Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens / Yusuf (2015)

Cat Stevens , also Yusuf (* 21st July 1948 as Steven Demetre Georgiou in London bourgeois, since 1978, Yusuf Islam ), is a British singer and songwriter . He plays the guitar and piano and is musically assigned to folk and soft rock . His best-known publications include Matthew & Son (1966), Lady D'Arbanville, Father and Son (both 1970), Wild World , Moon Shadow and Morning Has Broken (all 1971). In the course of his career he has sold more than 24.4 million records. His most successful release is the album Greatest Hits , which sold around 5.2 million times.

Life

He grew up as the son of the Cypriot Greek Stavros Georgiou and the Swede Ingrid Wickman in the London borough of Soho , where his father owned the Moulin Rouge restaurant. Today he lives with his family in London and Dubai .

Career as Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens (1966)

At the beginning of his career he played in cafes and pubs. He had initially tried to form a band, but then decided to work solo. Since he did not believe that his maiden name would be available to a wide audience, he first appeared as "Steve Adams" and then chose the stage name "Cat" after a friend said he had the eyes of a cat and "Stevens" as a derivation of his first name. He said:

“I couldn't imagine anyone going into the record store to ask about the Stephen Demetri Georgiou album. And animals are loved in England and certainly also in America. "

- Cat Stevens

In 1966 he came into contact with producer and manager Mike Hurst, who gave him a recording contract with Deram Records . The first single I Love My Dog became a respectable hit in the top 30, the two follow-up singles Matthew & Son and I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun were top ten hits. The Tremeloes covered the title Here Comes My Baby on their debut album Matthew & Son (March 1967) and reached number 4 in the UK charts. In 1967 Cat Stevens toured with various artists such as Engelbert Humperdinck , The Walker Brothers and Jimi Hendrix . His second album New Masters , which was released in December 1967, did not make it into the charts, although one track from it, The First Cut Is the Deepest , was successfully covered by PP Arnold and later by other artists. In early 1968, Cat Stevens became seriously ill with tuberculosis . He spent three months in the hospital and took another nine months to recover. During this time he wrote many songs that appeared on his next albums. He dealt with religion and meditation techniques and changed his appearance in 1969 by getting a full beard. In the same year he began performing regularly with acoustic guitar .

Since his following singles were not commercially successful either and he was no longer satisfied with the orchestration of his songs by Mike Hurst, his record contract was not renewed. He signed a recording deal with Island Records in Europe in 1969 and one with A&M Records in the United States in 1970. Chris Blackwell, head of Island Records, promised him extensive artistic freedom. The former Yardbirds musician Paul Samwell-Smith , who brought Alun Davies in as a studio musician, was hired as the new producer . This complemented each other so well with Cat Stevens that he worked with him until 1978 and again from 2006.

In April 1970, the single Lady D'Arbanville was released, in which he described his broken relationship with Patti D'Arbanville . This was the first time that Cat Stevens was back in the top ten in Great Britain, which, like the album Mona Bone Jakon (May 1970), differed significantly from his first two albums. Mona Bone Jakon is more folk rock and not purely pop-oriented and thus showed the artistic path of the two upcoming albums. His next album, Tea for the Tillerman , released in November 1970, was the definitive artistic and commercial breakthrough. The album contains the tracks Where Do the Children Play, Hard-Headed Woman, Wild World and Father and Son , which were played frequently on the radio and made Cat Stevens' increasingly popular. In 1971 he was responsible for the soundtrack of the film Harold and Maude , for which he composed the two songs Don't Be Shy and If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out , which were only available for purchase in 1984 (in Germany as early as 1981). The Harold and Maude soundtrack album was n't released until 36 years later.

In September 1971 the album Teaser and the Firecat came out, which, like its predecessor, contains many well-known tracks such as Tuesday's Dead, The Wind, Rubylove, Moonshadow, Peace Train and Morning Has Broken , with which Cat Stevens consolidated his international success. This was followed by a tour of the United States. In September 1972 his first number one album was released in the United States, Catch Bull at Four with Sitting and Can't Keep It In, which sounds less acoustic. Between August and November 1972 he toured Australia, Japan and the United States under the title Moonshadow Tour . In 1973 he released the album Foreigner in Jamaica in a more soul-oriented sound with accompanying musicians . In August 1974 he left Great Britain for tax reasons, settled in Brazil and did not officially return to his homeland until September 1979.

