May 9.