Cat Stevens: A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing

Yusuf Islam is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam. He is born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948 in London, England, commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician.

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 1972 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.

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.[citation needed] 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.

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. 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.[26] 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.

On 21 April 2005 Yusuf gave a short talk before a scheduled musical performance in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on the anniversary of Muhammad's birthday. He said, "There is a great deal of ignorance in the world about Islam today, and we hope to communicate with the help of something more refined than lectures and talks. Our recordings are particularly appealing to the young, having used songs as well as Qur'an verses with pleasing sound effects..." Yusuf explained that while there had been no real guidelines about instruments in the Qur'an, and no reference about the business of music, it had been Muslim travellers who first brought the guitar to Moorish Spain. He noted that Muhammad was fond of celebrations, as in the case of the birth of a child, or a traveller arriving after a long journey. Thus, Yusuf concluded that healthy entertainment was acceptable within limitations, and that he now felt that it was no sin to perform with the guitar. Music, he now felt, is uplifting to the soul; something sorely needed in troubled times. At that point, he was joined by several young male singers who sang backing vocals and played a drum, with Yusuf as lead singer and guitarist. They performed two songs, both half in Arabic, and half in English; "Tala'a Al-Badru Alayna", an old song in Arabic which Yusuf recorded with a folk sound to it, and another song, "The Wind East and West", which was newly written by Yusuf and featured a distinct R&B sound.

With this performance, Yusuf began slowly to integrate instruments into both older material from his Cat Stevens era (some with slight lyrical changes) and new songs, both those known to the Muslim communities around the world and some that have the same Western flair from before with a focus on new topics and another generation of listeners.

In a 2005 press release, he explained his revived recording career:

After I embraced Islam, many people told me to carry on composing and recording, but at the time I was hesitant, for fear that it might be for the wrong reasons. I felt unsure what the right course of action was. I guess it is only now, after all these years, that I've come to fully understand and appreciate what everyone has been asking of me. It's as if I've come full circle; however, I have gathered a lot of knowledge on the subject in the meantime.

In early 2005, Yusuf released a new song entitled "Indian Ocean" about the 2004 tsunami disaster. The song featured Indian composer/producer A. R. Rahman, a-ha keyboard player Magne Furuholmen and Travis drummer Neil Primrose. Proceeds of the single went to help orphans in Banda Aceh, one of the areas worst affected by the tsunami, through Yusuf's Small Kindness charity. At first, the single was released only through several online music stores but later featured on the compilation album Cat Stevens: Gold. "I had to learn my faith and look after my family, and I had to make priorities. But now I've done it all and there's a little space for me to fill in the universe of music again."

On 28 May 2005, Yusuf delivered a keynote speech and performed at the Adopt-A-Minefield Gala in Düsseldorf. The Adopt-A-Minefield charity, under the patronage of Paul McCartney, works internationally to raise awareness and funds to clear landmines and rehabilitate landmine survivors. Yusuf attended as part of an honorary committee which also included George Martin, Richard Branson, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Klaus Voormann, Christopher Lee and others.

In mid-2005, Yusuf played guitar for the Dolly Parton album, Those Were the Days, on her version of his "Where Do the Children Play?". (Parton had also covered "Peace Train" a few years earlier.)

In May 2006, in anticipation of his forthcoming new pop album, the BBC1 programme "Imagine" aired a 49-minute documentary with Alan Yentob called Yusuf: The Artist formerly Known as Cat Stevens. This documentary film features rare audio and video clips from the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as an extensive interview with Yusuf, his brother David Gordon, several record executives, Bob Geldof, Dolly Parton, and others outlining his career as Cat Stevens, his conversion and emergence as Yusuf Islam, and his return to music in 2006. There are clips of him singing in the studio when he was recording An Other Cup as well as a few 2006 excerpts of him on guitar singing a few verses of Cat Stevens songs including "The Wind" and "On the Road to Find Out".

Yusuf has credited his then 21-year-old son Muhammad Islam, also a musician and artist, for his return to secular music, when the son brought a guitar back into the house, which Yusuf began playing. Muhammad's professional name is Yoriyos and his debut album was released in February 2007. Yoriyos created the art on Yusuf's album An Other Cup, something that Cat Stevens did for his albums in the 1970s.

Starting in 2006, the Cat Stevens song "Tea for The Tillerman" was used as the theme tune for the Ricky Gervais BBC-HBO sitcom Extras. A Christmas-season television commercial for gift-giving by the diamond industry aired in 2006 with Cat Power's cover of "How Can I Tell You". That song is also covered by John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers frequently in concert.

In December 2006, Yusuf was one of the artists who performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, in honour of the prize winners, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank. He performed the songs "Midday (Avoid City After Dark)", "Peace Train", and "Heaven/Where True Love Goes". He also gave a concert in New York City that month as a Jazz at Lincoln Center event, recorded and broadcast by KCRW-FM radio, along with an interview by Nic Harcourt. Accompanying him, as in the Cat Stevens days, was Alun Davies, on guitar and vocals.

In April 2007, BBC1 broadcast a concert given at the Porchester Hall by Yusuf as part of BBC Sessions, his first live performance in London in 28 years (the previous one being the UNICEF "Year of the Child" concert in 1979). He played several new songs along with some old ones like "Father and Son", "The Wind", "Where Do the Children Play?", "Don't Be Shy", "Wild World", and "Peace Train".

