Yusuf / Cat Stevens takes fans

on career ride in Toronto

The peace train is full steam ahead once again.

The man formerly known as Cat Stevens, now going by the official handle Yusuf / Cat Stevens, kicked off his acoustic A Cat's Attic Tour before a sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Sony Centre for the Performing Arts on Monday night.

It was all in in celebration of his 50th anniversary of his first single, I Love My Dog, released way back in 1966.

The notoriously reclusive singer-songwriter was anything but, as he opened up with stories behind some of his most famous songs.

Dressed in jeans and a grey T-shirt, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was greeted to a standing ovation before he even played a single note.

And despite it being only his second North American tour since 1978, there were no signs of rust as he launched into Where Do the Children Play? off of his classic 1970 album, Tea For the Tillerman.

The stage looked like something out of a Broadway play, with a full moon shining over a cabin, complete with rustic chairs, boxes of vinyl records and a smoking chimney.

His backing band which included Eric Appapoulay on guitar and Kwame Yeboah on bass, piano and percussion - were outstanding, and even had Yusuf looking back at them at certain points in amazement.

He told stories early on about his love for Natalie Wood and West Side Story, wanting to be a member of the Beatles (which segued into a stunning version of Love Me Do), and the Neil Diamond-composed I’m a Believer (made famous by the Monkees) keeping him at No. 2 on the charts, a song that he stated was “horrible” (in jest, of course).

Meanwhile, one fan screamed out “Toronto loves you!" between songs, and Yusuf responded with one thumb up and said with a wry smile, "They give me such a hard time getting in here."

Well played, sir.

A rousing version of The First Cut Is the Deepest had those in attendance back up on their feet again, with Yusuf looking genuinely thrilled by the thunderous applause.

After shunning the spotlight for decades, it seems he's come to grips with his rock star past.

He told a tale of his brush with death after almost drowning in the ocean of the California coast in 1976, which was the catalyst for his switch from rock star to philanthropist. "I made a promise that if God saved me, I'd work for him," Yusuf said, as he belted out a great cover of The Impressions' People Get Ready.

Other standouts included Bad Night, which he told a tale of debauchery in his early days on the road: "You smoke and you drink like one does... especially when you tour with Jimi Hendrix."

The hits were out in full force as well, with Father and Son (with the crowd in full sing-a-long mode), Peace Train, Morning Has Broken and Another Saturday Night all being played in the last half of the set.

The two-and-a-half hour journey all came to a close with a stunning version of Wild World, and it ended the way it started – with fans on their feet.

"I hope you're enjoying this trip,” Yusuf remarked.

We sure did.

[torontosun.com, 13. Sept. 2016]

Forty years later, morning breaks again

for Yusuf/Cat Stevens

at Philly's Kimmel Center

Yusuf / Cat Stevens Revives Beloved Classics in Moving New York Return

Legendary singer-songwriter offers two career-spanning sets

of hits, anecdotes at first full NYC show in four decades

The singer-songwriter now known simply as Yusuf didn't mention his religion by name during his Monday show at New York's Beacon Theatre. But at one point – late in the second of two deeply moving sets filled with classic songs – he did reference the backlash he encountered during the years when he left behind both his old stage moniker, Cat Stevens, and his career as a secular musician to pursue a life of Islamic faith. When he spoke to the crowd about inciting an "awful lot of anger," everyone in attendance knew what he meant.

"We're sorry!" a man in the crowd yelled in response to the remark. "I'm all forgiven!" said Yusuf, miming a sigh of relief. Though his public image may never fully recover from the hateful remarks he made against Salman Rushdie in 1989 amid the heated controversy over the author's The Satanic Verses, the legendary artist's current stage show, billed as an evening in "A Cat's Attic," nevertheless felt like a heartfelt olive branch extended to fans who might be inclined to give him another shot.

The show's title wasn't just an abstract idea; it was a blueprint for how the concert looked and felt. For his first full New York concert in 40 years, Yusuf entered the stage strumming the opening chords of "Where Do the Children Play?" while standing in front of a backdrop showing an urban skyline at night, illuminated by a gleaming full moon. The curtain soon fell away, revealing a cutaway of an attic, which, as Yusuf explained, was a re-creation of his childhood sanctuary above the London restaurant his parents owned. Memorabilia filled the set: a Van Gogh painting (signifying the singer's early love of visual art); posters for 2001, West Side Story and Stevens' own 1976 Majikat tour; a blue jersey with the number 33 that he often sported in the Seventies. The message was clear: Yusuf was inviting the audience into his home. Recalling his earliest influences, the singer actually retreated into the room to play the Beatles' "Twist and Shout" on a phonograph, referring to John Lennon's shrieking vocal turn as "the primal scream that brought us into existence."

The first set offered a chronological survey of Stevens' Sixties hits. Backed by Eric Appapoulay on guitar and vocals and Kwame Yeboah on bass and percussion – a tasteful duo who sounded busker intimate or rock-band intense as the moment demanded – he performed songs ranging from the wrenching ("The First Cut Is the Deepest") to the frivolous ("I Love My Dog," Stevens' debut single, released 50 years ago this month) in quick succession, offering anecdotes and asides in the style of a one-man theatrical show. He recalled mock-ruefully how the Monkees prevented him from getting to Number One, credited onetime tourmate Jimi Hendrix for scrambling his brain with psychedelics and digressed during "Matthew and Son" to chide Tears for Fears for borrowing the song's bridge melody for their "Mad World" chorus.

Dressed like a cool uncle in a green shirt and brown leather jacket, Yusuf played much of the set seated in a chair, his feet dangling just above the floor. If his demeanor was casual, his vocals were sublime. His trademark upper-register snarl has softened somewhat, and he seemed to struggle with the daring melodic leaps on songs such as "On the Road to Find Out," but the Yusuf of today is very much the same dazzlingly supple vocalist Cat Stevens was then.

During the second set, Yusuf seemed to kick into overdrive, condensing his anecdotes and playing some of his best-loved songs with otherworldly focus and intensity. After a charming intro during which he drank tea as Tea for the Tillerman's closing title track played over the PA, he sat at the piano for the first time, delivering a crisp, poignant felt version of that album's "Sad Lisa." He moved back to guitar for an endearing "Don't Be Shy" (with a coyly smiling reference to "that movie," Harold and Maude) and worked his way up to the set's emotional peak, a staggering "Father and Son" that brought the crowd to its feet. The audience remained rapt during deeper cuts from 1972's Catch Bull at Four – an ecstatic "Sitting" and a hushed "Boy With the Moon and Star on His Head," a song he'd renounced after his conversion and that he implored the New York audience "not to believe" due to its depiction of a verboten premarital fling.

