Cat Stevens Biography

The journey of Yusuf back to making music has taken 28 long years. The millions who bought the records he made as Cat Stevens back in the '60s and '70s always hoped that one day, the world would again hear his mellow voice and intimate, thought-provoking songs. There were times when they feared it would never happen. Now the long wait is finally over and those wishes have come true.

The path that led to his first collection of new songs since 1978 represents one of the most remarkable tales of our time. To say that An Other Cup picks up exactly where he left off would be to ignore the life-changing significance of the spiritual quest that has taken him from youthful pop singer to arguably the best-known and most widely respected figure in British Muslim society today. And yet listen to the songs and there is so much that is familiar. His voice still has the same rich, warm patina, he has lost none of his ability to conjure a memorable melody and his songwriting articulates our profound needs and emotions more eloquently than ever.

"When I picked up the guitar again it was like a floodgate," he says. "Ideas and melodies floated in without effort. The novelty of the whole process, searching for forgotten chords, inspired me; it made it feel the simple joy of being back as an amateur - with nothing much to lose."

Co-produced by Yusuf and Rick Nowells (whose credits include working with Madonna, Rod Stewart, Dido and The Corrs) and with guitarist Alun Davis who played on many of his classic albums back in tandem, the record sounds anything but amateur. Yet you know what he means for after so long away, the album has a freshness and vibrancy more usually associated with a debut than someone who is this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first hit.

"Most of the songs were written over the past two years, "he reveals." Others were actually written during the recording sessions and some are the result of a musical I've been working on called Moonshadow. A few are old friends left over from way back when, but unvisited in many years."

The story of Yusuf's early career as Cat Stevens is well-enough known and has become - although he will hate the phrase - the stuff of pop legend. Born Steven Georgiou into a Greek-Cypriot and Swedish family household, he grew up in London and attended a Roman Catholic school. He had his first pop hit before he was out of his teens with I Love My Dog and followed it with further hits such as Matthew & Son.

Then in 1968 when he appeared to have it all, he was struck down with a life-threatening disease. It was to prove to be a key moment in his life. "I was working three shows a night and overdoing everything and it resulted in me contracting tuberculosis," he recalls. "Because I was close to death, I started to think more purposefully about the meaning of life and why we are here. That was the beginning of my search for something beyond, that eventually led me on a long journey to find out"

After a lengthy period of recovery, he re-emerged in 1970 with the album Mona Bone Jakon and a new, more reflective style. He followed with Tea For The Tillerman (1970) and Teaser And The Firecat (1971), albums that defined the sensitive singer-songwriter and inspired a generation of bedsit troubadours. Meanwhile, songs such as Peace Train and Morning Has Broken reflected the inner quest he had already embarked upon.

"I was always seeking and my songs reflect that very clearly," he says today. "I was looking beyond the surface of the material world and wanted to find some higher truth. I started to study different religions - Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Zen, even numerology and astrology. I was looking everywhere. If you delve into my songs and lyrics you will find the narrative of my life - where I was going, what I was thinking, what I was feeling. But above all you will see there were a lot of questions and a lot answers I was seeking."

He continued to express his search through music on albums such as Catch Bull At Four (1972), Foreigner (1973) and Buddha and The Chocolate Box (1974). Then in 1976 his brother gave him a copy of The Koran. "I began to read it and found a totally unique form of revelation in terms of the communication between God and man," he recalls.

Another of the turning points that have punctuated his life came shortly after when he was swimming off the coast of Malibu in California. "I was in the ocean and suddenly I'd lost it, I had no power to swim any more," he remembers. "I was fighting the ocean and I had nobody with me. Yet I did have someone. I called out, 'God, if you save me I'll work for you'. A friendly wave swept me into the shore and from that arose within me a deep conviction and belief that there is a higher control over one's life."

A final album, Back To Earth, appeared in 1979 but by then he was set upon a different course, giving up music to follow the path of Islam and changing his name to reflect his new-found faith. "To some people it may have seemed like an enormous jump," he admits. "But for me it was a gradual dawning and my songs had already primed me for it. Anyway, I always had a fondness for the name Joseph."

He has often been asked why he gave up music so completely and did not find a way to accommodate his faith and his career. "Interestingly, I gave an interview in 1980 to a Muslim magazine and they asked me about music and the future and I said I'd suspended my musical activities for fear that it may divert me from the true path," he recalls. "But I also added that I couldn't be dogmatic and say I'll never make music again. There's nothing in the Koran that says music is forbidden, yet when I looked at the music business I realised it was definitely a negative infringement on what I wanted from my spiritual life. I didn't want to have to worry about it, so for me that meant giving away my guitars and getting down to the job of living, starting the charitable work I wanted to do, and having a family life."

Since his conversion the royalties from his old records have been channelled into his charity work and the Islamic schools he set up in North London. Over the years, his actions and beliefs as a Muslim have often been misunderstood and misrepresented by the media and controversy has at times engulfed him. He accepts this as a reflection of how extremists on both sides have attempted to use Islam as a combatant in a global struggle. "It may come as news to some, but the word Islam itself derives from the word peace," he points out. "That is the heart and soul of the religion and is what I've always followed. Other horrendous events that have taken place mean that it's now necessary to educate people that this religion is based on spiritual love, unity and tolerance. I think that I've made that journey and perhaps I can help others to an understanding that the vast majority of Muslims simply want to live a good life and be at peace with the rest of the world. Today I am in a unique position as a looking glass through which Muslims can see the west and the west can see Islam, and it is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross."

It's a role that led to him recently being given the European Man of Peace award (voted for by Nobel laureates and presented by Mikhail Gorbachev) - and which has now finally led him back to music and his first batch of new songs since 1978. One of his most famous songs in the '70s was Father and Son, a dialogue across two generations, and intriguingly it was his own son who was the catalyst in his picking up a guitar again. "My son has got tremendous musical talent and I didn't even know that," he recounts. "He had brought a guitar back into the house and there it was. One morning, after everybody had prayed and gone back to sleep, the guitar was lying on the couch and I picked it up and found I still remembered the chords. Then I started to sing along to some of the tunes and the words that I'd been writing recently and said, 'Hey! I think I have a job to do'. That's' how I got the guitar back. It felt like I was being helped to do it. I can't describe it any other way."

That was two years ago. Now the job's done and the new songs rank among the best he's ever written. Many of them are deeply autobiographical, such as Heaven/Where True Love Goes, which alludes to his fateful swim all those years ago in Malibu ("if a storm should come and you face a wave that may be the chance for you to be saved"). One track Whispers from a Spiritual Garden includes a poem inspired by the 13th century Sufi mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi.

One Day At A Time is blessed with one of his loveliest melodies, its gentle acoustics perfectly matched by the song's equally gentle philosophy. Maybe There's A World boasts another memorable melody and a visionary lyric that - like John Lennon's Imagine - dreams of a better world "borderless and wide, where people move from place to place and nobody's taking sides. "There's even an extraordinary cover of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood with a dramatic string arrangement, in which it's impossible not to hear Yusuf's own commentary on the way his religion and spiritual conviction have sometimes been misrepresented and misconstrued.

Fascinatingly, the new material sits perfectly alongside Greenfields, Golden Sands, a never-released song he wrote in 1968 and which might have found its way on to Mona Bone Jakon. "Good songs never die," Yusuf says. After having written Greenfields in 1968, some ten years later he recalls hearing his very same words mirrored by John Lennon in his dreamer's anthem, Imagine. "It was comforting to know I was not the only one holding on to dreams. Most of the songs are inspired by the urge to raise human consciousness and seek to find a better world - or make one," he reasons. "In that respect, you can definitely see a clear stream between some of the old songs of the idealistic 60's and 70's and the new."

Ultimately, the reason for his return, he says, is simple. "The language of song is simply the best way to communicate the powerful winds of change which brought me to where I am today, and the love of peace still passing through my heart. I feel gifted to have that ability still within me. I never wanted to get involved in politics because that essentially separates people, whereas music has the power to unify, and is so much easier than for me than to give a lecture."

At this he smiles knowingly. "You can argue with a philosopher, but you can't argue with a good song. And I think I've got a few good songs."


Charitable Work
Since converting to Islam and leaving the music business 28 years ago, Yusuf has channeled the royalties from his Cat Stevens records to charitable causes, including a string of Muslim schools he personally established in London. His pioneering work resulted in a landmark decision by the British government to certify and support Islamic education throughout the country.

His U.N. registered charity, Small Kindness, provides humanitarian relief to orphans and families in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and other regions. He is also one of the few individuals to finance women to attend university in Baghdad.

He donated the royalties from the Cat Stevens Box Set, released in October 2001, to charity - with half going to The September 11th Fund and the remainder to orphans and homeless families in underdeveloped countries.

Controversy - Salman Rushdie
Yusuf's celebrity has made him a media and government target. Over the years, his beliefs and actions have often been misunderstood and misrepresented. He accepts this as a reflection of how extremists on both sides have attempted to use Islam as a combatant in a global struggle.

Yusuf was not heard from in public for a decade until 1989, when it was erroneously reported that he supported the death sentence ordered by the Ayatollah Khomeini against novelist Salman Rushdie for writing "The Satanic Verses." It was what he calls a "monstrous myth":

Yusuf was speaking to students at a university in London about his journey to Islam when he was asked about the fatwa (Islamic legal pronouncement) calling for the death of Rushdie. "Of course, I was going to be a prime target for a question on this issue," so he responded with a simple statement of what he understood at the time of Muslim law. "I was simply a new Muslim who had stated something which I considered quite plain and obvious. If you were to ask a Bible student what the Ten Commandments are, you would expect him to repeat them honestly, and you wouldn't blame him for doing so..."

"What I said was that, like the Bible, the Koran defines blasphemy without repentance as being a capital offense. And that's all I stated. I never supported the fatwa. It was very sad to see such irresponsibility from the 'free press' and I was totally abhorred. I released a statement the very next day after I read the headlines, completely contradicting what they'd said, but that never got the headlines. Of course, once the damage is done, everybody perceives you for what they've seen on the front page. It was a matter of me learning the hard way."

Controversy - "No-Fly" List
In September 2004, Yusuf was on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington when the plane was diverted to Maine because he had apparently been mistaken for someone on the post-9/11 "no fly" list. He was deported back to England the following day, and an international controversy was provoked. "It was like I was reading a script where I was the star, and I didn't even know what the plot was and how it was going to end. Perhaps it was about the fact that my name happens to carry my religion with it."

When The Sun and The Sunday Times in England published articles agreeing with the U.S.'s actions, Yusuf sued the newspapers for libel. He received a substantial settlement from both papers, along with published apologies and acknowledgements that he had never supported terrorism. He donated his settlement to help orphans of the Asian tsunami.

"It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims," he said at the time. "In my case, it directly impacts my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist."

"Man For Peace" Award
Acclaimed around the globe for his devotion to peace and charity, Yusuf has received a series of prestigious awards for his life's work. He was named as the 2004 "Man for Peace," voted for by a committee of all Nobel peace laureates and presented by Mikhail Gorbachev.
Islam And Peace
"It may come as news to some, but the word Islam itself derives from the word peace," Yusuf points out. "That is the heart and soul of the religion and is what I've always followed. Other horrendous events that have taken place mean that it's now necessary to educate people that this religion is based on spiritual love, unity, and tolerance. I think that I've made that journey, and perhaps I can help others to an understanding that the vast majority of Muslims simply want to live a good life and be at peace with the rest of the world. Today I am in a unique position as a looking glass through which Muslims can see the west and the west can see Islam, and it is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross."

The Return To Music
He has often been asked why he gave up music so completely and did not find a way to accommodate his faith and his career. "I gave an interview in 1980 to a Muslim magazine and they asked me about music and the future, and I said I'd suspended my musical activities for fear that it may divert me from the true path," he recalls. "But I also added that I couldn't be dogmatic and say I'll never make music again. There's nothing in the Koran that says music is forbidden; yet when I looked at the music business I realised it was definitely a negative infringement on what I wanted from my spiritual life. I didn't want to have to worry about it, so for me that meant giving away my guitars and getting down to the job of living, starting the charitable work I wanted to do, and having a family life."

Ultimately, he says, the reason for his return to pop music is simple. "The language of song is simply the best way to communicate the powerful winds of change which brought me to where I am today, and the love of peace still passing through my heart. I feel gifted to have that ability still within me. I never wanted to get involved in politics because that essentially separates people, whereas music has the power to unify, and is so much easier for me than to give a lecture."

Background: His Path To Islam
Although Cat Stevens's conversion to Islam and departure from making music 28 years ago took the world by surprise, it was actually the culmination of a decade-long spiritual quest. "To some people it may have seemed like an enormous jump," he says. "But for me it was a gradual dawning, and my songs had already primed me for it."

In 1968, having already achieved pop stardom in his native UK, his career was suddenly derailed when he contracted tuberculosis. "Because I was close to death, I started to think more purposefully about the meaning of life and why we are here," he says. "That was the beginning of my search for something beyond, that eventually led me on a long journey to find out."

Having spent a year in recovery, he returned to recording with a new introspection and sensitivity. Throughout his hugely successful career in the 1970s, "I was always seeking, and my songs reflect that very clearly," he says today. "I was looking beyond the surface of the material world and wanted to find some higher truth."

A major turning point in his life came while he was swimming off the coast of Malibu, California. "I was in the ocean and suddenly I'd lost it, I had no power to swim any more," he remembers. "I was fighting the ocean and I had nobody with me. Yet I did have someone. I called out, 'God, if you save me I'll work for you.' A friendly wave swept me in to shore and from that arose within me a deep conviction and belief that there is a higher control over one's life."

In 1976 his brother gave him a copy of the Koran. "I began to read it and found a totally unique form of revelation in terms of the communication between God and man," he recalls. "Today what some people think about Islam is something completely different form what I discovered when I started reading the Koran. It was that final discovery of the Koran and the message it contained which brought me home and from that moment my thoughts and all the things I had been leading to made sense." -Bio and Facts Courtesy of Buzztone.


Cat Stevens, born Steven Demetre Georgiou, was the son of a Swedish mother and a Greek father who ran a restaurant in London. He became interested in folk music and rock roll in his teens while attending Hammersmith College and in 1965 began performing under the name Steve Adams. Mike Hurst, a former member of the folk-pop group the Springfields, who had become a record producer, heard him and took him into a recording studio to cut his composition "I Love My Dog." This demo caused Decca Records to sign him under the name Cat Stevens and assign him to its newly formed Deram subsidiary. "I Love My Dog" reached the British charts in October 1966, peaking in the Top 40. Stevens' next single, "Matthew Son," entered the charts in January 1967 and just missed getting to number one (in America, it grazed the bottom of the charts). It was another self-written effort, and Stevens' reputation as a writer was further enhanced by the success of his song "Here Comes My Baby," which was recorded by the Tremeloes and entered the British charts in February, reaching the Top Five. (In America, it peaked just outside the Top Ten.)

Stevens' third single, "I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun," entered the British charts in March and reached the Top Ten, preceded by his debut album, Matthew Son, also a Top Ten entry. In May, P.P. Arnold got into the British charts with Stevens' composition "The First Cut Is the Deepest," peaking in the Top 20. (Ten years later, Rod Stewart topped the U.K. charts and reached the U.S. Top 20 with his revival of the song. Sheryl Crow revived it for an American Top 20 hit in 2003.) Stevens' fourth single, "A Bad Night," was in the charts in August, peaking in the Top 20. That was a disappointment, considering his recent success, and his next records did even worse: "Kitty," his fifth single, barely made the charts in December, while New Masters, his second album, didn't chart at all. Even worse, in March 1968, Stevens contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalized for three months. He spent a year recuperating. After the failure of an intended comeback single, "Where Are You," released in July 1969, he parted ways with Deram.

Disillusioned by his experience in the music business, Stevens began writing more personal, introspective material. He signed a new contract with Island Records and released his third album, Mona Bone Jakon, in April 1970. Drawn from the album, the single "Lady D'Arbanville" was issued in June 1970 and became his third Top Ten hit in the U.K., causing Mona Bone Jakon to chart modestly in July. Stevens' talent as a songwriter for others had not deserted him; in August, Jimmy Cliff entered the British charts with his composition "Wild World," reaching the Top Ten. With a backlog of material, Stevens had a second Island album, Tea for the Tillerman, out in November; it made the U.K. Top 20. In America, where his Island recordings were licensed to AM Records, Mona Bone Jakon had not charted, but Tea for the Tillerman marked his American LP chart debut in February 1971, followed shortly by the single release of his own recording of "Wild World," which appeared on the album; it peaked in the Top 20. With that, Stevens suddenly became a major star in the U.S. Tea for the Tillerman reached the Top Ten and went gold; Mona Bone Jakon finally reached the charts (it was belatedly certified gold in 1976); and Deram reissued Matthew Son and New Masters as a two-LP set, which also charted. Stevens was hailed as one of the most important figures in the currently popular folk-rock singer/songwriter trend, along with James Taylor, Carole King, and others.

