Morning Has Broken

Cat Stevens schrieb Musik und Texte fast aller seiner Songs selbst.

Eine Ausnahme ist sein wahrscheinlich bekanntestes Lied "Morning Has Broken", dessen Geschichte seinen Ursprung im gälischen Sprachraum hat.

"I accidentally fell upon the song when I was going through a slightly dry period and I needed another song or two for Teaser And The Firecat. I came across this hymn book, found this one song, and thought, This is good. I put the chords to it and then it started becoming associated with me."

Die Melodie ist ein schottisches Volkslied, das oft in Hymnensammlungen zu finden ist und ursprünglich den Titel "Bunessan" (Ortschaft auf der schottischen Insel Mull) hatte. 

Der überlieferte gälische Text (Text des gälischen Weihnachtsliedes „Leanabh an àigh“/ „Kind der Freude“/ "Child In The Manger") stammte von Mary MacDonald (1789–1872) und mit diesem Text erschien die Melodie 1888 in der Sammlung "Songs and Hymns of the Gael":

Child in the manger, infant of Mary,

Outcast and Stranger, Lord of us all,

Child who inherits all our transgressions,

All our demerits upon Him fall.

Once the most holy Child of salvation
Gently and lowly lived here below.
Now as our glorious mighty Redeemer,
See Him victorious over each foe.

Prophets foretold Him, Infant of wonder;
Angels behold Him, King on His throne.
Worthy our Savior of all our praises;
Happy forever are all His own.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Cool the gray clouds roll peaking the mountains,
Gull in her free flight swooping the skies:
Praise for the mystery misting the morning
Behind the shadow waiting to shine.

I am the sunrise warming the heavens,
Spilling my warm glow over the earth:
Praise for the brightness of this new morning
Filling my spirit with Your great love.

Mine is a turning, mine is a new life;
Mine is a journey closer to You:
Praise for the sweet glimpse caught in a moment,
Joy breathing deeply dancing in flight.

1931 schrieb Eleanor Farjeon (britische Kinderbuchautorin, Lyrikerin und Dramatikerin) für eine neue Sammlung von Hymnen den neuen Text, der aus der Cat Stevens-Fassung bekannt ist. 

Dieser verwendete allerdings nicht den vollständigen Text der Autorin, sondern nur die ersten drei Strophen.

Es fallen die Klavierzwischenspiele auf, die dem Lied seinen ganz besonderen Reiz verleihen. Auch sie gehen nicht direkt auf Cat Stevens zurück, denn sie wurden während der Aufnahmesessions von dem Keyboarder Rick Wakeman eigentlich für eine seiner eigenen Instrumentalkompositionen, "Catherine Howard" vom Album "The Seven Wives of Henry VIII.", komponiert.

Er stellte sie für "Morning Has Broken" zur Verfügung, benutzte sie aber anschließend auch noch in abgewandelter Form für "Catherine Howard". 

Für diesen mehr als marginalen Beitrag zu "Morning Has Broken" wurde Wakeman nie angemessen entlohnt.

Ein Studiohonorar von damals 9 Pfund und 10 Schilling (ca. 20 Euro) ging anscheinend auf dem Postweg verloren...

Vergegenwärtigt man sich die Summen, die Cat Stevens mit diesem Titel verdient hat, ist es wohl verständlich, dass Wakeman auf Stevens seit damals nicht gut zu sprechen ist.

 (Quelle: jochenscheytt.de, wikipedia)

BEAUTY SECRETS

For instance, I asked him about a smelly rumor concerning him. "I've heard that you once told someone that you never washed because --, " I started.

"---it takes away your body oils," he finished for me. "Yeah, that's what my dad told me. He said that when you have a cold, the obvious thing is not to wash your body. And when I do wash, I don't use soap.

I never use soap. And that's a Swedish idea (Cat is part Swedish and part Greek), believe it or not. They hardly ever use soap on their faces. That's why they've got that kind of complexion.

I wash, but just in cold water. Apart from the hair, which actually does get so greasy I have to do it. By the way, I hardly catch any colds at all."

[Hit Parader Magazine, November 1974]

...DM 17,-... - in Worten: S I E B Z E H N !!

Das sind in €uro gerade mal 8,50 !!

Majikat World Tour 1976

...wenn man einfach mal kein' Bock mehr hat :-D

May : May 26.
Following the concert at the Palacio Municipal in Barcelona, Steve fractures his right heel while leaping down a flight of hotel stairs. He finishes the tour in a cast and considerable pain.

Cat meets Beatle :-)

Kopenhagen/ DK, 30. Sept. 1976

Während Steve sich in Kopenhagen befand, traf er in einem Hotel auf den Schlagzeuger der Beatles, Ringo Starr, und lud ihn in die Sweet Silence Studios ein, wo er derzeit sein Album Izitso aufnahm ツ ツ

Lady D'Arbanville

...wer hätte DAS gedacht ;-o

My Lady D'Arbanville

"Stevens wrote that song "Lady D'Arbanville" when I left for New York.

I left for a month, it wasn't the end of the world was it?

But he wrote this whole song about

'Lady D'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still.'

It's about me dead.

So while I was in New York, for him it was like I was lying in a coffin...

he wrote that because he missed me, because he was down...

It's a sad song."

Stevens told The Sunday Times July 26, 2009:

"My wife's a very possessive and jealous lady. She hates Lady D'Arbanville, so I changed it for her. I wrote a song called 'Angel of War,' based on the melody.

If I sang 'Hard Headed Woman' today, I'd say that's about my wife."

Singer Linda Lewis:

The night I asked my boyfriend

'Do you mind if I sleep with Cat Stevens?'

From a singer who knew EVERYONE (and we mean REALLY knew),

an uproariously scandalous - yet irresistibly funny - pop memoir

By Linda Lewis
20th June 2009

[...] Ian 'Sammy' Samwell was a record producer who'd written songs for Cliff Richard and the Small Faces. Sammy took me under his wing.

It was my break. One minute I was in the East End, the next I was strolling down Carnaby Street with Sammy. I couldn't believe my luck.

I left home at 17 after Mum discovered I'd started sleeping with Sammy.

I moved into a commune in Hampstead, London, with my lover.

I was now wearing hippie-clothes: see-through dresses and men's frilly shirts with no skirt.

I'd already released one single - a flop which had only succeeded in getting me better party invitations.

Our commune was made up of three girls and a number of men, including Sammy.

Over the next few years, exotic creatures like Marc Bolan, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, Rod Stewart and Elton John dropped by.

In those days everyone slept with everyone. If you said no, you were considered uptight.

It was late at night and Sammy was in a deep sleep beside me. 'Sammy, is it OK if I sleep with Cat Stevens?'

There was no reply, so I took his silence as approval and went ahead.

Cat Stevens wasn't his real name, of course - we all knew him as Steve Georgiou.

He lived with his parents in a flat above their restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue. Cat used to sit in our front room playing the guitar. That's where he wrote his beautiful song Moonshadow.

Cat, a sensitive and caring man, used to be fun. He always liked to have a muse. His first inspiration was his girlfriend Patti D'Arbanville, for whom he wrote Lady D'Arbanville.

His second was me. We'd talk about our childhood and he wrote Old School Yard for me.

I continued with my music, too, sitting in the kitchen in Hampstead strumming my songs.

That's how a Warner Brothers executive, who was a dinner guest at the commune, discovered me in 1971.

My on-off romance with Cat lasted several years. I was still seeing Sammy at the time, too. It was the Seventies, after all.

But soon Cat began to change. To put it kindly, he was searching for greater meaning in life. To put it bluntly, he was becoming a pain.

We went to an Islamic wedding before he converted and adopted the name Yusuf Islam in 1977.

Cat was clearly impressed with the orderliness of the Muslim faith.

At the reception, I didn't like the way the women were sent to the kitchen, while the men smoked.

If he didn't exactly lose his sense of humour, Cat certainly mislaid it for a while.

He started laying down the law when we toured the U.S., instructing us not to smoke joints or drink.

He carried a small prayer mat with him, which we would mock lightheartedly.

Cat responded by saying: 'You are not here to have fun.'

Strange  -  that's exactly what we all thought we were there for. [...]

(dailymail.co.uk)

Waschtag...

Simon Baffled By Cat Stevens Call

Singer CARLY SIMON once hung up on her former boyfriend CAT STEVENS when he phoned for a chat - because he identified himself with his new  Islam name.

Stevens, who changed his name to Yusaf Islam when he converted to the Muslim faith in 1977, called Simon, 62, to wish her a happy birthday - but gave her his newly adopted title.

She recalls, "The voice said, 'Hello, Carly, this is Yusef Islam.' And I said, 'I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name' and hung up.

"He called back and said the same thing, so I hung up again. Later in the day, he called again and this time he relinquished his name and said, 'Carly, it's Cat Stevens.' And I said, 'Oh, it's you, I love you!'"

[contactmusic.com, 12.05.2008]

Diary of a Studio Owner

"O.K.," he said. "That's all I want to know."
    
    
    It was a Thursday, about dusk, on a cold, blustery December day in central Massachusetts. Cat Stevens was taking a break from recording what would turn out to be his last long-playing record album. As we had learned to anticipate, the man could be short on patience, and sometimes rude. But this was show business, and we were there to please.
    "Markle, see that light over there on the horizon, the one that's blinking red?" Cat Stevens was pointing to an approach beacon serving the Worcester Airport, to the East of Long View, about ten miles distant.
    "Sure Steve," I replied, "what about it?"
    "Well, what I want to know is, if you drew a line between where I'm standing, and it extended out to that red light, and if it kept on going, where would it end up?"
    That was an easy question for a guy like me, and I didn't keep our famous guest waiting long for an answer.
    "Worcester Airport first, then Worcester, Massachusetts, then somewhere South of Boston... Plymouth, maybe."
    "No, damn it," Cat Stevens snapped. "I don't care about Massachusetts. I want to know, where would it end up?"
    "Hmmm..." I reflected. This was not your ordinary curve ball. Cat Stevens was fishing for something special, and I had to watch my step. The privileges of a rock 'n' roll host could give out on short notice under circumstances like these, and I needed the studio business.
    "Ah, ha! Steve," I resumed. "You want to know where you'd end up, if you followed the line right out over the Atlantic Ocean, and kept on going, right?"
    "That's right, Markle." Cat Stevens interrupted, tapping his fingers on the porch rail. His eyes were not on me, but drilled out over the valley, towards and past the spot of redness on the horizon which blinked and winked at us.
    "Well, let's see. We'd be heading East-by-Southeast. Plymouth on the mainland, then Eastham maybe on the Cape, then open ocean for three thousand miles or so, probable landfall, Southern Portugal — does that help?"
    "Yeah," Cat Stevens said. "Then where?"
    "I get a bit fuzzy here," I said, hoping to dodge the bullet which often fells the messenger. "South of Spain, Marbella, I guess. Then lots of Mediterranean Sea, Sicily, then a corner of Lebanon. Then Saudi Arabia, then..."
    "Wait," Cat Stevens said. "That's far enough. Just over that red light, you say?"
    "Yup." I said.
    "O.K." he said. "That's all I want to know."
    Cat Stevens wheeled about and disappeared into the house. A commotion then ensued at Long View Farm, as Cat Stevens' lieutenants sought out an appropriate window on the second floor, and a proper rug for the floor beneath the windowsill. A bit of incense was made to smoke in the corner.
    Looking out the window, sitting cross-legged on the rug, one could see a red light blinking on the horizon, and ever so far beyond it, in a land to which Cat Stevens greatly aspired during this cold winter of 1976, one could imagine the sight of steeples, and hallucinate the morning prayer calls, of Mecca.
    (Unless my directions were wrong, of course, and the man's thoughts had been directed to some smog-ridden bit of Eastern Europe instead, where people on the street wheezed and coughed and knew nothing of rock 'n' roll, or of the savior Allah so known by way of distinction, or of the demi-god Stephen Georgiou d.b.a. Cat Stevens, or even of Long View Farm, the countryside recording studio in central Massachusetts.)
    "God help me and this strange avocation," I thought.
    It was a few days later that a long limousine pulled onto the pebbled drive of the Farm, discharging a pretty young lady in her twenties. Instead of leaving, the limousine pulled over under the big tree, and sat, engine idling. The young lady, who was carrying a plastic-wrapped man's dinner jacket over one arm, on a hanger, explained that she was a friend of Cat Stevens, and that she wanted to see him. She was announced as such to the recording artist, who agreed to see her immediately. They disappeared upstairs into the bedroom we called "The Crow".
    This was a short visit. The young lady came back down the stairs some fifteen minutes later, now without the dinner jacket. Her eyes were teary and red. She sniffed loudly and swept through the kitchen and out the door without a word of good-bye to anyone, including Cat Stevens himself, and ran across the drive to the waiting limousine, which began its forward roll down and off the property even before the young lady had closed the rear door of the big car behind her.
    For his part, Cat Stevens stormed down the stairs from The Crow and back into the recording studio, slamming the door behind him.
    It was only a few moments later that he announced that he, too, would be leaving the Farm, the very next day. This was about a week earlier than anyone had expected.
    "Steve," I asked later that night, "what's up? I know we've had some problems with the 24-track machine, and I can tell from across a room that you're not overjoyed with the vocals you've been doing, but is that a reason to bail out so soon? We've only recently gotten into a stride."
    "That's not it at all," Stephen Georgiou said.
    "Well, is it the daily rate, then? We could always take another look at that."
    "No," he said, wearily. "It's not that either." "Look," he said, "I don't want to talk about it. Maybe another time. In the meanwhile, take this..."
    Cat Stevens reached behind him, and took the black dinner jacket off the back of a chair, where he had put it a few moments earlier.
    "It should fit you. I'm not going to needing this either, where I'm going."
    "Where, Steve," I asked? "Where are you going?"
    Cat Stevens went over to the window overlooking the valley, and pointed towards Mecca.
    "There." he said. ¹

     ¹ Back to Earth, recorded by and large at Long View Farm, was in fact the last LP that Cat Stevens made. Shortly after his departure from the Farm, he sold his guitars and recording paraphernalia at auction in London, and announced his retirement from show business and conversion to the Islam religion. His name is now Yusaf Islam.

[Quelle]

Pyjama

Postkarte von 1976

Neulich bei ebay...

Early 70s Alice mixing console

owned by Cat Stevens for refurbishment/repair

(ends 23. Sep. 2009  22:30:12 MESZ)

Vintage, early 70s

ALICE (TRACKPLAN) CONSOLE

for refurbishment/repair

This auction is for a one-off, custom made console built for Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam).

Yusuf said he'd kindly post a link on his website to this auction which will hopefully be up by the time you read this.

It was built in 1972 (just after Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and The Firecat were recorded) by a company called Alice for whom Ted Fletcher worked (who now makes his own TFPro gear www.tfpro.com ). I managed to speak to Ted on the phone (very nice chap) and, while he was unable to provide any technical specifications, recalled building and delivering the desk personally.

Other than that, all I've had to go on is internet research

of which there's slim pickings.
Being a member of the infinitely useful Sound On Sound forum I tried there (I'm OneManBanned) and the resulting thread saw contributions from Hugh Robjohns, Sound On Sound Magazine's technical editor.

Please read the following for further information:

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=757309&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#

Post762830#757309

About the desk:
For the past decade or so it's been sat in garage-like storage unused. I'm not sure when it was last functioning but I will try to find out.
After inspecting it for photos, i'd say that the components, minus a screw here or there, are all present APART FROM the components under the right-hand panel. They may all be there but this area will need the most work - I have no specialist knowledge of this kind of thing, nor do i have and spec sheets so I can't say for sure.

It looks as though the input/output panel + power switch was rear mounted which is still connected to the, currently detached, power supply. Underneath the main desk to the right is a patchbay which, unlike most of the other components, looks quite rusty, but this would be one of the cheaper, easier parts to replace.

Cosmetically most of the components look fine. I opened up one of the compressors and it look as good as new inside. The green leather covering has obviously not fared so well. The underside has split and sags and, as you can see from the photos, the sides have become discoloured. The left-hand wooden cheek has been lost at some stage - underneath can be seen the words 'Cat Stephens' (sic) in pencil. Many of the original pencil marks and labelling are still present including a 'MISSION ABORT' button!

The winning bidder will have to collect from Highbury & Islington area, North London. The unit is large and will most likely need to be dismantled for transport.
This auction is for the desk AS IS, ie what you see is what you get. It does not currently work and will need to be repaired.

Dazu schreibt Steve am 14. Sept. 2009 in seinem Blog:

12:26 Ye Ol'Green Desk

"One time we hauled the 32 channel Midas console, a MCI 24 track recorder, studio monitor speakers, an EMT digital reverb and a bunch of other gear to Jane Fonda's "spare" house in Santa Barbara, Ca. It must have been about 1977-78 or so. The idea was to spend a week or two putting down some basic tracks for the next Cat Stevens Album. Here is Cat Stevens at the console." [crossroads audio, Dallas]

Thursday 10th February 2011

(www.yusufislam.com)

Stockholm...Road back home

Due to overwhelming public demand the ‘Yusuf in Concert’ tour will now begin in Stockholm on 7th May. Fans who purchased tickets for Herning will be given a full refund or an option to transfer to Stockholm.

Sweden is particularly dear to Yusuf with it being his Motherland. He went to school there when he was eight and it was his uncle, Hugo, who first inspired him to take up art as a career. Now finally on 7th of May, for the first time in 33 years, the Scandinavian audience will have there chance to welcome him home again and reconnect with the musical journey of Yusuf.

Register members of the Redroom on yusufislam.com will be sent an email shortly with details of special presale tickets for the Stockholm Concert which will go on general sale on Feb 14th.

Moscheenbesuch in Berlin

Heute trafen sich 30 „Schöneberger“ bei winterlichen Temperaturen und Schneegestöber, um die Sehitlik-Moschee am Columbiadamm in Tempelhof zu besichtigen. Die meisten von uns sind schon mal an ihr vorbeigefahren und hatten den Wunsch, diese einmal von innen zu sehen - andere kannten sie bereits. Zum Aufwärmen holten sich viele schnell noch einen heißen Tee und dann wurden wir auch schon von einem netten, jungen Mann türkischer Abstammung begrüßt. Wir hatten das Glück, dass gerade ein Brautpaar an uns vorbei ging und ich drückte noch schnell auf den Auslöser. Im Nachhinein stellte sich heraus, dass die Braut die Tochter von Cat Stevens (jetzt Yusuf Islam) ist. Bei Durchsicht der Fotos musste ich feststellen, dass Cat Stevens am rechten Bildrand sogar zu sehen ist. [...]

[Feierabend.de, 03.02.2012]

Am Tag vor der US-Präsidentenwahl 2012 (-: