Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948), commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam.
His early 1970s record albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat were both certified as Triple Platinum by the RIAA in the United States; his album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of release alone, and was Billboard's number-one LP for three consecutive weeks. He has also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years, for "The First Cut Is the Deepest", which has been a hit single for four different artists.
Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame in December, 1977, and adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, the following year. In 1979, he auctioned all his guitars away for charity and left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world, including 2003's World Award, the 2004 Man for Peace Award and the 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace. In 2006, he returned to pop music, with his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, entitled An Other Cup. He now goes professionally by the single name Yusuf. His newest album, Roadsinger, was released on 5 May 2009. After the end of his relationship with D'Arbanville, Stevens noted the effect it had on writing his music, saying,
"Everything I wrote while I was away was in a transitional period and reflects that. Like Patti. A year ago we split; I had been with her for two years. What I write about Patti and my family... when I sing the songs now, I learn strange things. I learn the meanings of my songs late..."
Steven Georgiou was the third child of a Greek-Cypriot father, Stavros Georgiou (b. 1900) and a Swedish mother, Ingrid Wickman (b. 1915). He has an older sister, Anita, and brother, David. The family lived above Moulin Rouge, the restaurant that his parents operated on the north end of Shaftesbury Avenue, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus in the Soho theatre district of London. All family members worked in the restaurant. His parents divorced when he was about 8 years old, but they continued to maintain the family restaurant and live above it.
Although his father was Greek Orthodox and his mother a Swedish Lutheran Protestant, Georgiou was sent to a Catholic school, St. Joseph Roman Catholic Primary School in Macklin Street, which was closer to his father's business on Drury Lane. Georgiou developed an interest in piano at a fairly young age, eventually using the family baby grand piano to work out the chords, since no one else there played well enough to teach him. With the popularity of The Beatles, at age 15, he extended his interest to the guitar, and convinced his father to pay £8 for his first instrument, and began playing it and writing songs. He would escape at times from his family responsibilities to the rooftop above their home, and listen to the tunes of the musicals drifting from just around the corner; from Denmark Street, which was then the centre of the British music industry. Later, Stevens has emphasized that the advent of West Side Story in particular affected him, giving him a "different view of life", he said in 2000, on a VH1 Behind the Music programme. With interests in both art and music, he and his mother travelled to Gävle, Sweden, where he started developing his drawing skills after being influenced by his uncle Hugo Wickman, a painter.
He attended other local West End schools, where he says he was constantly in trouble, and did poorly in everything but art. He was called "the artist boy" and mentions that "I was beat up, but I was noticed". He went on to take a one-year course of study at Hammersmith School of Art, as he considered a career as a cartoonist. Though he enjoyed art (his later record albums would feature his original artwork on his album covers), he wanted to establish a musical career and began to perform originally under the stage name "Steve Adams" in 1965 while at Hammersmith. At that point, his goal was to become a songwriter. Among the musicians who influenced him were Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, blues artists Leadbelly and Muddy Waters, John Lennon, Biff Rose (who played on his first album), Leo Kottke, and Paul Simon. He also wanted to emulate composers who wrote musicals, like Ira Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. In 1965 he signed a publishing deal with Ardmore & Beechwood and cut several demos, including "The First Cut Is the Deepest".
Georgiou began to perform his songs in coffee houses and pubs. At first he tried forming a band, but soon realised he preferred performing solo. Thinking that his given name might not be memorable to prospective fans, he chose a stage name Cat Stevens, in part because a girlfriend said he had eyes like a cat, but mainly because he said, "I couldn't imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for 'that Steven Demetre Georgiou album'. And in England, and I was sure in America, they loved animals." In 1966, at age 18, he impressed manager/producer Mike Hurst, formerly of British vocal group The Springfields, with his songs and Hurst arranged for him to record a demo and then helped him get a record deal. The first singles were hits. "I Love My Dog" charted at #28, and "Matthew and Son", the title song from his debut album, went to #2. "I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun" reached Britain's Top 10, and the album Matthew and Son itself began charting. The original version of the The Tremeloes cover hit, "Here Comes My Baby", was written and recorded by Stevens. Over the next two years, Stevens recorded and toured with artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Engelbert Humperdinck. The music business hadn't yet begun targeting specific audiences, so he frequently toured with what now would be considered an unusual array of celebrities. Stevens was considered a fresh-faced teen star, placing several single releases in the British pop music charts. Some of that success was attributed to the pirate radio station Wonderful Radio London, which gained him fans by playing his records. In August 1967, he went on the air with other recording artists who had benefited from the station to mourn its closure.