In June 1971, Stevens released a new single, "Moon Shadow," which made the Top 40 in the U.S. and the U.K. This was followed in September by "Peace Train," which hit the pop Top Five and reached number one in the easy listening charts in the U.S., just in advance of Stevens' fifth album, Teaser and the Firecat. An immediate gold-record seller, the LP just missed the top of the U.S. charts and hit the Top Five in the U.K. In addition to "Moon Shadow" and "Peace Train," it contained "Morning Has Broken," an adaptation of a hymn, which became Stevens' second consecutive easy listening number one and reached the pop Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Deram compiled another collection of juvenilia, Very Young and Early Songs, which peaked in the U.S. Top 100 in early 1972, as did a belated American release of the single "Where Are You."

Stevens contributed new and old songs to the film Harold and Maude, a black comedy that became a cult success after its release in 1972, though no soundtrack album was released. (The previously unreleased songs from the film finally turned up on his album Footsteps in the Dark: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 in 1984.) He also toured and worked on his sixth album, Catch Bull at Four. A slightly harder-rocking effort, the LP, released in October 1972, represented Stevens' commercial peak: it hit number one in the U.S. and just missed duplicating that feat in the U.K., earning gold-record status immediately. Different singles from the album were released in the two countries, in the U.S. "Sitting" and in the U.K. "Can't Keep It In"; both reached the Top 20.

By 1973, Stevens was again beginning to show signs of the strain of being a pop star, even if he didn't become physically ill. For tax reasons, he left the U.K. for a year and moved to Brazil, but he donated the money he would have paid in taxes to charity. He performed less often and stopped granting interviews. In June, he released a new single, "The Hurt," which made the U.S. Top 40. It was followed in August by his seventh album, Foreigner, an ambitious effort that featured an entire LP side given over to a musical suite. The record was another massive commercial success, peaking inside the Top Five in the U.S. and U.K. and going gold instantly. His major appearance for the year was a 90-minute performance on the American TV show In Concert in November.

Stevens issued his eighth album, Buddha and the Chocolate Box, in March 1974, preceded by the single "Oh Very Young," a Top Ten hit. As usual, the album made the U.S. and U.K. Top Five and went gold upon release. In July, Stevens released an independent summer single, a revival of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night," and it made the U.S. Top Ten and the U.K. Top 20. In November, AM extracted "Ready" from Buddha and the Chocolate Box and released it as a single that made the Top 40. Stevens' Greatest Hits LP was released in June 1975 and predictably was a big success, eventually selling over three million copies in the U.S. alone. "Two Fine People," a new song featured on it, reached the American Top 40. Stevens had his ninth regular album release, Numbers, ready by November. As if in acknowledgment that his greatest hits were now behind him, the album only made the Top 20 in the U.S., though it was certified gold within a couple of months, did not generate a Top 40 single, and missed the charts entirely in the U.K. Stevens took 18 months to deliver his tenth album, Izitso, in May 1977. It restored some of his commercial clout, hitting the U.S. Top Ten and being certified gold in a month, while reaching the U.K. Top 20, and the single "(Remember the Days of The) Old School Yard" made the Top 40 in America and charted in Great Britain.

On December 23, 1977, Stevens formally became a Muslim and adopted the name Yusuf Islam. Notwithstanding this change, there was an 11th and final Cat Stevens album, Back to Earth, released in December 1978; it sold modestly. With that, Yusuf Islam retired from the pop music business. He entered into an arranged marriage that eventually produced five children, auctioned off his possessions, and founded a Muslim school near London. He was not widely heard from for another ten years, until he shocked admirers at the end of the '80s by supporting the death sentence ordered by the Ayatollah Khomeini against novelist Salman Rushdie for writing the book -The Satanic Verses. Some "classic rock" radio stations discontinued playing him as a result, and 10,000 Maniacs, who had covered "Peace Train" on their In My Tribe album in 1987, had it removed from the record. He later claimed that he had been manipulated by the media, who were looking for a statement from a prominent British Muslim, but he did not disavow his statement. Nevertheless, his music remained popular. In 1990, for example, the compilation album The Very Best of Cat Stevens reached the U.K. Top Five. A different album with the same title charted in the U.S. in the spring of 2000 as Yusuf Islam undertook a promotional tour in connection with the reissues of remastered versions of his Cat Stevens albums. Then in 2006, nearly 30 years after the final Cat Stevens studio album, Islam released a new studio effort, An Other Cup. William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide