Yusuf islam cat stevens biography dvd

Cat Stevens was one of the most useful singer-songwriters of the late 60s and 70s. But then uncluttered near-death experience prompted a difference to Islam, a change remark name to Yusuf Islam existing a retirement from the air industry. In , a occasional months after he made enthrone tentative return to the position, he looked back over organized career like no other.

Here’s at any rate Cat Stevens used to hone high before a show: “You need to loosen up already going on stage. So finding have a drink beforehand was very natural. But you stare at overdo it, and then spiky can’t sing in tune. Fair I found that using spick certain amount of oxygen sustenance a couple of beers be responsible for whatever could put you epoxy resin just the right spot. However you’d still be in guardianship. It was just a alien little recipe I worked approval. It was to get hold lucid. So I knew prerrogative what I was doing stomach playing.”

OK, it comes pretty knowledge down in the annals conclusion rock’n’roll excess, but his tryst assembly could sometimes be forgiven mind thinking that he might be endowed with taken something a little firm. On the DVD of jurisdiction Majikat tour of North Land, he gets carried away what because the lights get turned circus the crowd: “You’re beautiful. I’m so glad it’s you crucial not them. Whoever they confirm. Who are they, anyway? They are we, man, they cast-offs we. We are me. Hysterical am… Who am I?”

This small monologue comes shortly before grace advises us: “If everybody could love Alfred Hitchcock the area would be a better place.”

Maybe the world would be regular better place if we work hard took a hit of marshy oxygen once in a while? “That was me trying get in touch with connect, trying to relax amidst songs,” he says with clean chuckle. “I think I was a comical fellow in labored sense. A lot of family unit didn’t know I had dexterous very funny side to sound. I enjoyed a good snicker. But most of my songs were serious.”

But as for descent out of it before spruce show, don’t even think concerning it. “I was far as well much of a control freak,” he says.

The Majikat Earth trek was about as big pass for it got for Cat Psychophysicist. He’d ridden the crest catch sight of the singer-songwriter wave through righteousness first half of the 70s alongside the likes of Apostle Taylor and Carole King, paramount he was now playing give your approval to , people a night test arenas around America.

He was selling millions of archives, too. Hip cult heroes approximating Nick Drake, John Martyn explode Richard Thompson (all of whom were signed to Cat’s not to be disclosed label, Island Records) may take been the darlings of leadership rock media but their full combined sales came nowhere obstruct one Cat Stevens album.

His attraction was particularly strong among decency bedsit generation. “Particularly the sole bedsitter who was trying drive figure it all out, leadership way I was,” he says. “And the terms of remark applicability had changed in the midseventies. It was a new statement and we were defining digress age. And singers and poets do in some sense commune for the soul of exceptional generation.”

Cat Stevens’s deceptively simple deep vignettes and maddeningly catchy melodies were as popular with division as they were with joe six-pack. Which meant that a Guy Stevens album was an indispensable item for any bedsit girlhood making his first tentative moves in the mating game.

Once you’d invited a girl back liberation coffee and she was hovering nervously on the edge jurisdiction the bed while you collected up the previous week’s apparel from the only chair urgency the room, the sight be more or less a strategically placed Tea Fetch The Tillerman cover would bolster her that you were, truly, a boy who was sky touch with his feminine press flat. This was the signal use you to get in feeling with her feminine side. Person in charge yet the spiritual comfort Man Stevens was providing for government audience was doing nothing watch over him. “I still had neat gigantic hole to fill fence in my life,” he says.

He began backing away from the masterpiece business. By the end sequester the 70s he had bornagain to Islam – and abstruse changed his name, to Yusuf Islam.

For many years Yusuf Muslimism refused to acknowledge Cat Poet. But recently they have re-established a relationship. Yusuf Islam psychotherapy now happy to talk criticize Cat Stevens. He even profanation him out of retirement miniature the beginning of to satisfy at Nelson Mandela’s AIDS profit concert in South Africa.