In July 2007, he performed at a concert in Bochum, Germany, in benefit of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Peace Centre in South Africa and the Milagro Foundation of Deborah and Carlos Santana. The audience included Nobel Laureates Mikhail Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu and other prominent global figures. He later appeared as the final act in the German leg of Live Earth in Hamburg performing some classic Cat Stevens songs and more recent compositions reflecting his concern for peace and child welfare. His set included Stevie Wonder's "Saturn", "Peace Train", "Where Do the Children Play?", "Ruins", and "Wild World". He performed at the Peace One Day concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 21 September 2007. In 2008 Yusuf contributed the song "Edge of Existence" to the charity album Songs for Survival, in support of the indigenous rights organization Survival International.

In January 2009, Yusuf released a charity song in aid of children in Gaza. He recorded a rendition of the George Harrison song "The Day the World Gets Round", along with the German bassist and former Beatles collaborator Klaus Voorman. Yusuf said that all proceeds from the song will be donated to the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and to the nonprofit group Save the Children to be directed to aiding Gaza residents.[89] Israeli Consul David Saranga criticized Yusuf for not dedicating the song to all the children who are victims of the violence, including Israeli children.

In March 2006, Yusuf finished recording his first all-new pop album since 1978. The album, An Other Cup, was released internationally in November 2006 on his own label, Ya Records (distributed by Polydor Records in the UK and internationally by Atlantic Records) — the 40th anniversary of his first album, Matthew and Son. A single, called Heaven/Where True Love Goes, was simultaneously released. The album was produced with Rick Nowels, who has worked with Dido and Rod Stewart. The performer is noted as "Yusuf", with a cover label identifying him as "the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens". The art on the album is credited to Yoriyos. Yusuf wrote all of the songs except "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", and recorded it in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Yusuf actively promoted this album, appearing on radio, television and in print interviews. In November, 2006, he told the BBC, "It's me, so it's going to sound like that of course ... This is the real thing.... When my son brought the guitar back into the house, you know, that was the turning point. It opened a flood of, of new ideas and music which I think a lot of people would connect with." Originally, Yusuf began to return only to his acoustic guitar as he had in the past, but his son encouraged him to "experiment", which resulted in the purchase of a Stevie Ray Vaughan Fender Stratocaster in 2007.

Also in November 2006, Billboard magazine was curious as to why the artist is credited as just his first name, "Yusuf" rather than "Yusuf Islam". His response was "Because 'Islam' doesn't have to be sloganized. The second name is like the official tag, but you call a friend by their first name. It's more intimate, and to me that's the message of this record." As for why the album sleeve says "the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens", he responded, "That's the tag with which most people are familiar; for recognition purposes I'm not averse to that. For a lot of people, it reminds them of something they want to hold on to. That name is part of my history and a lot of the things I dreamt about as Cat Stevens have come true as Yusuf Islam."

Yusuf was asked by the Swiss periodical Das Magazin why the title of the album was An Other Cup, rather than "Another Cup". The answer was that his breakthrough album, Tea for the Tillerman in 1970, was decorated with Yusuf's painting of a peasant sitting down to a cup of steaming drink on the land. Yusuf commented that the two worlds "then, and now, are very different". His new album shows a steaming cup alone on this cover. His answer was that this was actually an other cup; something different; a bridge between the East and West, which Yusuf explained was his own perceived role. He added that, through him, "Westerners might get a glimpse of the East, and Easterners, some understanding of the West. The cup, too, is important; it's a meeting place, a thing meant to be shared."

On CBS Sunday Morning in December 2006, he said, "You know, the cup is there to be filled ... with whatever you want to fill it with. For those people looking for Cat Stevens, they'll probably find him in this record. If you want to find [Yusuf] Islam, go a bit deeper, you'll find him."

Yusuf has since described the album as being too "over-produced" and refers to An Other Cup as being a necessary hurdle he had to overcome before he could release his new album, Roadsinger. Yusuf compares the relationship between An Other Cup and Roadsinger to the relationship between the Cat Stevens albums Mona Bone Jakon and the landmark Tea for the Tillerman with the latter being superior in quality to the former.

In January 2009, Yusuf recorded a George Harrison song, "The Day the World Gets Round", collaborating with Klaus Voormann. Proceeds from the single were donated to a charity to help the people of war-torn Gaza. To promote the new single, Voormann re-designed his famous Beatles Revolver album cover, drawing a picture of a young Cat Stevens along with himself and George Harrison.

A new pop album, Roadsinger, was released on 5 May 2009. The lead track, "Thinking 'Bout You", received its debut radio play on a BBC programme on 23 March 2009. Unlike An Other Cup, Yusuf promoted the new album with appearances on American television as well as in the U.K. He appeared on the Chris Isaak Hour on the A&E network in April 2009, performing live versions of his new songs, "World O'Darkness", "Boots and Sand", and "Roadsinger". On 13 May he appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles, and on 14 May, on The Colbert Report in New York City, performing the title song from the Roadsinger album. On 15 May, he appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, performing "Boots and Sand" and "Father and Son". On 24 May he appeared on the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show, where he was interviewed and performed the title track of Roadsinger. On 15 August, he was one of many guests at Fairport Convention's annual Fairport's Cropredy Convention where he performed five songs accompanied by Alun Davies, with Fairport Convention as his backing band.

A world tour was announced on his web site to promote the new album. He was scheduled to perform at an invitation-only concert at New York City's Highline Ballroom on 3 May and to go on to Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto, as well as some to-be-announced European venues. However, the New York appearance was postponed due to issues regarding his work visa. He appeared in May 2009 at Island Records' 50th Anniversary concert in London. In November and December 2009 Yusuf undertook his "Guess I'll Take My Time Tour" which also showcased his musical play Moonshadow. The tour took him to Dublin, where he had a mixed reception; subsequently he was well received in Birmingham and Liverpool, culminating in an emotional performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In June 2010 he tours Australia for the first time in 36 years,[97] and New Zealand for the first time ever. (rainbowdiplomacy.com/wikipedia/picture: Joko Susilo, Suara Merdeka)