Cat Stevens
b. Steven Georgiou, 21 July 1947, London, England. For Yusuf Islam, the constant search for the meaning of life that littered his lyrics and arose in interviews, seems to have arrived. Those who criticized his sometimes trite espousing now accept that his conversion to the Islamic faith and his retirement from a music world of ‘sin and greed’ was a committed move that will not be reversed. His legacy as Cat Stevens is a considerable catalogue of timeless songs, many destined to become classics. In 1966, producer Mike Hurst spotted Cat performing at the Hammersmith College, London; he was so impressed that he arranged to record him and his song, I Love My Dog. Tony Hall at Decca Records was similarly impressed and Stevens became the first artist on the new Deram label. The record and its b-side Portobello Road showed great promise and over the next two years Stevens delivered many perfect pop songs. Some were recorded by himself but many other artists queued up for material from this precociously-talented teenager. His own hits; Matthew And Son, I'm Gonna Get Me A Gun and Bad Night were equalled by the quality of his songs for others; the soulful First Cut Is The Deepest by P.P. Arnold and the addictive Here Comes My Baby by the Tremeloes. His two Decca albums were packed full of short, infectious songs, although they suffered from dated accompaniments. Stevens contracted tuberculosis and was absent for some time. During his convalescence he took stock of his life. Over the next eight years and 11 albums, the astute listener can detect a troubled soul. 
MONA BONE JAKON was the first in the series of albums known as bedsitter music. It was followed by two hugely successful works: TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN and TEASER AND THE FIRECAT. These revealed the solitary songwriter, letting the listener into his private thoughts, aspirations and desires. Stevens was the master of this genre and produced a wealth of simplistic, yet beautiful songs. Anthems like Wild World, Peace Train and Moon Shadow, love songs including Lady D'Arbanville, Hard Headed Woman and Can't Keep It In, are all faultless and memorable compositions. Stevens was at his sharpest with his posing numbers that hinted of dubiety, religion and scepticism. Two of his finest songs are Father And Son and Sitting. The first is a dialogue between father and son, and gives the listener an insight into his lonely childhood in Soho. The line ‘How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again, its always been the same, same old story’ the child continues with ‘from the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen, now there's a way that I know, that I have to go, away, I know I have to go’. The song is astonishingly powerful in relating Stevens' own turmoil to virtually every person that has ever heard the song. Sitting is similarly powerful, although it is a song of great hope. It opens confidently, ‘Ooh I'm on my way I know I am, somewhere not so far from here, all I know is all I feel right now, I feel the power growing in my hair’. Few were unmoved by these two songs. In his time Stevens had eight consecutive gold albums and 10 hit singles in the UK and 14 in the USA. In recent years he has been very active teaching and spreading the word of Islam; in 1991 prior to the Gulf War he travelled to Baghdad to seek the freedom of hostages. Reports in 1994 suggested that he was ready to return to the world of the recording studio, albeit only to offer a spoken word narrative on MOHAMMED—THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET.