Two brushes with death have shaped the life of singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens. “I never thought I’d get this far,” he tells Emma Higginbotham
When he was 20, Yusuf Islam – the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens – nearly died.
It was 1968 and young Cat, whose clean-cut handsomeness and catchy pop tunes had earned him heartthrob status, was rushed to hospital with tuberculosis. It took him a year to recover.
Yet rather than stalling his career, this brush with death – and the months spent in bed pondering life’s big questions – transformed it.
Back, bearded and brimming with spiritual curiosity, in 1970 he recorded Tea for the Tillerman, the melodious folk rock album that catapulted him to international stardom.
Half a century later, Yusuf has released Tea for the Tillerman 2, a re-recording of all 11 tracks including Where do the Children Play?, Wild World and Father and Son. And, with its themes of ecological destruction and troubled relationships, it all feels strikingly relevant.
“The songs have stood the test of time because mankind still hasn’t learned how to look after the earth,” says Yusuf. “Other problems that we’re facing today still reside in the questions which I ask in that album. It’s all to do with the journey of life.”
Few can claim a life as eventful as Yusuf, born Steven Demetre Georgiou in 1948. The youngest of three, he lived above the restaurant his Greek-Cypriot father and Swedish mother ran in London’s Shaftesbury Avenue – and, as if by osmosis, music became his world.
“My sister had a beautiful shiny gramophone player, and I’d rummage through all the records, but I didn’t go for Frank Sinatra, I went for Porgy and Bess,” he recalls. “I was a big fan of musicals and, because I grew up in the West End, I was surrounded by them.”
At 15 he persuaded his dad to buy him a guitar, and started writing his own songs. “One of the reasons was because I found it difficult to play other people’s music – it took too long to learn the chords and the words.
“There were some really crummy ones in the beginning, but one day I wrote a song called I Love My Dog, and I just knew inside of me that this was a hit.”
A record producer agreed and, if not exactly a hit (it peaked at number 28), it was a promising start. His next, Matthew and Son, reached number two, and Yusuf was officially hot property. Life became a relentless whirlwind of performing and touring, and before long it took its toll.
“To stand up on stage was the most frightening thing to have to face every night, twice a night, and that’s what wore me down,” he says. “After a year of this excessive workload and drinking – I had to drink to get on stage – I contracted TB. I thought I was going to die, and that was really my turning point.”
With its thoughtful lyrics and infectious melodies, Tea for the Tillerman won Yusuf worldwide acclaim, and follow-up hits including Morning Has Broken and Peace Train sealed his superstar status. Then in 1975, another brush with death once again changed everything.
Swimming off the coast of Malibu, Yusuf was swept out to sea. “I got caught in this tide and I couldn’t get back, and that was the moment where everything came together,” he says. “I suddenly realised only God could help me. I made a prayer, a little wave came from behind, and I was swimming back to land.
“After that I received a gift from my brother; it was a copy of the Qur’an. I’d never even thought about the Qur’an before, it was the last thing on my list. Then suddenly it became the first and the only thing. I found all my answers.”
He converted to Islam in 1977, changing not only his name but his entire lifestyle, much to the bemusement of some. “I’d been through so many experiences which brought me to that point, but to other people it seemed so immediate, and they didn’t understand,” he recalls. “People were making fun of me, and I didn’t like that. I decided that I’d had enough, so I walked away.”
Yusuf didn’t play a note for nearly two decades. He got married and had six children (tragically one died of a heart condition a few days after birth), and insists he didn’t miss music. “Life became my art,” he says. “I had these beautiful children, and I got very busy with relief work. It was like my time for singing had turned into a time for action.”
Over the years Yusuf has faced controversy. He was accused of supporting the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, which he denies, and in 2004 was refused entry to the USA after his name was flagged on an anti-terrorism ‘no fly’ list. He gives his own lengthy version of events on his website, and tells Weekend that his faith made him a media target.
“That’s the way the media works; quite simply I was strange,” he says. “Prejudice is a disease that people may not realise that they’re suffering from. The only way to get out of that is through education.”
After founding three Muslim schools and devoting his time to charity, by the late 90s Yusuf began to edge back to his former career. “My son brought a guitar into the house, and I realised I had to reclaim the narrative and let people know that I am still who I am,” he says. “Coming back to music was a real joy. I found I’d got so many ideas and melodies, so it was a bit of a gift, that break. It fuelled my imagination.”
At the grand old age of 72, Yusuf is still making music. There’s a line in Father and Son about being old but happy: is he? “I never thought I’d get this far to be honest,” he says, and laughs. “But you keep your eye on the light, and keep moving towards it.”
:: Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman 2 is out now via UMC
The grandfather-of-10 has been married to Fawziah for 41 years; in Tillerman 2 he’s changed the lyric ‘I’m looking for a hard-headed woman’ to ‘I found myself a hard-headed woman’ in her honour. “That doesn’t mean she’s going to get the royalties,” he jokes.
Songs from the album have been hits for artists including Maxi Priest, whose version of Wild World went to number five in 1988, and Boyzone, who’s 1995 cover of Father and Son reached number two. There are also punk, country and heavy metal versions.
In the new Father and Son, the father’s voice is Yusuf now, and the son is him aged 22. “We found a really pristine recording of me singing it in the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles, and used that,” he says. “It works really well.”
An edited version of this interview appeared in Waitrose Weekend in September 2020 (c) Waitrose