Cat Stevens (1976)

The album Buddha and the Chocolate Box (with Oh Very Young and Ready), which was released in March 1974, was musically more of a return to Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat - Alun Davies was there again as guitarist and background singer. A sold out world tour, called the Bamboozle Tour, followed between March and July 1974 . In July 1975 his first, very successful, greatest hits album was released, from which the tracks Two Fine People and Another Saturday Night were released as singles. In November followed the less successful concept album Numbers (A Pythagorean Theory Tale) , which was recorded in Canada . The world tour The Majikat Earth Tour , which followed in November 1975 , he broke off in June 1976 in Greece due to insufficiently sold out halls. A concert recording of this tour was released in 2004 on the Majikat DVD . In May 1977 the album Izitso was released with (Remember the Days of the) Old Schoolyard , which had been recorded in the United States and Denmark without Alun Davies.

Turning to Islam and a musical break

Yusuf Islam (2008)

In 1975 he almost drowned off Malibu (California) and called it a divine decree that a wave had carried him back to the shore. On December 30, 1977 he gave up his stage name Cat Stevens. His brother David Gordon had previously given him a Koran , which he said had completely changed his life. After converting to Islam in December 1977 , he changed his name to Yusuf Islam on July 4, 1978, and for the time being refrained from releasing any other phonograms. Before this major turning point, his music had been the most important thing to him. According to his own admission, he had always rejected the associated fame as well as the hype about himself.

For contractual reasons he released another album as Cat Stevens in December 1978 with Island / A & M Records. This album was titled Back to Earth , with Alun Davies again as guitarist and co-composer on two songs and Paul Samwell-Smith as co-producer. He made his last appearance as a pop star on November 22, 1979 at the benefit concert Year of the Child . He married Fauzia Ali on September 7, 1979, and over the years became a father of six.

A new musical beginning as Yusuf Islam

It was not until 1995 that he began to publish his own music again on a modest scale, but as Islamic music without guitar accompaniment (only singing with percussion instruments) it differed significantly from his earlier works. During this time he rejected the guitar because, according to him, as a "Western instrument" it did not fit his religious attitudes. But his son finally got him to play the guitar again.

At the beginning of 1997 he was seen as Yusuf at a concert in Sarajevo for the first time in 17 years on a public stage. In 1998 the artist supported the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the charity CD I Have No Cannons That Roar . In 2000 he released the children's album A Is for Allah . In 2003, he took Peace Train for a compilation CD new and thus entered the 46664 concert of Nelson Mandela with Peter Gabriel on.

Career as Yusuf

In 2004 he reappeared as "Yusuf" in the pop charts after the Cat Stevens song Father and Son had been re-recorded in a duet with Irish singer Ronan Keating . In March 2005 the title Indian Ocean was released as a download single, the proceeds of which will benefit the victims of the 2004 tsunami . Musically, this title was a connection to the earlier career, which ended in 1978 under the stage name Cat Stevens. In May 2005 Yusuf performed in Neuss at a charity event against landmines and sang Let It Be in a duet with Paul McCartney . On November 10th, 2006 he released an album with mostly new songs as Yusuf after almost 28 years with An Other Cup . Its name is a reference to his 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman , on the cover of which a cup is depicted. According to the artist, part of the proceeds will go to charity. On July 7th, 2007 he had another short appearance as part of the Live Earth concert in Hamburg 's Volksparkstadion . On March 25, 2007 he received the Echo Special Prize for his life's work as a musician and ambassador between cultures.

In February 2007 the first album of his son Muhammad Islam was released under the pseudonym "Yoriyos", Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, on which Yusuf also participated and which was clearly influenced by the folk musicians and singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s (including his father) can be found. In October 2008 Yusuf supported the human rights organization "Survival International" with the title Edge of Existence . In January 2009 he and Klaus Voormann released the George Harrison title The Day the World Gets Round as a download single, the proceeds of which will go to children in the Gaza Strip . The Day the World Gets Round and another Harrison song sung by Yusuf, All Things Must Pass, appeared in July 2009 on the album A Sideman's Journey by Voormann & Friends. In May 2009, Yusuf's second album Roadsinger - To Warm You Through the Night was released.