A gorgeous Impressions cover, "People Get Ready," signified Yusuf's religious awakening, and two well-chosen tracks from his 2000s comeback albums chronicled the path back to music: An Other Cup's wonder-filled "Maybe There's a World" – mashed up here with the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" – and the title track to 2009's Roadsinger, an account of his years of alienation from his fans. ("I realized I still had a job to do," he said of his return to the public eye.) The concert's second set often had the feeling of a campfire singalong, yet one led by the man who is arguably the patron saint of the form, a writer and singer of disarmingly plainspoken songs about spiritual seeking that somehow never succumb to corniness or insincerity.

In keeping with that spirit, he paused near the end of the show to shout out recent Disney film Zootopia, praising its message of tolerance. He quoted the film's hero, a rabbit named Judy Hopps, who stands up against "friction and conflict" among once-harmonious animal species: "No matter what type of animal you are, change starts with you." Yusuf didn't need to mention Donald Trump's fearmongering or the latest wave of Islamophobia directly in order to invoke a parallel with 2016 America. A joyous "Peace Train," which found the majority of the crowd on its feet, clapping and singing along, drove home his message.

The lovefest continued during a brief encore that featured beautiful, unadorned renditions of signature songs "Wild World" and "Morning Has Broken." Yusuf apologized for not being able to stick around, citing the venue's union curfew, and left the stage flashing peace signs with both hands.

Overall, the show felt like one artist's humble attempt to repair his fractured relationship with his listening public. For more than two hours, Yusuf laid out all his charms – his easy storytelling gifts, his universally beloved songs – in the face of a world that, as depicted in "Roadsinger," once branded him as unwelcome. Whether or not Yusuf is truly off the hook is for each listener to decide, but on a purely musical level, the concert was a gracious and touching reanimation of one of the great songbooks in modern pop. Those who step into Yusuf's attic will leave transformed.

[rollingstone.com, 20. Sept. 2016]

=^..^=

Cat Stevens Returns to New York

After 40 Years

The truest moment in an evening full of truths came from the audience. For two hours on Monday (September 19), the first of two nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre, Cat Stevens—in his first New York concert since the mid-’70s—had been recounting the pivotal moments in his life and career, his stories bridging a stellar, marathon presentation of songs. He was well into the late 1970s—the decade of his greatest popularity—when he came to the tale of his spiritual awakening. He was being carried out to sea by the strong ocean current in Southern California, Stevens recalled, when he asked for and received help from God. He was led to Islam: Stevens converted in 1977, changed his name to Yusuf Islam the following year and withdrew from the music world in 1979.

It didn’t all go the way he had hoped, Stevens admitted to the Beacon audience, likely (but not specifically) alluding to the criticism leveled against him a decade later when he announced his support of a death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses had incensed Muslims worldwide. “There was anger and misunderstanding” among his fans, Stevens confessed.

A lone voice cried out from the orchestra: “We’re sorry!”

Stevens—who is billed as Yusuf/Cat Stevens on this tour, which he is calling “A Cat’s Attic”—laughed and said he too had forgiven. It’s not that there had been any tension between him and the fans inside the sold-out theater—it had been a two-way unconditional love fest from the second he’d walked onstage. If there had been any lingering animosity, then the unofficial audience spokesman’s impromptu apology would have been the ideal icebreaker. But Stevens’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 had already let him—and the world—know that the healing was complete.

Cat Stevens’ story is surely one of the most unusual in rock. Born Steven Demetre Georgiou in London in 1948, he grew up on classical music and show tunes (he performed “Somewhere” from West Side Story early in the evening) before, like everyone else, the Beatles turned him inside out (to illustrate that, he sang “Love Me Do”—and played the Fabs’ “Twist and Shout” on a vintage turntable). Stevens began writing his own songs 50 years ago, and his first charting single in England was the whimsical “I Love My Dog” (also played here) in October 1966.

“Matthew and Son,” the following year, rose to #2 in the U.K. and that same year a song he had written, “Here Comes My Baby,” became a hit for the Tremeloes in both the U.K. and the United States. Another song he wrote and released in 1967, “The First Cut Is the Deepest” (see video directly below), later became a hit for Rod Stewart. He was on his way.

Watch Cat Stevens perform one of his signature hits at the Beacon…

Those early tunes, each punctuated by a story (an amusing one told of touring with Hendrix and being exposed to some unnamed but presumably potent substance), were used to set the scene. It wasn’t until the turn of the decade that he evolved into Cat Stevens as we came to know him—a gifted, low-key singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist—and it was the songs of that era, mostly situated in the second set, that understandably received the most enthusiastic response. Performing in front of a mockup of a cozy country shack, accompanied by guitarist/harmony vocalist Eric Appapoulay and bassist Kwame Yeboah (who also supplied light percussion), Stevens stuck largely to acoustic guitar—an instrument on which his considerable skills were magnified in the live setting—with a few forays over to the piano. As the stage set suggested, it was all very up close and personal.

Most of the major hits and FM radio classics were saved until the second set or the encore: “Peace Train,” “Morning Has Broken,” “Oh Very Young,” “Father and Son,” “Moonshadow” and “Wild World” all came after the break, sung and played to near perfection. They’ve all held up remarkably well, too: Stevens’ vocals have suffered no degradation since we last heard him sing these songs four decades ago. He gave them all of the intimacy and nuance—and soulfulness—he’d brought to them when they were brand new.

Despite the predominantly chronological sequencing, though, this was not solely a night of greatest hits. Stevens performed more than 30 numbers in all, and he was unafraid to reach into his considerable catalog. He opened the show with “Where Do the Children Play?,” the leadoff track from Tea for the Tillerman, his top 10 breakthrough album of 1971, and while it’s hardly obscure it was an inspired choice nonetheless, setting the upbeat, celebratory tone of the first half. It was followed by “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” written by Stevens for Tillerman but left off the album, first turning up in the ’71 film Harold and Maude. “Katmandu,” from 1970’s Mona Bone Jakon, “Sitting” and “Boy With a Moon and Star on His Head,” both from Catch Bull at Four (1972), and even “Novim’s Nightmare,” from 1975’s lesser known Numbers, were among the deeper cuts that Stevens pulled out on this evening.

A couple of highlights had nothing to do with Cat Stevens’ recorded canon though. The first, a touching reading of the Impressions’ spiritual ballad “People Get Ready,” perfectly illustrated Stevens’ own move into his faith. Then, coming out of “Maybe There’s a World,” a song he recorded as Yusuf on An Other Cup in 2006—his first album of secular music since 1978—Stevens segued into “All You Need Is Love.” It was left to the Beatles, who had inspired him so long ago, to sum up the message that had hovered so thickly in the air all night. It was a sentiment that, we realized anew, was always at the root of Cat Stevens’ music.

Speaking of his decision to return to his classic repertoire and tour behind it after such a lengthy absence, Stevens said, “I realized I still had a job to do.” We’re glad, because he still does it so well.

[bestclassicbands.com, 21. Sept. 2016]

=^..^=

It’s a Wild, but Peaceful, World

for the Former Cat Stevens

Nostalgia, invocations of peace and love, and diplomatic positioning were all part of “A Cat’s Attic,” a gentle retrospective concert by Yusuf, the former Cat Stevens. Two shows at the Beacon Theater were his first full New York concerts since 1976, the year before he converted to Islam, changed his full name to Yusuf Islam and spent nearly three decades away from secular music.

Before that, Cat Stevens, born Steven Demetre Georgiou in London, had been known as a voice of kindly introspection, picking an acoustic guitar and singing about affection and a search for peace. Even his hit breakup song, “Wild World,” strove for compassion: “Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.” His voice was reedy, grainy and prematurely grizzled; decades later, his tone hasn’t changed. Slender, soft-spoken and gray-haired at 68, Yusuf reminisced on Tuesday night about his unlikely life story and sang what had been staples of early-1970s FM radio: songs like “Peace Train,” “How Can I Tell You” and “Father and Son,” which, he revealed onstage, was initially supposed to be part of a musical about the Russian Revolution.

Longtime fans reverently sang along, ready to let Yusuf’s most controversial moment — his 1989 endorsement of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the author Salman Rushdie — recede behind his later, more peaceable sentiments. He has claimed he was misinterpreted; on Tuesday, his second set included the Animals’ hit “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

Yusuf, who switched to piano for songs like “Sad Lisa,” was accompanied by Eric Appapoulay on guitar and Kwame Yeboah on bass, percussion and keyboards, playing subdued versions of his old arrangements. The stage backdrop was an attic room recalling the “bedsit” where he wrote many of his early hits; on one wall, it had a tour poster of Cat Stevens in 1976, black-haired and bearded. “Welcome to my little house,” he said.

The biography that Yusuf told onstage — his “journey” — hinged on setbacks leading to epiphanies. In the 1960s, he was a striving hitmaker in England, reaching the charts with songs like “Matthew and Son” — a peppy tune about exploited labor — and “Here Comes My Baby,” which he slyly updated on Tuesday with a mention of texting.

But after a pop-star phase, he developed tuberculosis, and when he returned to songwriting he was transformed: quieter, more thoughtful, more spiritually curious. A musical trademark in many of his songs is a skipped beat, or a bar of 3/4 time in a 4/4 song, which gives the tune a subtle jolt. Songs from his 1968 album, “Mona Bone Jakon” — “Trouble,” “Katmandu” — were among the concert’s understated gems. Years before his conversion, he was already singing about quests for answers in songs like “I Wish, I Wish,” “Miles from Nowhere” and “On the Road to Find Out,” which were all part of his first set.

His second set drew on the 1970s, with songs like the folky “The Boy With a Moon and Star on His Head” — a fable that he carefully announced “never happened,” presumably because it revolves around extramarital sex — and “Angelsea,” with its heaving riff. In 1976, Cat Stevens was swimming off Malibu, Calif., he said, when he nearly drowned and desperately prayed to God, who rescued him by sending a wave. His conversion followed in 1977; though he didn’t use the word “Islam” onstage, he said, “I took my message, and I walked away” and that he also faced “aggressive aversion to what I had chosen.”

The songs he played from the 2000s, after he returned to a pop career, were friendly and nondenominational but resolute: “To be what you must, you must give up what you are,” he sang in one from 2009. He meshed his tentatively utopian “Maybe There’s a World” with the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” itself a skipped-beat song. And after he played some hits, he concluded with “Morning Has Broken”: originally a Christian hymn and still tenderly devout.

[nytimes.com, 21. Sept. 2016]

 =^..^=

Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ triumphant return to New York City

The last time Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train” rolled through New York City, Yitzhak Rabin was Israel’s prime minister, Ephraim Katzir was president, Mordechai Gur was chief of staff and Rina Mor, Miss Israel, became the first Israeli to win the Miss Universe pageant. And Stevens was one year away from embracing Islam and changing his name to Yusuf Islam. It’s been a long journey for Stevens/Yusuf who last appeared in New York City in 1976.

Stevens’ long-awaited return to the Beacon Theater was a true lovefest.

“We love you, Cat,” “Why did it take you so long?” shouted fans in the sold out, 2,800-seat Beacon Theater. The fans, mostly of the over-40 set, wore suits and jeans, Hillary (Clinton) buttons and Neil Young concert T-shirts and sang along to every word of the 33-song set. At least one fan wore a black suede kippa.

Stevens is playing select US and Canadian cities over a three-week period in September and October as part of the “A Cat’s Attic” tour. The show features “a limited run of strippeddown, introspective performances which coincides with the 50th anniversary of Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ first hit single, ‘I Love My Dog,’ which was released in 1966.”

Stevens opened the first show of his two-night run at the Beacon standing in front of a curtain, which soon opened to reveal an old house, framed pictures, a record player, a blue sport team jersey and other memorabilia from an earlier era. Two musicians, Eric Appapoulay on guitar and vocals and Kwame Yeboah on bass and percussion, stood far back right of the stage, allowing Stevens to remain central throughout the two hour-long sets. Stevens alternated between standing and sitting on a stool as he played acoustic guitar. At times, Stevens surprised the audience, playing The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” on an old record player and playing a song on the piano.

The audience sat attentively as Stevens recounted nearly his entire career in story and song.

“It was so intimate, like we were in a small café,” observed a 50-something female fan from Westchester County, 45 minutes from Manhattan.

Is it possible that this gentle, likable man can also have a controversial, notso- peaceful side? Jews are keenly aware of Steven’s well-documented but not easily verifiable bottom-line stance on Israel and terrorism.

“I don’t know what is true or not,” notes the 50-something fan, who has heard various reports of past support of Hamas. “I went there for the music of my youth. The first album I bought was Tea for the Tillerman (1970) – the only album of mine my parents also enjoyed!” Stevens began the show by recounting his yearly years, his parent’s café in London and his desire “to draw and paint and be an artist.” He mentioned the impact of Bernstein’s music – and the Beatles – on his musical development and appreciation. Stevens saved up to buy his first guitar and started writing music.

“I didn’t have a band – I was born to be solo,” he said, then played “The First Cut is the Deepest.” Stevens described being on tour with Jimi Hendrix (and alluded to his involvement in the drug culture of the times). In 1969, he reported, “I collapsed with tuberculosis, and began to reassess my life... I had to get some answers.” He began playing “Trouble.”

After the set break, Stevens focused more on the music and spoke less between songs. He described a particularly dark period of “not finding what I was looking for” and his experience with numerology. A near-death experience in 1976 when he went swimming “too far out” at Malibu Beach in California was a turning point in his life.

“I realized in that moment what I believed in – I called out to God to save me and he did.”

He then treated the audience to an acoustic cover of the Impressions classic “People Get Ready.”

Stevens’ brother, David Gordon, bought him a copy of the Koran as a birthday gift from a trip to Israel. Gordon was reportedly married at the time to an Israeli woman with family in Tel Aviv. Stevens was very taken by the Koran and the story of Joseph. Stevens converted to Islam in December, 1977 and changed his name to Yusuf Islam in 1978. He auctioned off his guitars and stopped performing for nearly 30 years. He devoted his time to various philanthropic and educational causes in the Muslim community of London and around the world.

Perhaps this was the moment in the concert where Stevens would shed light on his conversion to Islam and perhaps set the record straight on Hamas and Israel.

“I have journeyed endless miles, seen many harbors, and learned I must give up what you are. When I finally did make it out, I didn’t get the reaction I expected. There was misunderstanding – almost anger at the choices I made.”

No further details offered. An audience member shouted, “We are sorry!” It is unclear what exactly Stevens was referring to. Perhaps he was alluding to his 1989 comments in London which seemed to suggest support for the fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses. Or to his alleged support for Hamas, which, according to an ABC News report, led to denial of entry to Israel. Stevens, who had been in Israel earlier in his career, was held at the airport for several hours and sent back to Germany.

Members of the Jewish community have long memories for significant historical events. And they remain passionate and divided on Cat Stevens. Opinions range from ongoing love of his music and minimizing or dismissing reported anti-Israel or antisemitic views, to refusal to even listen to his music.

Amy Cohn of Manhattan wishes she could have seen Stevens in concert. “I love his music. I tried to get tickets but it sold out so quickly!” Pati Doyle Weber of Florida strongly disagrees. “I wouldn’t give a penny to this antisemite. I haven’t listened to a song of his since his radical change.”

“He is hardly the first talented musician to hate Jews,” says Bruce Abramson of New York City. “Were we to eliminate all music – along with books and art – whose creator disliked Jews (or committed some other offense we may deem equivalent), we would find ourselves aesthetically impoverished.” Nevertheless, Abramson avoided going to the show – “a small price to pay for an important principle.”

Back in the Beacon, the female fan from Westchester felt that Stevens may be having a “metamorphosis – sort of.” She notes that he no longer seems to be using the name “Islam,” choosing to go by both Cat Stevens and Yusuf. “Perhaps he is more mature.”

Stevens mentions the 27-year gap in performing “which I am not going to tell you now. You will have to wait for my book.” But Stevens offered, “When I saw how terrible things were going, I still had a job to do. My dreams never stopped.” And “real life is messy. We all make mistakes. We have a lot in common.” “Try to make the world a better place.”

Stevens seems to be doing his part and on September 24 participated in the Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park. And a portion of every ticket sold on the current concert tour “will benefit the most vulnerable through long-term support to build sustainable futures for children and families. Through Small Kindness, Yusuf’s UK-founded charity, donations will be made to both UNICEF and the International Rescue Committee to help children affected by the current refugee and migrant crisis.

When the trancelike peacefulness of the two-hour lovefest lifts for the concertgoers lucky enough to see Cat Stevens/ Yusuf Monday or Tuesday night in Manhattan, they may still be left with the question of just who the true Cat Stevens/Yusuf is. They will need to wait a bit longer for an answer.

Requests for interviews with Cat Stevens/ Yusuf were turned down. Live Nation returned my inquiry and reported, “He is not giving any interviews this tour.”

[jpost.com, 25. Sept. 2016]

Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, invites fans aboard the Peace Train

“I never wanted to be a star,” Yusuf Islam sang Thursday evening at the Kennedy Center. “I never wanted to travel far.”

The irony is that Islam’s Washington performance, a more or less chronological review of his songbook, curated and annotated by the singer-songwriter, was all about his journey to international superstardom.

This storyteller format — the boomer musician leading an audience through his musical biography, songs intermingled with memories and commentary — is, by now, well worn.

But the journey of Islam, both musically and spiritually, is more interesting than most.

The show, themed “A Cat’s Attic” and performed on a stage dressed to recall the early '60s bedsit over his parents’ London café, traced his development from Steven Georgiou, the Beatles- and Bernstein-loving teenager who wrote British Invasion hits for others, to Cat Stevens, the singer-songwriter and seeker who from the late '60s into the mid-'70s produced a string of global smashes that remain staples of the boomer canon, to Yusuf Islam, the Muslim convert who stepped away from music for nearly three decades to focus on family and philanthropy.

Islam returned to music after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, singing an a capella version of his “Peace Train” to be broadcast before the Concert for New York City, and eventually recording new music and touring occasionally.

Thursday evening, he strode onto the stage, diffident and disarming in jeans, vest and full beard, strumming a big Elvis Presley acoustic guitar and singing “Where Do the Children Play?”

It was the right song with which to start a sweet two hours of autobiography.

“Welcome to my background,” Islam invited, and then spoke of his teenage obsession with music. He produced a copy of the Beatles’ first album and put the disc on a turntable — “if I can remember how to do this” — and played a snippet of "Twist and Shout."

“This is the one that exploded everything … I had to get a guitar.”

He was also inspired by musicals. He played a recording of “America” from "West Side Story," and then led his three-piece band through a folky version of “Somewhere,” also from the Bernstein work, and a country shuffle version of “Love Me Do.”

Influences acknowledged, it was time for his earliest hits — first, for other artists: “Here Comes My Baby,” made famous by the Tremeloes, and “The First Cut is the Deepest,” a U.K. smash for the American soul singer P.P. Arnold, and later for Rod Stewart and Sheryl Crow.

Eric Appapouley, on electric, acoustic and nylon-string guitars, and Kwame Yeboah, mostly on bass but also keyboards and percussion, proved versatile accompanists, adept at the bright folk pop groove that drives Islam’s sound, but also adding a rock edge to “Matthew & Son,” and an almost gospelly soul to “People Get Ready.”

Throughout, Islam was shyly, slyly droll — raising his eyebrows at the melodic similarity between “Matthew & Son” and Tears for Fears’ later “Mad World,” updating the 1967 “Here Comes My Baby” with the complaint “you’re forever texting on the phone,” claiming he wrote “I’m Gonna Get Me a Gun” after the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” kept “Matthew & Sons” from the top of the charts (it’s actually an anti-violence song).

More earnestly, he recounted his spiritual journey, from a dark period of drinking and carousing, represented by “A Bad Night” and “Trouble” (joking, he blamed touring with Jimi Hendrix), to a near-death experience (getting caught in a riptide off the beach in Malibu) and surrendering his life to God – the deliverance of “People Get Ready” and “Roadsinger.”

He alluded to negative reactions to his conversion, by which he might have meant the controversy around comments that appeared to support the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa calling for the death of the writer Salman Rushdie. He has said his comments were misunderstood, and has consistently denounced terrorism and violence.

On Thursday, he did not mention the fatwa, or use the words “Allah,” “Muslim” or “Islam.” He said anyone who wanted to know the details of his 27 years away from music would have to read his autobiography.

His was not a conversion that required him to renounce his catalog. As Cat Stevens, he dealt largely in peace, love and hope — themes on which he now dwells as a Muslim and humanitarian. If anything, his life today deepens the meaning of his earlier material.

Finally, in a denouement both odd and affecting, he recounted the plot of the Disney’s "Zootopia," up to and including a complete reading of the speech delivered by Officer Judy Hopps, who is a rabbit.

“I vote for the rabbit!” he said.

Then he turned to the presidential election, about which he declared “I have decided to say – nothing!”

But then he did, in song: Playing the familiar opening notes to “Peace Train,” and leading the packed hall in a rousing valedictory.

[baltimoresun.com, 23. Sept. 2016]

=^..^=

Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ “A Cat’s Attic” Concert at The Kennedy Center

Cat Stevens (as he was known then) last performed at The Kennedy Center back in November 1971 just months after it opened. Much has changed since then, including his name (which became Yusuf after he converted to Islam in 1977). But to his enraptured fans in the sold-out Concert Hall the other night, it was an ecstatic reunion with some of the most heartfelt and pure music about peace and love of this or any time.

Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ “A Cat’s Attic” tour  was not promoting an album—he was simply telling us through song the story of his life (“Welcome to my background,” he said gently near the beginning). Thus the entire evening was blessedly devoted to such beloved classics  as “Where Do the Children Play?” “Moonshadow,”  and “Peace Train.” The crowd seemed to savor every familiar measure, every emotional moment of it. Songs were greeted throughout by individuals standing up as if in personal exultation, even before mass praise poured out in ovations at the end.

The stage set, he tells us, evokes the attic above his parents’ home in London’s West End where he grew up. The backdrop is a moonscape. Shining stage left as if on a foggy night is a street lamp under which his two backing musicians will play. And inside the quaint wooden attic itself are a comfortable chair, an old trunk, a vintage record player, an upright piano, and posters on the wall, one of himself from his early years and one for West Side  Story. Turns out as a boy he could hear the show down the street from this room, and he became a fan of musicals, as he tells us just before singing “Somewhere.”

The amiable evening proceeds like that, each song introduced by autobiographical patter that positions it in his lifetime (and, for many in the audience, ours). In his dashing gray hair and  beard, wearing an easygoing vest and T, he stands  or sits relaxed at a mic and sings for us, his guitar playing virtuoso. His voice is clear and strong as it’s ever been, focused and unforced from his head notes to his bass. He makes the whole house feel at home.

He cites the Beatles’ influence on him—”Have fun, sing, and fall in love”—then renders a bouncy “Love Me Do.” Offering us his own 1967 “Here Comes My Baby,” he mischievously inserts “text on the phone” into the lyrics. Sitting beside the phonograph and playing a 78 of “Twist and Shout,” he remembers, “I had to get myself a guitar after that.” Continuing on the theme of songs of longing from his love-struck youth, he elicits cheers from the audience with “The First Cut Is the Deepest.”

His wit shines through often, as when singing and playing “Matthew and Son,” he lets us hear how his song’s hook is echoed in the “think it’s kinda funny”  refrain of “Mad World”: “Well, I think it’s kinda funny,” he quips, “how this sounds the same.”

From an early age, he tells us, he was really into musicals and has made several unfinished attempts to write one, including an anti-violence musical titled The Death of Billy the Kid. In the second act when he sings his emotionally powerful “Father and Son,” which brought the audience to its feet, he informs us it originated for a musical be worked on with Nigel Hawthorne called Revolution. The song is about a pacifist father trying to dissuade his son from leaving home and joining up, and the son saying why he must go his own way. The high-stakes context of that unfinished musical gives the song stunning new resonance.

His life story took a dark turn when he was hospitalized with TB, “a big wakeup” after which he sought spiritual solace in Buddhism and went to India, the occasion for his lovely “Katmandu.” Then just before intermission he foreshadows his later religious conversion with a moving rendition of “On the Road to Find Out”:

Yes the answer lies within
So why not take a look now
Kick out the devils sin
Pickup, pickup a good book now

 

In Act Two we find him sitting at a table pouring tea for himself,  in fond remembrance  of the cover art he drew for his album Tea for the Tillerman, where many of the evening’s most revered songs first appeared. He moves to the piano where he accompanies himself on a tender “Sad Lisa” and hearkens back to the soundtrack ofHarold and Maude with a rousing “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” His lyrics can sometimes be so childlike, his couplets so truthful and touching.

Introducing his erotic fable “Boy With a Moon and Star on His Head,” which contains lyrics atypically graphic for this devout period of Yusuf’s life (“It is you I want to share my body with”), he first assures the audience that “nothing in this song ever happened.” Then he adds, joking: “I hope that message gets back to my wife.”

His spiritual, personal, and professional life pivoted dramatically on a trip to Rio in the 1970s during “a dark period in my life.” He was swimming in the ocean and a strong Pacific current was pulling him out to sea. “I asked God to save me,” he tells us. “And He sent a wave.” That wave carried him safely to shore—and propels him into “People Get Ready”:

People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord.

 

His brother gave him a book, he tells us, “a book about Abraham, Moses, Jesus.” Though he never names it, we know he means the Quran. “I learned to bow,” he explains. “To be what you must, you must give up who you are.”

A long period followed, nearly three decades, during which Yusuf neither composed nor performed anymore. To the world he was becoming a great humanitarian, giving of the wealth he’d earned in the music industry he now eschewed to rescue orphans and other refugees. But to his thongs of fans he had fallen silent.

Then one day his son brought a guitar back into their home. “The guitar came back,” he says simply, “and I realized I really had another job to do.”

Besides growing up on Broadway musicals, Yusuf also was drawn to Disney. That turns out not to be so improbable as he quotes a rabbit in a Disney movie called Zootopia who gives a speech to the other animals that goes in part,

Try to make the world a better place…. Change starts with you, it starts with me, it starts with all of us.

 

Acknowledging he is performing this night at the epicenter of American politics, he is careful not to inject himself into election season. “I’ve decided to say—nothing,” he says drily. “Except I vote for the rabbit.” And with that he launches into his unstoppable “Peace Train.”

His encores of “Wild World” and “Morning Has Broken” became in that cavernous hall an audience singalong. And when at last he left the stage saying “Peace be with you, my friends,” it was like an actual benediction.

One of the big takeaways of the evening was what a gift Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ extraordinary song catalog would be to musical theater if someone could get it right. There was a disastrous attempt made in Australia called Moonshadow, which closed promptly. But if it could work with ABBA’s Mama Mia and Green Day’s American Idiot, it sure ought to work with Yusuf / Cat Stevens.

I am someone for whom Cat Stevens’ music was on the sound track of my youth. I choke up hearing “Morning Has Broken” the way I do hearing “Imagine” or “Amazing Grace.” Listening to him sing with such soulful beauty and pacifist conviction again brought me back to a time of tender hope and inspiring optimism that I’d long forgotten—and that I realized our nation too has been missing.

I recommend taking some time from your life to listen to Yusuf / Cat Stevens, again or for the first time. He’s a genius gentle treasure, and as a troubadour for our troubled times, he’s indispensable.

[dcmetrotheaterarts.com, 25. Sept. 2016]

Yusuf/Cat Stevens joined by Jack White

for first Nashville show in 40 years

Yusuf/Cat Stevens hasn’t played a concert in Nashville in 40 years, which makes Tuesday night’s 30-minute delay after his show’s scheduled 7:30 p.m. start time seem short in comparison.

Known for folk classics like “Wild World," “Peace Train” "The First Cut is the Deepest" and “Father and Son,” Yusuf made up for lost time during Tuesday night’s show at the Ryman Auditorium, playing two hour-long sets. The singer-songwriter is currently on his “A Cat’s Attic” tour, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of his first single, “I Love My Dog.”

Standing in front of a set that was designed to resemble his childhood home, which was located above the restaurant his parents owned in London’s West End, Yusuf shared his musical journey with the adoring audience, beginning with his fascination with the musical "West Side Story" and the Beatles and continuing through his battle with tuberculosis, his religious conversion, and his hiatus from, and subsequent return to, music.

The set (which even included smoke billowing out of the chimney), and the stories Yusuf — an engaging storyteller with a dry sense of humor — told about his life between songs, made the performance feel like half-concert, half-one-man show.

During his performance, Yusuf invited a couple of surprise guests onstage: Jack White joined Yusuf for “Where Do the Children Play” near the end of the first set, and Bonnie Prince Billy contributed vocals for two songs during the encore. In another one of the show’s other unexpected moments, Yusuf cited the animated film “Zootopia” as a source of wisdom. He then recited a block of dialogue — said by the movie’s anthropomorphic rabbit turned rookie cop — that ended with the message “try to make the world a better place...change starts with you” before seguing into “People Get Ready and “Peace Train.”

Yusuf and his two-man backing band returned for a lengthy encore, closing the show with "Morning Has Broken" before flashing a smile and a peace sign to the crowd.

[tennessean.com, 28. Sept. 2016]

Yusuf/Cat Stevens shares, reflects and inspires on a breathtaking trip through

“A Cat’s Attic”

Outside of speckling a few spot concert dates every once in a while, it’s extremely uncommon for Yusuf/Cat Stevens to embark on a tour for any substantial amount of time. In fact, up until 2006’s comeback collection “An Other Cup,” his first widely released collection since converting to the Muslim religion, the singer/songwriter hadn’t even touched Western pop music in 28 years.

When Yusuf/Stevens finally said goodnight following the generous journey, the scrapbook of memories didn’t just go back on the shelf, but rather reignited the life-changing spark

that continues to define an entire generation.

These days, Yusuf/Stevens (whose since release two additional studio albums) is celebrating his 50th anniversary of artistry with “A Cat’s Attic,” a North American outing only spanning a dozen dates, including some cities he hasn’t visited in more than 40 years. Thankfully, area audiences haven’t had to wait nearly as long given a recent Chicago Theatre show, but considering it sold out within seconds, this second sweep through the equally ornate (and also at full capacity) Oriental Theatre gave faithful another chance to make up for lost time.

And the troubadour did exactly that and then some, opening the more than 30 track night in the pale moon light of “Where Do The Children Play?” with just a bar stool and an acoustic guitar. He may have been all gray, but looked just as lean and fit as anyone would remember him, while those unmistakable pipes and million dollar lyrics sounded essentially like they did in 1978 (though their meaning and musical resourcefulness have since transcended time).

About halfway through the tune, the black curtain rose behind Yusuf/Stevens, revealing a Broadway-worthy set featuring the frame work of a full-scale house (complete with a smoking chimney), all the remnants of an actual attic, plus additional accompaniment from a guitarist and bassist/multi-instrumentalist. Between that striking visual reveal and his passionate delivery, the crowd leapt to their feet and would continue to spend much of the two-and-a-half retrospective hollering praise through countless standing ovations.

With his faith firmly in tact, Yusuf/Stevens was extremely humble, peaceful and personable along the entire journey, frequently venturing into stories to accompany the time capsule. He gave glimpses into the record industry, recreated a youthful bedroom scene of literally tossing a Beatles album on a phonograph, continuously called for unity, talked about his near drowning experience, and ultimately, the prayer (and subsequent wave of safety) that saved his life.

And of course, there were the songs themselves, which regardless if they were hits or treasures from a distantly buried trunk, showcased one of the richest and most articulate bodies of work in folk and pop’s entire history. From the first half, there was the frequently covered “The First Cut Is The Deepest,” the deeply reflective “Trouble,” the Eastern-inspired “Katmandu” and the moving “Miles From Nowhere” (which found the legend stopping mid-song to dig out his old guitar, much to the screams of those still in awe that this entire undertaking was actually happening).

For the second half, Yusuf/Stevens started on the piano, churning out emotive selections such as “Sad Lisa” before returning to the acoustic guitar for additional lump-in-the-throat musings (“Father And Son,” “Be What You Must”). There was also the immediately familiar “Moonshadow,” a spiritually-ripe cover of “People Get Ready” and a nod to the newer with “Roadsinger,” though a teased finale of “Peace Train” seemed plucked straight out of eternal paradise.

The chilling mood only elevated in the encore with the sing-a-longs “Wild World” and “Morning Has Broken,” though the segment also displayed some outside influences, including Sam Cooke’s soulful “Another Saturday Night” and an electric guitar-charged version of the country standard “You Are My Sunshine.” When Yusuf/Stevens finally said goodnight following the generous journey, the scrapbook of memories didn’t just go back on the shelf, but rather reignited the life-changing spark that continues to define an entire generation.

[chicagoconcertreviews.com, 30. September 2016]

Yusuf/Cat Stevens concert

an amazing ride on the peace train

The 1970s songs by Yusuf/Cat Stevens sound really, really good in 2016.

“It’s great to hear you live again,” shouted one fan on Monday at Davies Symphony Hall during the San Francisco stop of the musician’s “A Cat’s Attic” tour.

Perhaps most of the enthralled baby boomers in the capacity crowd were unlike the admirer. They probably had not before heard the guitar-playing, folk-rock great — who turned to Islam and famously took a break from pop music for nearly three decades — perform live versions of indelible songs from their formative years.

“Father and Son,” the emotional summation of trying familial relationships (and campfire sing-along staple) was the show-stopper, as powerful as it was in 1970 — maybe even more so, given how time changes perspectives.

In an engaging storytelling show filled with anecdotes about his musical journey, Yusuf said he wrote the song (off the chart-topping “Tea for the Tillerman”) for a musical about the Russian Revolution that never was realized.

Other musicals played a role in his life: “West Side Story” (he sang “Somewhere”) and another unfinished project about Billy the Kid, which yielded “Northern Wind.”

Impeccably backed by Eric Appapoulay on guitar and Kwame Yeboah on bass, percussion and keyboards, Yusuf, 68, was in excellent voice, sounding just like he did years ago on acoustic arrangements happily similar to the originals, for the most part.

The cozy set — a backdrop that looked like the modest London house where he grew up, with smoke rising from the chimney, under a sky with a full moon — complemented Yusuf’s enlightening, chronological narration.

At first he was influenced by blues and rock. Early tunes he wrote in the 1960s “Here Comes My Baby,” “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” “I Love My Dog” and “Matthew & Son” (he demonstrated how “Mad World” by Tears for Fears, and Gary Jules later, sounds remarkably like it) were different from the peace, love, and searching-for-identity themes of his ‘70s hits: “Moonshadow,” “Where Do the Children Play?,” “Peace Train,” “Wild World,” “Morning Has Broken,” “Sitting,” “Oh Very Young,” and “Miles from Nowhere,” which got an electric treatment.

He said he came to those songs having “a lot of questions” and discovering Buddhism.

But after becoming popular (“believe it or not, I never wanted to be a star,” he said), he became confused.

A near-death swimming incident off Malibu prompted his conversion to Islam, beginning the next stage of his journey.

“I won’t tell you about the next 27 years, you’ll have to wait for my book,” he said.

Having walked away feeling rejected, he returned when his son came home with a guitar, and he knew he had a job to do — “another one.”

His 21st century material, like “Roadsinger,” offers the same gentle, humanistic messages as his tunes that moved a generation.

Monday’s concert was a remarkable affair, unlike most in today’s cynical pop music world.

Yusuf even pulled off a quote by the cartoon rabbit in the movie “Zootopia” who implored: “We have to try and understand each other and make the world a better place.”

And he had the crowd in his hand with his irresistible “Harold and Maude” movie theme: “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out.”

[sfexaminer.com, 04. Oktober 2016]

Yusuf/Cat Stevens marks 50th anniversary at Pantages

Perhaps it’s relatively easy to put on a show as thoroughly engaging, and emotionally and spiritually rich, as the one Yusuf, the former Cat Stevens, pulled off Thursday at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.

Just write a couple of dozen eminently catchy pop songs and combine them with a life story drawn from 50-plus years spent on a bona fide spiritual quest and … voilà!

This year marks a half-century since the musician born Steven Demetre Georgiou, who was raised in London’s working-class West End, first made his mark musically, an anniversary he’s celebrating with a show anchored in the folk-pop-rock hits he churned out in the 1960s and ’70s. The two-night Thursday and Friday stop at the Pantages is the final one of a 12-date North American tour.

It was all performed on a charming and homey stage featuring a wood-paneled shack. The intent was to represent the house he grew up in, one that was attached to his Greek family’s London cafe.

For many pop stars, such a show could easily turn into the old gag about the self-obsessed guy who yammers on about himself at a party, only to stop and announce, “Well, enough about me — what do you think about me?”

But the 68-year-old’s life journey is one of the most extraordinary in pop. Hit songs such as “Wild World,” “Peace Train,” “Hard Headed Woman” and “Morning Has Broken” made him one of the biggest stars of the ’70s, an achievement he turned his back on at the end of the decade when he converted to Islam and retreated from public life.

For this performance — billed as “an acoustic evening” even though his two musical accomplices, guitarist Eric Appapoulay and bassist-percussionist Kwame Yeboah, employed electric and acoustic guitars and electric bass —Yusuf weaved a chronological narrative of his evolution from young fan to aspiring rocker to full-fledged star to spiritual seeker.

That allowed him to touch on such early hits as “I Love My Dog,” “Here Comes My Baby,” “Matthew and Son” and an evergreen he wrote in this late-’60s period, “The First Cut is the Deepest.”

He also delivered snippets of “There’s a Place For Us” from “West Side Story,” used to illustrate his early fascination with stage musicals, and touched on the Beatles’ “From Me to You,” highlighting the revolutionary impact the Fab Four’s music had on him.

In his own early songs, he demonstrated a period-specific melange of traditional British troubadour storytelling intermixed with a Broadway flair and a dash of psychedelia and progressive rock influences.

After being hospitalized with tuberculosis he developed from the stress and excessive lifestyle he engaged in during that first flirtation with fame, Stevens shifted gears. He began paying more attention to his inner life, something he credited to his brother, who introduced him to a book on spirituality, Paul Brunton’s “The Secret Path.”

That, he said, opened the door to a new realm of subject matter, which came to the surface in his 1970 album “Mona Bone Jakon” and continued to unfold through his signature 1971 work, “Tea for the Tillerman.”

Yusuf omitted some of his biggest hits — “Hard-Headed Woman” and “Two Fine People” among them — to keep the focus on the narrative of the story. 

He quickly jumped over the quarter-century he devoted to pursuing his newfound Muslim faith — never, for instance, uttering the words “Islam” or “Muslim” during the show. He took a more circumspect approach,  simply referring to a “change” he made, one for which he was initially vilified by some fans.

Yet during that time he married, and with his wife raised six children, which he succinctly referred to as “the next 27 years.” It was one of his sons, he said, who brought a guitar back into their house after he’d banished them from his life. 

After releasing several sacred albums of spoken word recordings, he resurfaced in the pop world in 2006 with “An Other Cup,” from which he chose “Maybe There’s a World” and combined it with the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.”

Toward the end of the nearly 2 ½-hour performance, Yusuf trotted out his biggest sing-alongs, including “Peace Train” and “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,”  the latter popularized through its canny use by director Hal Ashby in 1971’s cult classic “Harold and Maude.”

He even recited lines from the climax of the recent Disney film “Zootopia,” in which the main character gives a stump speech about the importance of different species finding common ground. It elicited a hearty cheer from the capacity crowd.

His sandpaper tenor was as warmly captivating as ever, and his songs, which honor one man’s yearning for understanding in the world, still ring true. “If you can find a new way/You can do it today,” he sang in “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out. “You can make it all true/And you can make it undo/You see … it’s easy.”

Like we said.

[latimes.com, 07. Oktober 2016]

=^..^=

Yusuf/Cat Stevens at the

Pantages Theatre in LA

The legendary artist tells his story

through the songs we love

When the point came during Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ sold-out Thursday night concert at the Pantages Theatre in LA to address the 27 years between his last recording as Cat Stevens and his first as Yusuf, the legendary songwriter brushed it off with sly humor, noting that “you can read about that in my book.” And for decades, it felt like that aspect of his life was the most talked about, the leaving behind of a music career rather than the actual music he left behind.

On his current tour, dubbed A Cat’s Attic, Yusuf/Cat Stevens instead focuses on his life as a musician, organizing the performance as a chronological look at his songwriting past, while punctuating the songs with stories about his recording career and his spiritual awakening. It’s an appropriate presentation for a man who has conflicting emotions when looking back at his own past, who has a beloved back catalog of songs that weren’t necessarily written by the man he sees himself as now.

The resulting show is surprisingly theatrical, appropriate for a venue that is known for Broadway-certified musicals. Singing in front of a set that placed the performance on a front porch, intimacy was the operative word for the presentation. For his second set after an intermission, the songwriter even brewed himself a pot of tea, endearingly on the nose for a run through songs from Tea for the Tillerman.

But while the stories often found Yusuf/Cat Stevens filled with slight remorse at the person he was before finding religion, the actual songs managed to hit on something very different. Perhaps that’s why he feels comfortable playing them now that he’s so many years removed from the process of creating them. He can see the positive experience they create for his fans rather than the pain he experienced during the time of their creation.

Because the emotion in the capacity crowd was pure joy. Songs like “Trouble”, “Father and Son”, and “Moonshadow” got people to stand up from their seats in applause, while main set closer “Peace Train” found the fans joining in the trademark handclaps. Stray fans danced when they wanted to dance, and even the less widely beloved selections received approving sighs at their opening notes.

It’s only his second American tour since returning to music, and the freshness of the experience for both fan and performer was palpable in the set. Everything felt very much in the moment despite how overtly the narrative of the set was offered up. This left room for highlights (a retelling of the plot of Zootopia, complete with a Judy Hopps doll) and lowlights (a surprise appearance from Chris Cornell during “Wild World” that detracted from what could have been a powerful moment), all held together by the fact that the singer’s voice still sounded incredible, his songs dusted off with all the urgency that they likely carried back in the ’70s.

[consequenceofsound.net, 07. Oktober 2016]

=^..^=

Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) Charms Hollywood at Final Stop

of 50th Anniversary Tour

Remember we all thought we lost Cat Stevens?  Well he was gloriously back last Friday night at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Yusuf Islam as he is now also known, invited the adoring crowd to his ‘living room’ for “A Cat’s Attic: Yusef/Cat Stevens 50 Year Anniversary Acoustic Tour.”  The set was a homey wood paneled cabin with old posters of the man himself, a chair and a piano.

Sixty eight year old Yusuf, in pitch perfect voice, just wrapped up his 12 date North American Tour which also marked his 50th anniversary of his musical life.  In the nearly three hour-long concert, he spoke in postcards of short little colorful stories that stitched across the years.  Touted as “an acoustic evening,” with his two bandmates, Eric Appapoulay and Kwame Yeboah, Yusuf narrated the tale with all thrown in, his rock and roll excessive everything issues, his health scares and his subsequent spiritual journey.

He started the set with his early hits, “I Love My Dog,” “Matthew and Son”  “Here Comes My Baby,” and his late 60’s hit that Rod Stewart made famous, “The First Cut Is The Deepest.”  He then sang some of his well-known hits, “Father and Son,”  “How Can I Tell You?” and more. 

Yusuf recounted the fateful day of his Malibu swim, when he was visiting  Jerry Moss, famed co founder of A&M (who was there in the audience), as the guest of noted longtime manager and now advisor Barry Krost.  Yusuf thought he would drown and made a promise to God that if he let him live, he would devote the rest of his life to him.  He then converted to Islam, which he didn’t say specifically, he said simply, “a change in my life.” He gave up music, married and retreated into his religious life. That’s when his fans thought he was lost forever. “I’ll skip the next 27 years until my son brought a guitar in the house.” 

Yusuf realized then, that the world needed “peace, and I thought I could help with that.”  He sang some of “An Other Cup,” which included the Beatless “All You Need Is Love,” weaved in with “Maybe There’s a World.”   He asked the audience to meet a friend of his, bringing out the stuffed version of the Disney “Zootopia,” character Judy Hopps.  He told how he was recently on the plane and was watching the film and saw her inspiring inclusive speech at the end, which resonated for him.  He then recited the speech as only he can followed by “Wild World,”  “Peace Train,” and “Morning Has Broken.”  Yusuf, the socially conscious songwriter sharing his songs of peace, togetherness and happiness, revealing just enough bits and pieces that the adoring rapt audience gratefully leaned into.

Barry Krost summed it up perfectly.  “He’s the only artist that I know that sounds better, has even more appeal than he did at the height of his career.”

[showbiz411.com, 12. Oktober 2016]