His December 1967 album New Masters failed to chart in the United Kingdom. The album is now most notable for his song "The First Cut Is the Deepest", a song he sold for £30 to P.P. Arnold that was to become a massive hit for her, and an international hit for Keith Hampshire, Rod Stewart, James Morrison, and Sheryl Crow. Forty years after he recorded the first demo of the song, it earned him two back-to-back ASCAP "Songwriter of the Year" awards, in 2005 and 2006.
Stevens was living the fast-moving life of a pop star, and in early 1968 at the age of 19, he became very ill with tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. Near death at the time of his admittance to the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, he spent months recuperating in hospital and a year of convalescence. During this time Stevens began to question aspects of his life, and spirituality. He later said, "to go from the show business environment and find you are in hospital, getting injections day in and day out, and people around you are dying, it certainly changes your perspective. I got down to thinking about myself. It seemed almost as if I had my eyes shut."
He took up meditation, yoga, and metaphysics; read about other religions; and became a vegetarian. As a result of his serious illness and long convalescence, and as a part of his spiritual awakening and questioning, he wrote as many as 40 songs, which were much more introspective than his previous work. Many of those songs would appear on his albums in years to come.
The lack of success of Stevens' second album mirrored a difference of personal tastes in musical direction, and a growing resentment at producer Mike Hurst's attempts to re-create another album like that of his debut, with heavy-handed orchestration, and over-production, rather than the folk sound Stevens was attempting to produce. He admits having purposefully sabotaged his own contract with Hurst, making outlandishly expensive orchestral demands and threatening legal action, which resulted in his goal: release from his contract with Deram Records, a sub-label of major Decca Records. Upon regaining his health at home after his release from the hospital, Stevens recorded some of his newly-written songs on his tape recorder, and played his changing sound for a few new record executives. After hiring agent Barry Krost, who had arranged for an audition with Chris Blackwell of Island Records, Blackwell offered him a "chance to record [his songs] whenever and with whomever he liked, and more importantly to Cat, however he liked". With Krost's recommendation, Stevens signed with Paul Samwell-Smith, previously the bassist of the Yardbirds, to be his new producer.
Healthy and sporting a new beard, Stevens was armed with a catalogue of new songs that reflected his new perspective on what he wanted to bring to the world with his music. His previous work had sold in the United Kingdom, but Stevens was still relatively unknown by the public across the Atlantic. To rectify this, after signing with Island Records in 1970, an American distribution deal was arranged with A&M Records' Jerry Moss in North America. Stevens began work on Mona Bone Jakon, a folk-rock based album that was quite different from his earlier "pop" style records, drawing on his new, introspective work. Producer Paul Samwell-Smith paired guitarist Alun Davies, who was currently working as a session musician, with Stevens. Alun was the more experienced veteran of two albums which already had begun to explore the emerging genres of skiffle and folk rock music. Davies was also thought a perfect fit in particular for his "fingerwork" on the guitar, harmonizing and contributing backing vocals with Stevens. They originally met just to record Mona Bone Jakon, but developed a fast friendship; Davies, like Stevens, was a perfectionist, appearing after all the sound checks had been completed, just to be sure that all the equipment and sound were prepared for each concert. He recorded on all but two of the succeeding pop music albums Stevens released, and continued performing and recording with him until Stevens' retirement. The two remained friends, however, and years later, when Stevens re-emerged as Yusuf Islam after 27 years, Davies appeared again performing at his side, and has remained there.
The first single released from Mona Bone Jakon was "Lady D'Arbanville", which Stevens wrote about his young American girlfriend Patti D'Arbanville. The record, with a madrigal sound unlike most music played on pop radio, with sounds of djembes and bass in addition to Stevens' and Davies' guitars, reached #8 in the UK. It was the first of his hits to get real airplay in the United States. Other songs written for her included "Maybe You're Right", and "Just Another Night". In addition, the song, "Pop Star", about his experience as a teen star, and "Katmandu", featuring Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel playing flute, were featured. Mona Bone Jakon was an early example of the solo singer-songwriter album format that was becoming popular for other artists as well.
