Where is cat stevens today

The man who had become a hero to me had long since retired from the music world. In time, his music, too, would fade from my consciousness. As I grew and matured, so did my musical tastes and sensibilities. I was intrigued when he came out of retirement with the two Yusuf albums, and listened to each of them a handful of times with attendant hopes and it seemed inevitable disappointment.

It was hard to get excited about his music now. The voice was the same, but the spirit was changed, different, unwelcoming. Nevertheless, when it was announced, in late , that he was going to perform in America for the first time in thirty-eight years, I put my misgivings aside and became a teen-ager again, queueing up for tickets on the phone the morning they went on sale.

I simply drove up to Boston to see my old hero, expectations dimmed to almost nothing. I imagined that there I would see Yusuf Islam, delivering a respectful program of his latter-day music, with perhaps one or two old favorites thrown in as crowd appeasement.

I was going to pay homage to the singer whose music had once so inspired me, for the chance to simply be in the same room with him for the first and what I assumed would be the last time. It has taken some time for me to think clearly about what it was like to be at that show. What happened there was more than just a good concert given by a group of well-rehearsed, talented musicians, backing a pop icon on a comeback tour, though it was partly that.

It was more than just a nostalgic trip down memory lane, as a sold-out crowd sang along to songs that many including myself never expected to hear played live again, though it was partly that, too. Without resorting to hyperbole, being there, for me, was an unexpected catharsis, something like seeing a ghost.

Was he now acknowledging his former self? This was a surprise, the first of many that the evening would hold. What was this, though? And the stage set—it was elaborate, whimsical, evocative of the old Cat, whose tastes sometimes crossed the line into outright silliness. Most significantly, though, he himself seemed engaged, connected, and—hardest to believe—lighthearted.

Here he was again. Cat Stevens. There was only one thing to do and that was to pray to the almighty to save me. And I did. A little wave came from behind. It was just simply pushing me forward. So I was saved. Following the incident, the musician was given a Quran by his brother.

But it became the gateway. After a year I could not hold myself back. So I was often used as a bit of a spokesman, and I was useful for certain occasions. The year-old British musician, still internationally famous for songs such as Father and Son, The First Cut is the Deepest, Moonshadow and Wild World, said he had hoped fans would understand that he felt he had found something more important than music, but he was wrong.

Everyone wanted me to keep on making music. Having laid myself fallow for two decades, I was absolutely flowing with ideas.

I knew it was right. One of the most upsetting times for Stevens, he reveals, was his portrayal as a supporter of the Iranian fatwa that forced the novelist Salman Rushdie into hiding in I never supported the fatwa. I had to live through that. In a candid discussion about the impact of the fame that came to him 50 years ago with the release of the acclaimed album Tea for the Tillerman , Stevens recalled the stage fright he felt before going on in front of a large crowd, and of the dubious help he received from fellow performer Engelbert Humperdinck.

You just had to have one glass of that.