 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
Cat Stevens (born July 21, 1948) was the stage name of a popular singer-songwriter during the 1970s. Born Stephen Demetre Georgiou in London, he has since changed his name to Yusuf Islam after converting to Islam.
Stevens published several songs in the late 1960s and went on tour, with moderate success. In late 1967, at age 19, he entered a hospital and was diagnosed with tuberculosis; his career seemed over. But it was in the early 1970s that the public really began to discover Stevens' music. In the ten years after 1967 he sold 40 million albums.
His most popular songs included "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken", "Moon Shadow", "Wild World", "Father and Son", "Matthew and Son", and "Oh Very Young". Many of them were performed only with him playing either the guitar or piano. In 1971 he also wrote music specifically for the film Harold and Maude. For several decades these songs were unavailable except in the film; most of them have since been released on the disc Footsteps in the Dark. He also had a hit with a cover of Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night".
According to an episode of VH1's Behind The Music, Stevens nearly drowned in a freak accident near the end of the 1970s. He pleaded with God to save him. Stevens was known to comment, "I said 'please, God, I'll do anything for you, I'll work for you...'" And thus, Stevens began to find peace with himself and began his transition to Islam (interestingly, a song from his 1972 album Catch Bull At Four, entitled "Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head," may have been a sign of things to come). He converted to that faith in 1978, changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and abandoned his previous career as a pop star.
Following his conversion to Muslim faith, Yusuf Islam at one point wrote to the record companies, asking that his music no longer be distributed; the request was denied.
In 1985, Islam, aware of the world hunger problem gripping Ethiopia, decided to return to the public spotlight for the first time since his religious conversion in the historic Live Aid concert, and wrote a special song for the occasion. But because of the already growing amount of artists who had already been signed to perform, Stevens/Islam never got the opportunity to perform publicly at that time.
He has since resumed making (Islamic) music choosing to use only the human voice and basic percussion instruments in the compositions. He has also released the album A is for Allah, an instruction for children. He has been instrumental in creating a web site called Mountain of Light (link below).
In 2003 he recorded "Peace Train" once more for a compilation CD which included David Bowie and Paul McCartney and performed in Nelson Mandela's 46664 concert with Peter Gabriel, recording and performing music in English for the first time after 25 years.
"This issue of music in Islam is not as cut and dried as I was led to believe," he said. "I relied on hearsay, that was perhaps my mistake."
Today, as Yusuf Islam, he lives with wife and five children in London, where he is an active member of the Muslim community. He has founded the charities Muslim Aid and Small Kindness to assist African famine victims. He also has and continues to have authority in any reissue of his songs and albums made as Cat Stevens in the 1970s. A box set of Stevens/Islam's music, as well as remastered versions of his original albums, has since been released on CD. His web site today lists his available albums. He states that much of the royalties are given to charity.
Yusuf Islam's comments in 1989 concerning Salman Rushdie after the publication of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses provoked controversy. During this time period an Iranian fatwa (religious ruling) was issued, holding that it was an obligation of Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie. Yusuf Islam publicly stated that Rushdie was indeed guilty of blasphemy against Islam, and Rushdie deserved to be killed. This led to a public outcry, and a drop in record sales. In response to this criticism, Yusuf Islam has since clarified that he believes that a death sentence can only be carried out by the authority of a court in an Islamic society, and that he is opposed to anyone taking the law into their own hands by murdering Rushdie.
On September 22 2004, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration denied him entrance to the U.S., saying that he was registered on a watch list based on "concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities." His deportation provoked a small international controversy and led British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to complain personally to Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations.
This list excludes the many compilation albums which have been made. The years link to the relevant year in music.
as Cat Stevens:
as Yusuf Islam:
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