Mona Bone Jakon was the precursor for Stevens' international breakthrough album, Tea for the Tillerman, which became a top-10 Billboard hit. Within 6 months of its release, it had sold over 500,000 copies, attaining gold record status in the United States and in Britain. The combination of Stevens' new folk-rock style and accessible lyrics which spoke of everyday situations and problems, mixed with the beginning of spiritual questions about life, would remain in his music from then on. The album features the top 20 single "Wild World"; a parting song after D'Arbanville moved on. "Wild World" has been credited as the song that gave Tea for the Tillerman 'enough kick' to get it played on FM radio; and the head of Island Records, Chris Blackwell, was quoted as calling it "the best album we’ve ever released". Other album cuts include "Hard-Headed Woman", and "Father and Son", a song sung both in baritone and tenor, about the struggle between fathers and their sons who are faced with their own personal choices in life. In 2001, this album was certified by the RIAA as a Multi-Platinum record, having sold 3 million copies in the United States at that time. It is ranked at #206 in Rolling Stone Magazine's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Having established a signature sound, Stevens enjoyed a string of successes over the following years. 1971's Teaser and the Firecat album reached number two and achieved gold record status within three weeks of its release in the United States. It yielded several hits, including "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken" (a Christian hymn with lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon), and "Moon Shadow". This album was also certified by the RIAA as a Multi-Platinum record in 2001, with over three million US sales through that time. When interviewed on a Boston radio station, Stevens said about Teaser and the Firecat:
"I get the tune and then I just keep on singing the tune until the words come out from the tune. It's kind of a hypnotic state that you reach after a while when you keep on playing it where words just evolve from it. So you take those words and just let them go whichever way they want... 'Moonshadow'? Funny, that was in Spain, I went there alone, completely alone, to get away from a few things. And I was dancin' on the rocks there... right on the rocks where the waves were, like, blowin' and splashin'. Really, it was so fantastic. And the moon was bright, ya know, and I started dancin' and singin' and I sang that song and it stayed. It's just the kind of moment that you want to find when you're writin' songs."
For seven months from 1971 to 1972 Stevens was romantically linked to popular singer Carly Simon while both were produced by Samwell-Smith. During that time both wrote songs for and about one another. Simon wrote and recorded at least two top 50 songs, "Legend in Your Own Time" and "Anticipation" about Stevens. He reciprocated in his song to her, after their romance, entitled, "Sweet Scarlet".
His next album, Catch Bull at Four, released in 1972, was his most rapidly successful album in the United States, reaching gold record status in 15 days, and holding the number-one position on the Billboard charts for three weeks. This album continued the introspective and spiritual lyrics that he was known for, combined with a rougher-edged voice and a less acoustic sound than his previous records, utilizing synthesizers and other instruments. Although the sales of the album indicated Stevens' popularity, the album did not produce any real hits, with the exception of the single "Sitting", which charted at #16. Catch Bull at Four was Platinum certified in 2001.
Following his conversion, Yusuf abandoned his music career. When he became a Muslim in 1977, he said, the Imam at the mosque was told that he was a pop star, and he told Yusuf that it was fine to continue as a musician, so long as the songs were morally acceptable. But Yusuf says he knew there were aspects of the music business, such as vanity and temptations, that did go against the teachings of the Qu'ran, and this was the primary reason he gave for retreating from the spotlight. But in his first performance on the television show Later... with Jools Holland, 27 years after leaving the music business, and in other interviews, he gave different reasons for leaving: "A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing," he said. "You come to a point where you have sung, more or less ... your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living. You know, up until that point, I hadn't had a life. I'd been searching, been on the road."
Estimating in January 2007 that he continues to earn approximately $1.5 million USD a year from his Cat Stevens music, he decided to use his accumulated wealth and ongoing earnings from his music career on philanthropic and educational causes in the Muslim community of London and elsewhere. In 1981, he founded the Islamia Primary School in Salusbury Road in the north London area of Kilburn and, soon after, founded several Muslim secondary schools; in 1992, Yusuf set up The Association of Muslim Schools (AMS-UK), a charity that brought together all the Muslim schools in the UK, and served as chairman. He is also the founder and chairman of the Small Kindness charity, which initially assisted famine victims in Africa and now supports thousands of orphans and families in the Balkans, Indonesia, and Iraq. He served as chairman of the charity Muslim Aid from 1985 to 1993.
