Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens (Steven Georgiou) was one of the most intelligent and original singer-songwriters of the early 1970s. His songs merged a melodism of Mediterranean ancestry, Greek-Slavic rhythms and above all an intense tone, sometimes melodramatic, sometimes quietly philosophical and sometimes meditational as in Zen. Whether he talked or sang, Stevens had the gift of a psychological style that was both lucid and devious. His songs were bitter-sweet realist parables, neither ecstatic like those of hippies nor melancholy like those of Greenwich Village folksingers.

Matthew And Son (Deram, 1967) introduced him as the consumer singer. Matthew And Son climbed the charts, as well as Here Comes My Baby (but in the interpretation of the Tremeloes). New Masters (Deram, 1968) contains The First Cut Is The Deepest .

In 1969 he miraculously saved himself from a serious attack of tuberculosis and was seized by the first existential crisis. Having abandoned the ambitions of classification, Mona Bone Jakon (A&M, 1970) presented an intellectual with a complex personality who faced situations of everyday life. Stevens accompanied his piano ballads with a style that was more classical than rock. At his side there was also a skilled guitarist, Alun Davies, a veteran of Jon Mark 's Sweet Thursday (as well as the young flutist Peter Gabriel ).
Lady D'Arbanville, a celestial folk serenade at the same time enthralling, opened her courteous songbook, while Trouble and in Maybe You're Right they inaugurated a dialogue-form for adult ballads sung in a "lived-in" tone. The most vehement, I Think I See The Light, was the manifesto of his obsessive rhythmic progressions, put to use even in the catchiest song I Wish I Wish. Kathmandu raised a moving ode to the capital of transcendental meditation. The album was patchy and fragmentary, but contained all the elements of his future career in a nutshell.

Tea For The Tillerman (A&M, 1970) refined Cat Stevens' intimism into an even more elegiac form of introverted ballad. Sweet melodies explore the love relationship but also more existential subjects. The moving meditation of Into White , the epic and poignant denunciation of Wild World , the tender portrait of Sad Lisa , the vibrant serenade of Hard Headed Woman and the calm wisdom of Father And Son are small miracles of human warmth. In all of which Stevens demonstrates an unsurpassed ability in dealing with universal themes with the tone of the common man, in outlining a story, a face, a situation with a few intense poetic touches, in transforming a refrain into a atmosphere; an inexhaustible flair for the most crystalline melody. And outside the standard songbook are more aggressive rhythmic experiments ( Miles To Nowhere , On The Road To Find Out and Longer Boats ) which draw on Slavic and Middle Eastern folklore as well as British folklore.
The piano is the second voice here, sometimes voiced by the guitar, even if the most sentimental effects are obtained by the violin, counterpoint of the most romantic moments. Stevens draws only indirectly from folk, his is a figure of a modern, existential and psychological minstrel, immersed in a real world, of generational conflicts and political violence, attracted by the rural world and Indian spiritualism.

Stevens was at the peak of his compositional skills and prepared a valuable sequel, Teaser And The Firecat (1971). Stevens touches other peaks of introspection, especially when, enraptured in an ecstasy of supreme sweetness, he gathers to contemplate a natural landscape, as in the gentle chant of Moon Shadow. Equally original, he succeeds in the rhythmic party of Tuesday's Dead and in the heroic soul of Peace Train, two of the most melodramatic moments of his career. In the delicate impressionism of Morning Has Broken, his melodic peak, of religious intensity, is the quintessence of his parsimonious arrangements: introduction of the theme to the solo piano, chorus to the rhythm of the guitar, gospel reprise of the piano, second chorus with hopelessly moved choir and a collective ending.

Stevens moved away from the folk ballad with Catch Bull At Four (1972), an album set on more vigorous tones, more aggressive rhythms, arrangements of strings and winds, more elaborate trends. Emphasis harms reflection, and much more rhythmic songs like Can't Keep It In, lose in poetry what they acquire in enthusiasm. Sitting is the most forceful song, propelled by harsh piano syncopes and voiced by an angelic choir; even neurasthenic seems to be 18th Avenue Nightmare , complete with a string section, the only one to guess a distressed melody that recalls the poignant tenderness of the beginning. All three guiding themes seem to aspire to a violent, epic, superhuman pathos (Freezing Steel even uses synths and a hard-rock riff).

The Foreigner suite (1973) explicitly brings to light Slavic and Mediterranean folklore, with often fascinating results but also with the effect of dispersing lyricism under kilos of heavy arrangements.

Buddha And The Chocolate Box (1974), Numbers (1975), with the catchy Banapple Gas , Izitso (1977), the best of this season (containing the enthralling Old Schoolyard and the instrumental dance music of Was Dog A Donut), and Back To The Earth (1978) are mediocre albums that terminated his musical relevance.

Seized by a mystical crisis, in 1977 Cat Stevens converted to the Muslim religion, abandoned the music scene, renounced all rights to his records and (a few years later) changed its name again, this time Yusuf Islam. In 1989 he approved the death sentence of the writer Salman Rushdie for having offended the prophet Mohammed and in 1991 he defended his "Muslim brother" Saddam Hussein (and thank goodness he called himself a "moderate").

His "Islamic" career began only 16 years later, with The Life Of The Last Prophet (1995), I Have No Cannons That Roar (1997), Prayers Of The Last Prophet (1998) and the double A Is For Allah (2000), which are collections of various music (his and others) and recitations, for semi-propaganda purposes.