In April 2009 he appeared on Bayerischer Rundfunk , followed by a short tour (the first since 1976) through Great Britain and Ireland from November to December. Another tour followed in June and July 2010 through Australia and New Zealand. In March 2011, Yusuf released the free download single My People, which deals with the social and political changes in the Arab world in early 2011; from May to June 2011 he was on a European tour. In October 2014, the album Tell 'em I'm gone, which was largely produced by Rick Rubin , was released , with five cover versions (including Big Boss Man by Luther Dixon and Al Smith, The Devil Came From Kansas by Procol Harum and Dying To Live by Edgar Winter ) and contains five own compositions. The London concert on his Peace Train… late again tour was sold out in three minutes. On this tour he also gave concerts in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. As on his website, he used the stage names Cat Stevens / Yusuf equally.

social commitment

Yusuf Islam is involved in aid projects under the umbrella of the United Nations in Kosovo , Iraq , but also in his hometown of London. In 1983, he founded the Islamia primary school in London, along with other Muslim schools, which in 1988 was the first Muslim school in Great Britain to receive government support. After the London bombings in July 2005 , Yusuf was appointed to a British government advisory team to help fight Islamic extremism.

Controversies and criticism of Yusuf Islam

In a BBC television discussion in 1989, Yusuf Islam supported the fatwa of the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini , which sentenced the writer Salman Rushdie to death for his novel The Satanic Verses . When asked by the talk show host and Crown Attorney Geoffrey Robertson, he confirmed with "Yes - Yes!" That, in his opinion, Rushdie "deserves to die". He, Yusuf, however “does not necessarily” have an obligation to kill Rushdie, “unless we are in an Islamic country and an order from a judge or a government agency instructs me to do such an act - then maybe, ! yes "to whether he is on the symbolic issue in-effigy would participate -Cremation Rushdie, he replied:" I would have photoshoped did it'd be the real thing. ”He stated that he had carried out a letter campaign against Rushdie's book, but that he had never endorsed his murder. He later distanced himself again from the murder call.

In a 1996 interview with the Berliner Zeitung , he replied to the question of what he thought of the death penalty for expressing an opinion : “In Islam, nobody is punished for saying he does not believe. Well, then he doesn't think so. But if someone does blasphemy , it means that he no longer obeys a single law, and then he must be punished accordingly. Even with Jesus , blasphemy was stoned . ”At the same time, he called his refusal to shake hands with women,“ a detail about which one is far too excited ”. In this interview, when asked if he saw homosexuality as an expression of loss of values , he replied : "It is a sin."

In 2000, Israel refused him entry and deported him because he had donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Hamas terrorist organization . Because he was now on a list of terrorist suspects, the United States also refused him entry in September 2004 . In an interview with Larry King on CNN he said, in his opinion was based refusal of entry on an error. The FBI officer who interrogated him misspelled the name “Yusuf”, which is why he believes that the actual terror suspect is a namesake with a different first name and that the US authorities refused to admit this mistake. On his former website, the artist himself commented on various controversies, including Salman Rushdie, the subject of supporting terrorism and his relationship with (unveiled) women.

Honors

• In 2003 he received the World Social Award .
• In 2004 he received the Man for Peace Award, which is presented by a committee of Nobel Peace Prize winners.
• In 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire for his community and humanitarian efforts .
• In 2007 he received an echo for his life's work. He received it as a special award and was named "Ambassador between cultures".
• In 2009 he was honored with the German Sustainability Award for his humanitarian commitment.