In 1985, Yusuf decided to return to the public spotlight for the first time since his religious conversion, at the historic Live Aid concert, concerned with the famine threatening Ethiopia. Though he had written a song especially for the occasion, his appearance was skipped when Elton John's set ran too long
Immediately following the 11 September 2001, attacks on the United States, he said:
I wish to express my heartfelt horror at the indiscriminate terrorist attacks committed against innocent people of the United States yesterday. While it is still not clear who carried out the attack, it must be stated that no right-thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action. The Qur'an equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity. We pray for the families of all those who lost their lives in this unthinkable act of violence as well as all those injured; I hope to reflect the feelings of all Muslims and people around the world whose sympathies go out to the victims of this sorrowful moment.
He appeared on videotape on a VH1 pre-show for the October 2001 Concert for New York City, condemning the attacks and singing his song "Peace Train" for the first time in public in more than 20 years, as an a cappella version. He also donated a portion of his box-set royalties to the Fund for victims' families, and the rest to orphans in underdeveloped countries. During the same year, Yusuf Islam dedicated time and effort in joining the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, an organization that worked towards battling misperceptions and acts against others because of their religious beliefs and/or racial identity, after many Muslims reported a backlash against them due in part to the grief caused by the events in the United States on 9-11.
Yusuf gradually resumed his musical career in the 1990s. His initial recordings had not included any musical instruments other than percussion, and featured lyrics about Islamic themes. He invested in building his own recording studio which he named Mountain of Light Studios in the late 1990s, and he was featured as a guest singer on "God Is the Light", a song on an album of nasheeds by the group Raihan. In addition, he invited and collaborated with other Muslim singers, including Canadian artist Dawud Wharnsby Ali. After Yusuf's friend, Irfan Ljubijankic, the Foreign Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was killed by a Serbian rocket attack, Yusuf appeared at a 1997 benefit concert in Sarajevo and recorded a benefit album named after a song written by Ljubijankic, I Have No Cannons That Roar. Realizing there were few educational resources designed to teach children about the Islamic religion, Yusuf wrote and produced a children's album, A Is for Allah, in 2000 with the assistance of South African singer-songwriter Zain Bhikha. The title song was one Yusuf had written years before to introduce his first child to both the religion and the Arabic alphabet. He also established his own record label, "Jamal Records", and Mountain of Light Productions, and he donates a percentage of his projects' proceeds to his Small Kindness charity, whose name is taken from the Qur'an.
On the occasion of the 2000 re-release of his Cat Stevens albums, he explained that he had stopped performing in English due to his misunderstanding of the Islamic faith. "This issue of music in Islam is not as cut-and-dried as I was led to believe ... I relied on heresy [sic], that was perhaps my mistake."
Yusuf has discussed feeling that his decision to leave the Western pop music business was perhaps one that was too quick with too little communication for his fans. For most, it was a surprise, and even his guitarist, Alun Davies said in later interviews that he hadn't believed that Stevens would actually go through with it, after his many forays into other religions throughout their relationship. Yusuf himself has said the "cut" between his former life and his life as a Muslim might have been too quick, too severe, and that more people might have been better informed about Islam, and given an opportunity to better understand it, and himself, if he had simply removed those items that were considered harām, in his performances, allowing him to express himself musically and educate listeners through his music without violating any religious constraints.
In 2003, after repeated encouragement from within the Muslim world, Yusuf once again recorded "Peace Train" for a compilation CD, which also included performances by David Bowie and Paul McCartney. He performed "Wild World" in Nelson Mandela's 46664 concert with his former session player Peter Gabriel, the first time he had publicly performed in English in 25 years. In December 2004, he and Ronan Keating released a new version of "Father and Son": the song entered the charts at number two, behind Band Aid 20's "Do They Know It's Christmas?". They also produced a video of the pair walking between photographs of fathers and sons, while singing the song. The proceeds of "Father and Son" were donated to the Band Aid charity. Keating's former group, Boyzone, had a hit with the song a decade earlier. As he had been persuaded before, Yusuf contributed to the song, because the proceeds were marked for charity. However, this marked a point in his artistic career where he entertained the concept of using more than simply voice and drums.
Wild World
Father and Son
Peace Train
Cat Stevens - Morning Has Broken - Live 1973 (External Embedding Disabled)
Morning has Broken
Moon Shadow
Oh Very Young
Another Saturday Night
On the Road to Find Out
