"It will certainly bring happiness to a lot of my loyal fans,

and fulfilment to all those who have long-campaigned for it -

not to mention how kinda embarrassingly good it makes me feel too.

The sleepy Peace Train is beginning to chug its way slowly uphill, again."

Cat Stevens 'Taken Aback' By

Rock Hall Induction

"I'm not sure I feel very comfortable

being in a museum,

but you can't stop life doing things to you,"

Yusuf Islam says of his surprise selection...

Also: a "bluesy" album is eyed for late-2014

Whether he's called Cat Stevens or Yusuf (Islam), as he's been known since 1977, the iconic singer-songwriter is happy to be headed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"There's no problem. It's me," Yusuf tells Billboard, adding with a chuckle that,

"I don't think anybody should begrudge me the small satisfaction of this honor by giving it to someone else. I'm feeling very good about it, and it kind of affirms one of my lyrics (from 1971's 'The Wind'), which says 'Where I end up, what I think, only God really knows."

Yusuf, who was previously nominated for the Rock Hall in 2006, says the news that he'll be part of the class of 2014 -- being inducted April 10 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn -- came as "a big surprise. I was taken aback because I was kind of used to a, if you like, kind of status of self-detachment from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I see that the acceptance of me in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is kind of a rapproachment thing, which is very welcome. It's good because a lot of people may have, I don't know, taken different views about my life choices (his surprising and controversial conversion to Islam during 1977), but it's come back down to the music, which is good. When you start out in music you certainly don't see anything like this; you just do it because you love what you do. I'm not sure I feel very comfortable being in a museum, but you can't stop life doing things to you."

Yusuf says he plans to attend the induction ceremony but hasn't yet been asked to play.  "I'm hoping they'll go straight to Kiss," he says with a laugh. He is, however, working on a new album, his first since 2009's "Roadsinger," which he says has "a kind of bluesy" tone at the moment. 

"That's an area of my musical background and influence which has never really revealed itself to people," he notes. "It's something I've always wanted to do. Going back to the 60s, all of Britain was enamored with what was happening in the blues world, and I was one of those who was an avid fan of blues and R&B. And in the end my voice seems to be quite interestingly suited to that kind of genre, too, and I'm having a great time doing it." 

Yusuf says he hopes to have the album out before the end of 2014. 

Having completed a recent tour of South America, he also plans to perform live during 2014, though no dates are currently on the books. 

"I'm getting bombarded with lots of offers, and they're all very lovely, too," Yusuf says. "One of the things I find very enjoyable right now is to go to certain countries that I've never been to before and places that would never have dreamt of seeing me, perhaps, perform. I'm sort of ticking them off one by one, and there's so many great places to play. I'm picking and choosing where I like to go, and I make it quite a holiday for myself as well. I take the family along, and we have a great time."

Showbiz 411

Tillerman Strolls the Red Carpet

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF MY ENROLMENT into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will certainly bring happiness to a lot of my loyal fans, and fulfillment to all those who have long campaigned for it – not to mention how kinda tickled it makes me feel too.

But the happiest of all will be those curious characters and dusty vinyl discs that have been hiding in the shadows and waiting around all these years.

 I can see Teaser now, just before the sun sinks below the curvy hills, jumping on top of a dustbin and over the cracked wooden fence, vigorously shaking the Tillerman who abruptly wakes up, blinking and bemused:

“Is it tea-time?”
“No! We’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Uncle!”
“Screemeeow!” The Firecat adds as it thumps into Teaser’s behind.
“Ouch! Come on! Let’s go tell the Buddha-boy,” Teaser shouts, as he runs across the field with the Firecat racing behind him, trying to keep up.
“Watch out for the Bull!” cries the Tillerman, but too late. “Roaaaar!!” The Black Bull suddenly appears from behind a giant oak tree, but before it can charge, a little Buddha-boy jumps in front and catches its horns with his two hands; the Bull halts. Calming the Bull, the boy gently strokes its nose.
“There, there… Ommm.” The Buddha-boy looks at Teaser. “What’s the rush?”
“I wanted to tell you, we’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Isn’t that something?”
The Buddha-boy smiles serenely as the Bull purrs under his gentle hand. “Oh,” he says, nonchalantly. “Yes, it’s something… but is that all there is to life?”
At that moment, the Foreigner walks by and sneezes.
“Bless you!” Teaser says.
The Foreigner looks at Teaser. “Praise to God!” rejoins the stranger, who is wrapped in a long shawl made of coconut-palm leaves. “From Jamaica… my boat, she come.” He pauses and shivers. “It big, big cold in your country. Me go back now.”
“Goodbye,” Teaser bids the Foreigner farewell. “Tell your people back home that we just won a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
The Foreigner looks back, rather unimpressed, “They like Reggae… and Fats Domino. Bye, bye.”
Teaser looks around for the Firecat, who has hidden behind his trousers, obviously not liking like the look of that stranger. “Oh, there you are! Come on, we’ve got to tell the Polygons…” but before he can finish the sentence, a small flying saucer lands with a ‘plonk’ on the field. Out steps Trezlar the Third.
“What’s all the ruckus about?” the chubby little Polygon asks.
“We’re all included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Trezlar.”
“Ooooh! Does that mean I have to share my Banapple Gas with you from now on?” Trezlar asks, clearly concerned with keeping as much of that precious planetary nourishment to himself as possible.
“No, no. Don’t worry. It just means we’re more famous now and might have a few more fans.”
“Will they want to share my Banapple Gas?” Trezlar persists.
“No, don’t fret. But get ready for more play time.”
“That sounds good,“ says Trezlar, as he boards the small saucer and waves goodbye, disappearing up into the night sky.
Teaser and the Firecat see the Moon rising as their moonshadows stretch across the ground.
“Time to go home, Firecat.”
“Meooow.”

FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT FAMILIAR with my albums, those characters and that little story may be slightly baffling; but for those who had them, they may remember the small watercolor worlds which my album covers magically opened up in their minds, and the hours of contemplation spent looking at those quirky figures and imagining, while the soundtrack of their lives played on in the background.

With everything else that’s been written and said about my life choices since – and during – the creation of those albums, it’s good to see that people have re-evaluated my musical reveries after all these years and decided they have a nominal place in the history of music.

True, at one time – following my embracing of Islam – I was ready to cast the whole music thing behind me and get on with my new life far away from the spotlights, public appearances and adoring crowds.

In a letter to my record companies, I asked them to let me off my obligations, which involved producing another three albums. They graciously agreed… perhaps thinking that this was just another short-term spiritual excursion.

It wasn’t. The Cat never came back. Instead, I changed my name to Yusuf, decided to get married, and bought a small semi-detached house in Hampstead Garden Suburbs, London, a few doors away from my mother.

Time went on, but the spotlight didn’t stop following me. Soon I realized that there were a few people around who didn’t appreciate my newly discovered ‘unworldly’ path, and took a pretty antagonistic view. If they didn’t like Cat Stevens or his music before, they would definitely not like Yusuf Islam or his ‘religion’ now.

Meantime, I had children and opened what was to become the first state-run Muslim faith school in the U.K. Along with the Christian and Jewish children, Muslim children finally had their own place to play … and pray.

Read Rolling Stone Middle East's May 2011 feature on Yusuf here

Following on from there, witnessing all the humanitarian disasters befalling the poor nations of the world – particularly in Africa in 1985, and my invitation to sing a song I wrote for Live Aid, but which I regrettably never got to perform – I helped to establish an international relief organization and began work to support the growing numbers of the starving and the homeless, especially widows and orphans.

Prejudice, however, preceded me, and I was suddenly seen in a new, dark light. One tabloid printed a report that I had given all my money away to mosques and was living with a begging bowl, crisscrossing between Tehran and Qom! What, me? Where the heck was Qom anyway, I asked myself?

It felt strange that my words and dreams, all reflected so clearly in my songs and lyrics, were so soon forgotten in the rising dust created by world events. It didn’t help matters when I tried to explain the existential reality of my new universe; regretfully, too often I would fall into a trap, designed to box me in and present me as some kind of fanatic weirdo. If it was a ‘Wild World’ before, it got significantly wilder with my embrace of Islam. But isn’t that what I had foretold, myself?
If you wanna leave, take good care
Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there’s a lot of bad
And beware…
(“Wild World,” Tea For The Tillerman)

Foolishly, I had not heeded the warning within my own words. The ‘bad’ were certainly out there, and they had begun to distort the universal message of peace and mercy, which I and many other fellow Muslims believed and understood. Now it was to be an almost impossible task to explain the transcendent beauties of faith, while guns raged in the middle of a battlefield jam-packed with land mines; move in any direction and you’d find out.

Then it dawned on me: Even with the entire world sinking deeper into despair, we can still sing! The spirit of humanity can be subdued, but never vanquished. And nothing brings out that spirit like a good song. As a short film of Nelson Mandela I watched recently showed, he danced and smiled from East to West, saying, “It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world and at peace with myself.”

In 2001, after singing “Peace Train” for a tribute concert at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, in memory of the victims of 9/11, the sleepy train began to chug its way slowly uphill again.

In 2003, while living in Dubai, my son brought home a guitar. It was my first meeting with it since 1979. And suddenly a floodgate was opened. Playing some of my old songs made me weep; it was clear I had a new job to do.

After the Tsunami in late 2003, I wrote a song called “Indian Ocean.” For the first time since 1978, I had entered the studio with a bunch of musicians. We recorded the song and made it a free download for charity. The last words of the song were about finding a young, barely dressed orphan girl, stranded amidst the rancid ruins, after the flood had washed away both her parents and her home. The kind lady who found her alone on the shore, looking deep into her eyes, realized she was looking straight at Paradise.

The power of charity and human compassion must have been present when the judges of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame decided my history. It will no doubt do much to heal the scars that many years of separation have caused and help to reconnect people to my legacy, which still speaks loud and clear in my music. As the Tillerman might himself say:
So nice to see you coming back in this town again.
It’s nice to see a friendly face come peeping through,
Having tea in the afternoon…
(“Ruins,” Catch Bull At Four)

[RollingStone, 02.04.2014]

Art Garfunkel had the honor of inducting his friend Yusuf Islam into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight, and the Simon and Garfunkel Star did a fne job pointing out why the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens' music was so enduring.

"Sensitiviy with a bass voice - I should have thought of that," he lamented cheekily at one point. Later, he quipped: "This guy is better than Paul Simon!"

Garfunkel's comments weren't routed in jealousy, but rather admiration. And during his speech, his reverence for Islam#s music shone through; Garfunkel sang snippets of his songs and talked about why they mattered. Garfunkel also demonstrated plenty of respect for Islam as a person.

"He played with his persona the way he played with chord changes," Garfunkel says. And, later: "The most sincere seeker, a loving man with an ever-espanding embrace, my friend Yusuf Islam, the artist we call Cat Stevens."

Islam started his speech on a slightly bewildered note: "I never thought I'd be on the same stage as Kiss, to be honest."

The rest of his speech was rambling and often nonlinear ("Inducted - it sounds weird and medical"), covering the love he has for his family, the history of music (Beethoven's 9th symphony: "The best pop song ever written") and, finally, the paradox of his peace-loving, clean-living self being elected to the Hall of Fame.

"[He] doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't throw televisions out of hotel rooms and only sleeps with his wife," Islam said. "I'd say it was a very brave decision - and one which was unexpected and strangely, outrageously rock & roll. Peace."

[ultimateclassicrock.com, 10. April 2014]

The Hall of Fame ceremony performance by new inductee Yusuf Islam - the man formerly known as Cat Stevens - was one rooted in simplicity.

The professorial-looking musician strapped on an acoustic guitar and launched into 'Father and Son,' with only unterstated picking from Waddy Wachtel for accompaniment, including Paul Shaffer on keyboards and four vibrant backing vocalists. "All right - hey, okay," Stevens said after the performance. "These are two songs about leaving - this one is about waiting for a train to take me home."

Naturally next up was 'Peace Train,' which was even more elaborate: featuring a full choir of singers, yearning organ and nifty bass from the Rock Hall house band. Throughout it all, Islam's voice was powerful and longing, the lyrics he wrote in the early '70s still as vibrant and urgent today as they were 40 years ago.

[ultimateclassicrock.com, 10. April 2014]