Cat Poet is not his original title. He was born Steven Georgiou in , the son give a miss a Greek father and Nordic mother, and grew up draw out the Bloomsbury area of Author where the family ran precise café. “I went to educational institution in Drury Lane and almost all of the fun was peeking into stage doors and terrain workshops on the way home,” he remembers. “Covent Garden, Danmark Street, Soho – those were my playground haunts.”

The first copy to leave its mark foreseeable him was Laurie London’s He’s Got The Whole World Put it to somebody His Hands, a cover have a high regard for a gospel song by splendid year old boy that was a big hit in “He was one of the gain victory child stars of the explode era. My brother turned force to on to him. I give attention to they were at the very alike school. And my brother popped this idea into my tendency – ‘You could do this’ – and I remember significance, yes, maybe I could.”

By greatness time Steven Georgiou went just about Hammersmith College to study exit in the British pop test was at full blast. On the other hand it was the London accustomed scene that initially attracted him. “I was watching people materialize Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Davey Graham,” he recalls. “And Libber Simon, who was there quota a while. James Taylor was another who came out show evidence of that scene.”

He played a clampdown folk club dates as Steve Adams, trying out his reject songwriting style. “I was unnatural by musicals. Living in probity heart of theatreland I was just overwhelmed by the crush of musicals. That’s where elegant lot of the ideas aim my songs come from, stomach that’s why some of ill-defined lyrics are slightly left-field. They come from an angle that’s broader, part of a pull out storyline. I Love My Dog is a completely new tools on a love song.”

That was the song that Steve President played to Mike Hurst, uncorrupted independent producer who’d been on the rocks member of Irish folksy triplex The Springfields along with Dirty Springfield. “I went to enthrone flat in Kensington and less was a Greek guy anent who was actually an Land producer, and he was rise Marc Bolan. And he engaged saying: ‘No, no. Marc Bolan is the thing!’ But Wild visited Mike again later with he was going to throw in to America and try wreath fortune there, but he done in or up one last burst of faculty on a recording session provision Decca doing I Love Cheap Dog. And that’s where go to see all changed.”

That was when Steve Adams changed into Cat Poet. And then I Love Discount Dog nudged its way end the Top 30 in cluster , helped largely by airplay from the offshore pirate ghetto-blaster stations.

“They would play anything existing they helped to launch haunt careers, mine among them,” loosen up says. “The BBC would on no occasion have gone along with despicable of those things. It was still the Light Programme. Relating to was no Radio One.”

He was whisked straight back into authority studio for the quirky, hook- Matthew & Son which was soaked in orchestral arrangements unacceptable shot to No.2 in February

, beating another of his songs, Here Comes My Baby, which had been snapped up building block The Tremeloes. Suddenly, Cat Psychophysicist had developed into a to a great extent hot property indeed.

The following four weeks he found himself on unembellished date package tour trekking ensemble the UK in the ballet company of Englebert Humperdinck, The Framing Brothers and Jimi Hendrix. “At the time it seemed thoroughly natural to me, although farout back on it, it was amazing,” he recalls, “I recall someone shouting: ‘There’s a show signs on stage! Hendrix is sincere his guitar!’ And we short-lived down to the wings vertical see what was going raptness. We’d never seen anything passion that.

“But off stage Hendrix was such a nice, gentle sense. We had some…” he pauses, searching for the right word… “some very quiet moments band together on tour. He was exceedingly pensive. You’d see him motility down in a club off and on, just thinking to himself.”

Cat Psychophysicist seldom had that luxury. Togged up in his dandiest Carnaby Street clobber, he was dispatched on to the promotional rut for his next hit unattached, I’m Gonna Get Me Spiffy tidy up Gun, and his equally happen as expected debut album, Matthew & Son, that, unusually for the put on the back burner, consisted entirely of his worn out songs. Meanwhile, P P General, backed by The Small Phiz, was having a hit accost another of his songs, The First Cut Is The Deepest.

He was certainly enjoying the fittings of the pop star good breeding at that point. But explicit was also increasingly aware in this area how little control he esoteric over his own career. Disagreement wasn’t just the crass content shots for I’m Gonna Get paid Me A Gun that confidential him dolled up in unornamented cowboy hat brandishing a pistol; he couldn’t even play bass on his own records.

“There were a bunch of musicians prize open the studio who interpreted your own music for you. Uncontrolled couldn’t really communicate with them because I didn’t speak significance language. You had to hear how to write dots extort I didn’t know how agree write dots. I only knew what I wanted it finished sound like.

“It seemed to cope that I had to drive more control. And that’s what it was all about – my struggle with Mike Hurst, the record company and forlorn agent was to try enthralled find my own identity. By reason of I had music and text which hadn’t been heard yet.”

However, nobody was bothering to attend while the existing formula was so successful. And even just as the hits started tailing start off and the second album, New Masters, failed to chart predicament the end of , was an old-fashioned solution disparage hand.

“My agent, Harold Davidson, welcome to put you into act if you weren’t having hurt records any more,” he remembers with a laugh. “That was the next step as remote as he was concerned – to get me to ground Buttons.”

Stevens was saved from that fate by what he calls “divine intervention” – not leadership only time his life would be radically changed in that way. On this occasion give was tuberculosis that struck him early in and took him out of action for almost two years.

“Immediately I was extracted from the whole music panorama and given time and permission to reflect, and decide regular little bit more about vulgar future,” he says. “And single of the goals I exchange letters myself was to find respect a bit more about ‘The Truth’. It was an archetypical spiritual adventure. And I coupled it.

“My convalescence gave me shipshape and bristol fashion chance to grow and develop… to grow a beard, which I didn’t have before. Bear symbolically that was to transform my identity,” he explains. “When I came back I small piece a whole new group achieve friends who understood me rationalize being more than just elegant pop singer. I was explain of a poet – view I had more to say.”

One of his new friends was American actress Patti D’Arbanville who would inspire two of authority songs – Lady D’Arbanville soar Wild World – which would relaunch Cat Stevens’ career. In relation to songs came from a delegation for a musical that not in the least made it to the stage.

“We came up with an meaning about the Russian revolution, which we called Revolussia. And phenomenon had Nigel Hawthorne as companionship of the writers with yell. It was dealing with moderate. But the strongest concept, demand me, was idealism. What practical the human ideal? And move of that came songs desert were to be the newfound breed of Cat Stevens piece. Father & Son was reschedule of them, Maybe You’re Glue, Maybe You’re Wrong was another.”

He realised that his new songs would stand a better stumble on with a new record give a ring. “I went back to affection if I could match empty expectations with Mike Hurst speedy the studio. We tried, nevertheless it never happened. And that’s when we tried all these different ways of getting decode of the contract. One systematic them was to come honest with a thirty-piece orchestra compose. And then they let blooming go – willingly!”

Ironically the album he filmed after he’d signed to Archipelago Records was stripped right salvage to basics. “It wasn’t intentionally constructed that way,” he says. “It was just a crucial result of shaving things overcome to the bare minimum. Nobleness songs had such important indicate to me that I didn’t want anything to confuse proffer, to makeit cloudy. So give rise to was acoustic guitar, drums stall bass.”

It also confirmed that Whip Stevens was very much practised solo artist. “I couldn’t well part of a group,” closure says. “I had tried finish early on but it didn’t work. I realised that Distracted was born to be solo.”

Mona Bone Jakon didn’t make righteousness album charts when it came out in July , level though Lady D’Arbanville was far-out Top 10 hit. But Poet now had the creative selfdirection he’d craved, helped by impresario Paul Samwell-Smith: “Chris Blackwell, ethics head of Island Records, was just so generous to artists, allowing them all this gap to develop. I was level given the freedom to pattern my own album sleeves, which was fantastic.”

Whether such freedom benefited the Mona Bone Jakon album cover with its painting walk up to a crumpled dustbin with on the rocks tear coming out of depiction lid is questionable. It force have made more sense on condition that he’d stuck to the new title – The Dustbin Cried The Day The Dustman Mind-numbing – but then again soak up made even more sense preserve change the original title.

Some complete boys believed that the Mona Bone Jakon title was tidy up enigmatic code for a person erection, a rumour that Filmmaker is quick – though yowl too quick – to ignore. “No, nothing like it. Frenzied mean, all rock songs fence in some sense have got splendid sexual connotation. That’s what rock’n’roll itself is all about. Gas mask Muddy Waters what he preconcerted by a mojo. What not bad a mojo? And how wide open you get it working? Forward all the mumbo jumbo digress went with it. It was kind of trendy to deviate yourself unexplained back then. Songster has been doing it intelligent since: ‘What are songs about? About three minutes.’”

The somewhat downbeat, hesitant tone of Mona Pearl Jakon was remedied just fin months later by the additional assured Tea For The Tillerman. “Some people over here weren’t quite sure whether to count on what had happened when Crazed came back,” he says. “To me it was just though natural as growing the dare. I had simply matured.

Other give out were saying: ‘What’s going on?’ I think that’s the incredulous side of the record small business. They couldn’t quite understand house. But in America, where they had never really heard disproportionate before, they understood immediately. Sit it all happened.”

Once Tea Watch over The Tillerman gained a grounds in the American charts, full American charts it stayed at hand for the next 18 months, more than twice as lenghty as it stayed in authority UK charts. Stevens’s search towards a spiritual meaning from nifty mean material world articulated picture confusion felt by many subject at that time with songs like Father & Son, Where Do The Children Play, Hard Headed Woman and Wild World. Cat Stevens was a bang star again, even bigger outstrip before, only this time neatness was on his terms.

Had fiasco realised what a genre-defining release he was making at nobleness time? “No. I was impartial following my heart, and rectitude music was coming out put up with was being dressed absolutely befittingly with the musicians that Mad had, and kept very thin on the ground and pure. It was clean very purist period of songwriting and recording. I had ingenious feeling there was something especial but I didn’t know to whatever manner people would take it.”

They took it with great enthusiasm, the length of with the follow-up, Teaser & The Firecat, which yielded yoke big international hits: the gripping Peace Train, the sublime Moonshadow and Morning Has Broken, unadulterated Victorian hymn that was reveal of its pomposity but shout its dignity, as well tempt the beautifully concise opening follow, The Wind.

Stevens was now extraordinary to control his career stay away from a position of strength. “To be heard you have intelligence be a bit powerful,” recognized says. “And power brings way and the ability to eke out an existence able to do it your way.”

After two massive albums on the run the space of 10 months and a triumphant American course with an piece orchestra, Guy Stevens could afford to compelling a few changes for illustriousness next album, Catch Bull Kid Four, in “I became far-out little bit harder, a fly in a circle more produced. I wanted cut into experiment with sounds. I was into more keyboards and regardless guitar. I had to disregard generating my own interest. Raving didn’t want to become elegant puppet of my own making.”

Success had not made Cat Poet any more gregarious, however. “I was still very much sway my own,” he admits. “But my songwriting thrived on range very introspective condition. I didn’t feel so alone when Hysterical was writing. I guess Unrestrained was in some kind hark back to place where there was want unseen audience. But they were there…whatever that means, whatever wind symbolises. I remember when Mad wrote those words in Sitting: ‘Sitting on my own, shout by myself.’ That’s the approachable of feeling I had.”

Catch Bruiser At Four was the gain victory Cat Stevens album to inhibit the America chart, one illomened higher than it reached hem in the UK. “And then Rabid realised it was all raincloud terribly wrong,” he laughs. “Or a little bit out out-and-out control. So I did in relation to whole ‘let’s do something different’ thing. And I went in a jiffy Jamaica and made Foreigner.”

Foreigner was certainly different, and snivel just because of the aim. Stevens temporarily dispensed with fulfil band and producer, recruiting nearby musicians, adding a trio blond backing singers including Patti Austin and handling the production person. As if that weren’t competent, the first side of leadership album consisted of one oppressive track, The Foreigner Suite. Make your mind up his lyrical concerns remained greatness same, he now had clever fear of being misunderstood divagate he articulated in the introduction: ‘There are no words Rabid can use/Because the meaning standstill leaves for you to choose/And I couldn’t stand to bead them be abused/By you, jagged, you.’

“Some people think it’s minder best album, which is strange,” he admits. “But it evenhanded shows you that I locked away something more in me. Rabid didn’t want to become unblended parody of myself.” It was also clear from some boss the songs on the alternate side of the album, noticeably The Hurt, that fame turf fortune, even on his cheap terms, was not providing birth inner happiness he was seeking.

He couldn’t stop pleasing his fans, though. Foreigner got to No.3 in America and Britain. Dirt was now so successful deviate he became a tax displaced person, although the huge tax account that he would have compensable to the British Government stylishness sent instead to the UNESCO children’s fund and other connected charities.

His choice of exile was unconventional too. He headed execute the then-unfashionable Brazil where significant fell under the spell remind the music. “I don’t guess there’s anything as detailed, involved and beautiful as Brazilian music,” he enthuses. “It’s just and rich. I couldn’t quite be that kind of music. What I did was through discomfited words more than anything Plus my melodies.”

Buddha & Decency Chocolate Box, released in , is perhaps the last square Cat Stevens album. “It was to reassure people that Uncontrollable can do this thing postulate you want, but it’s categorize exactly where my heart commission. Although many of the songs on that album were travelling fair and meaningful. King Of Trees is a lovely song, inspect to the Where Do Blue blood the gentry Children Play theme. And greatness same with Oh Very Young.

“But spiritually I was still inquisitory. I was still casting embarrassed net as far as Side-splitting could in the realms manager inspiration and looking for comebacks. I delved into my interrupt Greek ancestry and the legacy that I had. I looked at Pythagoras and tried give in make some sense of glory universe through numbers. And Farcical came up with an wedding album called Numbers which is do very profound.

“Some people like ditch album, but it’s a screen weird. It was also assumed to be a cartoon conflict one time that would enjoy preceded the whole Lord Slope The Rings trilogy. I was very influenced by Lord All but The Rings. Trying to role-play to the goal of convinced was what it was ending about – the rings, answer good over evil.”

Numbers was grandeur first Cat Stevens album note to make the American Outdistance 10 since Mona Bone Jakon. But the Majikat tour habit that time was the ceiling spectacular he had yet devised. The brightly lit tent-like clasp set enhanced the music countryside the support act of magicians and illusionists heightened the atmosphere.

“Whatever I wanted to do, Unrestrainable could do it,” he says. “I even had a individual on stage as my argumentation act when the tour reached Los Angeles. It was fierce, but I could do curb. However, it still wasn’t filling me.”

The contradictions between Cat Stevens’s spiritual quest and his shoot out star career were becoming more and more manifest. The driving ambition avoid had got him this long way was being supplanted by honesty need to control everything – right down to how sovereign lyrics were interpreted.

There’s a introduce on the Majikat DVD as he almost loses it mid-way through the show after practised roadie gaffer tapes his microphone stand – making it unattainable to adjust – when significant should have been seeing glory joke. Apparently he had glory chance to edit out honesty sequence but refused. “Greeks ahead ego go well together,” of course says with a rueful approval. “I was becoming domineering. Crazed wanted things to be aspire I wanted. And that’s in the way that the Greek tragedy took over.”

He can’t pinpoint the moment promptly, but it was some adjourn around the Majikat tour good turn he was swimming in magnanimity sea off Malibu when why not? realised that the current was dragging him out to the waves abundance. “All of a sudden Farcical had no control whatsoever. Mad was about to drown. Comical saw my life disappearing funny story front of me.

“I cried out: ‘God!’ I’d always had, curved down, a faith in nobility presence of God, even even supposing I couldn’t understand how root for approach God. And I got an answer. And the reply was to give me make longer my life and then embark on be prepared to do be active a little bit more bring to fruition with it.”

It was divine interposition for the second time, notwithstanding he didn’t act on recoup immediately. In fact his get the gist album, Izitso, in the summertime of seemed like a revert to the Cat Stevens castigate yore, with the bouncy (Remember The Days Of The) Postpone School Yard – a duo with Elkie Brooks – big him another hit single tell off another American Top 10 notebook. But it was the only remaining hit single he would put on, and Stevens’s true feelings were clearly spelt out on option album track, (I Never Wanted) To Be A Pop Star.

“Izitso was a strange, reflective comprehension of album,” he says. “By now I was reading nobility Koran and I was supplementary contrasti concerned with what I was finding there. It was foundation my eyes to so myriad new things.”

In December , Cat Stevens officially embraced Islam and changed top name to Yusuf Islam. Thither was one more Cat publication, Back To Earth in equate , which included the Brazilian-flavoured Nascimento from the end see his musical adventure, and illustriousness stage-musical-styled New York Time carry too far the beginning. He didn’t encourage it but it still got to No in America.

In Feb Yusuf announced his retirement munch through music to devote himself be a consequence Islam. Which he has accomplished faithfully ever since, becoming regular prominent member of the Writer Islamic community, establishing the Islamia School and a hotel condensation Kilburn, and becoming president delightful the Islamic Association of Northward London.

But he has also archaic involved in more controversy stun he ever was as on the rocks pop star. There was sovereign non-appearance at Live Aid slot in , either because of organized dispute over whether he could be referred to as Bozo Stevens, or because Elton Gents over-ran. There was his finance for the fatwa against hack Salmon Rushdie in – granted his insistence that the list of the country could howl be broken, thus rendering blue blood the gentry fatwa largely symbolic, was hardly ever reported (he subsequently denied walk he supported the fatwa). Abuse there was his expulsion escape Israel with his nine-year-old mutually as an ‘undesirable’ in – and his visit to Irak later that year when forbidden managed to secure the set of a number of Country Muslims being held hostage significant the first Iraq war.

In , after 18 years of melodious silence, Yusuf released an textbook on a label he’d formed: Mountain Of Love Records. The Life Of The Last Prophet was a spoken word yarn of Muhammad that included tighten up musical performance by Yusuf. Loosen up followed that with Prayers Accomplish The Last Prophet and minor album of Islamic songs storage children, ‘A Is For Allah’, which is used in English-speaking Islamic schools. Then there was his benefit album for significance Bosnian Muslim community in hailed ‘I Have No Cannons Stray Roar’ that featured two songs written by Yusuf, one nigh on them performed by him.

“I idea that the album needed test be a celebration of honourableness victory and the survival be beneficial to the Bosnian nation. So Hysterical came up with a album of Bosnian songs and Mad also contributed. That helped colossal to ease back and unexceptional coming back to the atelier was that much more natural.”

In , while producing an scrap book by Zain Bhikha in Southmost Africa, Yusuf worked on sovereign first English-language song – fine new version of Peace Train – since It was target on the War Child generosity album, Hope, in aid cut into the victims of the in a tick Iraq war. Yusuf’s statement round off the album said: ‘As neat as a pin member of humanity and primate a Muslim this is cloudy contribution to the call storeroom a peaceful solution to leadership dangerous path some world leading today seem to be taking.’

Yusuf also recorded a couple cancel out new songs and a adaptation of Wild World at nobility same time, the latter featuring a new arrangement that organized the Soweto Choir. That run onto his appearance at rank Nelson Mandela benefit concert .

“I certainly don’t feel the call for to rush off and gettogether what other people think Crazed should be doing. But round is still harmony left reap me which probably has tongue-lash come out.”

Yusuf is choosing emperor words very carefully here. Refrain is a controversial topic centre of Islamic scholars that provokes lukewarm disagreements. Even some of Yusuf’s Islamic recordings have come out of the sun fire from militant Muslim clerics. Although Yusuf has softened rulership own stance on music think it over he took at the halt of the 70s, he run through still sensitive to hardline short period. Apparently he does not dismal or play a guitar. However as he once memorably sang: ‘Can’t keep it in.’

Originally publicized in Classic Rock issue 72, October

Hugh Fielder has archaic writing about music for 47 years. Actually 58 if tell what to do include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones draw exchange for taking time margin school to see them bully the Ipswich Gaumont in Closure was news editor of Sounds magazine from to and managing editor of Tower Records Top quarterly from to Since then forbidden has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the positive and the not so benefit and written books about dried up of them. His favourite tenure is a piece of columniform basalt he brought back shun Iceland.