Discography

→ Main article : Cat Stevens / Discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks / months, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , rankings, weeks / months, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1967	Matthew & Son Dream Records	-	-	-	UK7 (16 weeks) UK	US173 (12 weeks) US	First published March 10, 1967 as Cat Stevens
	New Masters Dream Records	-	-	-	-	-	First published: December 1967 as Cat Stevens
1970	Mona Bone Jakon Island Records	DE- platinum DE	-	-	UK63 (4 weeks) UK	US164 gold (16 weeks)US	First published: April 24, 1970 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 600,000
	Tea for the Tillerman Island Records	DE43 platinum (½ month)DE	AT- gold AT	-	UK20th gold (31 weeks)UK	US8th × 3 Triple platinum (79 weeks)US	First published: November 23, 1970 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 3,710,000
1971	Teaser and the Firecat Island Records	DE23 platinum (12 months)DE	-	CH- gold CH	UK2 gold (93 weeks)UK	US2 × 3 Triple platinum (67 weeks)US	First published: October 1, 1971 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 3,750,000
1972	Catch Bull at Four Island Records	DE17 (8 months) DE	-	-	UK2 (27 weeks) UK	US1 platinum (48 weeks)US	First published: September 27, 1972 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 1,000,000
1973	Foreigner Island Records	DE18 (4 months) DE	-	-	UK3 gold (10 weeks)UK	US3 gold (43 weeks)US	First published: July 25, 1973 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 600,000
1974	Buddha and the Chocolate Box Island Records	DE34 (3 months) DE	AT3 (3 months) AT	-	UK3 gold (15 weeks)UK	US2 platinum (36 weeks)US	First published: March 21, 1974 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 1,100,000
1975	Numbers (A Pythagorean Theory Tale) Island Records	DE20 (10 months) DE	-	-	-	US13 gold (19 weeks)US	First published: November 1975 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 500,000
1977	Izitso Island Records	DE7 (5½ months) DE	AT12 (3 months) AT	-	UK18th silver (15 weeks)UK	US7th gold (23 weeks)US	First published: May 28, 1977 as Cat Stevens ; Sales: + 610,000
1978	Back to Earth Island Records	DE32 (14 weeks) DE	-	-	-	US33 (15 weeks) US	First published: December 3, 1978 as Cat Stevens
2006	To Other Cup Polydor Records / Ya Records	DE2 × 3 Triple gold (29 weeks)DE	AT2 (16 weeks) AT	CH14 (12 weeks) CH	UK20th gold (8 weeks)UK	US52 (11 weeks) US	First published: November 10, 2006 as Yusuf ; Sales: + 400,000
2009	Roadsinger Island Records	DE9 (9 weeks) DE	AT10 (6 weeks) AT	CH43 (5 weeks) CH	UK10 silver (7 weeks)UK	US41 (9 weeks) US	First published: May 1st, 2009 as Yusuf ; Sales: + 60,000
2014	Tell 'em I'm Gone Legacy Recordings	DE26 (5 weeks) DE	AT15 (5 weeks) AT	CH39 (3 weeks) CH	-	US24 (2 weeks) US	First published: October 24, 2014 as Yusuf
2017	The Laughing Apple Decca Records	DE4 (8 weeks) DE	AT26 (2 weeks) AT	CH33 (2 weeks) CH	-	US20 (2 weeks) US	First published: September 15, 2017 as Cat Stevens / Yusuf

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

literature

• US singles: Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2006. Billboard Books, New York 2007, ISBN 0-89820-172-1 .
• US albums: The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Cat Stevens  - Quotes

Commons : Cat Stevens  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Artist's website
• Andrian Kreye : Interview with Yusuf Islam: A new generation is climbing the "Peace Train". (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2011)
• Literature by and about Cat Stevens in the catalog of the German National Library
• Cat Stevens in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Cat Stevens at laut.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Steven Demetre Georgiou to Cat Stevens to Yusuf Islam. time.com.
2. ↑ Cat Stevens - "Lady d'Arbanville" . ndr.de. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
3. ↑ Chinese Whiskers FAQ ( Memento from October 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Mountain of Light
4. ↑ ^{a b} Cat Stevens' son makes music debut nme.com.
5. ^ Yusuf Islam at Bayerischer Rundfunk April 23, 2009 ( Memento from April 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) BR3
6. ↑ kurier.at
7. ↑ yusufislam.com
8. ↑ yusufislam.com
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Sat.1 Music Special, October 29, 2006
10. ↑ Support for the appeal for murder in a television discussion (in the film from 1:01:25).
11. ↑ The video is currently on three different websites: archive.org , tinypic.com , aura-of-arc.blogspot.com ( Memento from July 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Yusuf Islam's stance is also clearly expressed in an article on the orthodox Islamic website IslamOnline.net of July 15, 2000 (“ Yusuf Islam Deported From Israel ”): “ He made headlines when he supported the death sentence issued by Iran against author Salman Rushdie ” islamonline.net ( Memento from December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
12. ↑ Interview with Yusuf Islam: "I thought punk rock was a wonderful thing" ( Memento from December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) sueddeutsche.de (via Web Archive)
13. ↑ Ex-singer Cat Stevens praises the Prophet on a CD - I am now speaking with all of Islam within me . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 7, 1996.
14. ↑ rollingstone.com ( Memento from December 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
15. ↑ Didn't He Say "Kill Rushdie!"? 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). 
16. ↑ Yusuf Islam Wants to See Salman Rushdie Burnt, Right? 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). 
17. ^ What About 9/11 and Terrorism? 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). 
18. ↑ Didn't He Support Hamas? 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). 
19. ↑ He Won't Talk to Unveiled Women, Right? 2008, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). 
20. ↑ Yusuf Islam receives “Nobel of Nobels” islam.de
21. ↑ ^{a b} ndr2.de ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )