Yusuf Islam Steps Back Into Cat Stevens’s Old Sound

Yusuf Islam

By JON PARELES

Published: December 20, 2006

Yusuf Islam, who used to call himself Cat Stevens, is easing back into the public eye by way of the ears. Last month he released “An Other Cup” (Atlantic), his first album of pop songs in 28 years. This week, after arriving in the United States on Sunday, he chose radio broadcasts for his first performances here since the 1970s. They included a Sirius satellite radio show to be aired first at noon today and, on Tuesday night, a concert-with-interview for the public radio station KCRW at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room.

During his onstage interview with KCRW’s music director, Nic Harcourt — to be broadcast and webcast at 2:15 p.m. Thursday at www.kcrw.org — Mr. Islam revealed that his return to pop might have happened sooner. In 2004, he was turned away when he tried to enter the United States because his name was on the no-fly list created to fight terrorism. With that London-to-Washington trip, Mr. Islam said on Tuesday, he was headed for Nashville, where he had booked recording sessions and musicians. The deportation led to official protests from the foreign office of Great Britain, where Mr. Islam is a citizen and has spoken repeatedly against terrorism. He was allowed into the United States this time without incident. Visiting the United States now, he said onstage, was, “One small step for a man, one giant step for common sense.” One of his new songs, “Maybe There’s a World,” envisions, “an open world, borderless and wide/Where the people move from place to place and nobody’s taking sides.”

Mr. Stevens didn’t touch a guitar for more than 20 years, he said onstage, “to stay out of trouble more than anything.” But when he picked one up a little over two years ago, he said, “My fingers just felt at home.” The 2004 tsunami inspired him to write a song, “Indian Ocean,” for a charity album; it’s a long, detailed narrative about an English family on an island holiday that takes in an orphan after the tsunami. He performed it on Tuesday night, along with another recent topical song, “Little Ones,” set to an old Celtic melody, with lyrics that mourn children killed in war and promise they’ll go to heaven.

After nearly three decades, Mr. Islam has stepped back into a sound that Cat Stevens’s old fans will find familiar. His voice is still gentle and kindly, and his stage presence is unassuming, almost humble. He still builds songs around syncopated guitar and piano vamps, like the near-calypso of “Midday (Avoid City After Dark),” and uses eccentric structures that give his songs a subtle lift.

He performed with a full band including the guitarist Alun Davies, a mainstay of Cat Stevens’s hit albums. From his old material, Mr. Islam chose songs that revolved around philosophical questions and utopian hopes — “Oh Very Young” and “Peace Train” — to bring out the continuity between his past career and his present one.

Yet while the music is still cozy, and slightly less choppy than it was in the 1970s, Mr. Islam’s new lyrics have more answers than questions. “In the End” warns, “You can’t bargain with the truth/’Cause one day you’re gonna die.” They can also be oddly stilted; whether he’s singing about a lover or a deity in “Heaven/Where True Love Goes,” it’s an odd bit of praise to say, “Heaven must’ve programmed you.” Older songs like “Peace Train” sounded not only less doctrinaire, but more direct and conversational. Perhaps after the long hiatus his verse skills are rusty.

But he was clearly comfortable performing both new and old songs, including an encore he insisted he had not rehearsed: “Father and Son.” Backstage, Mr. Islam was asked about whether he planned to tour and play public concerts, and he said he hoped to find a way that was comfortable and manageable for him. “I’m thinking about it,” he said. “But I’m not rushing it.”

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Midday (Avoid City After Dark)

I Think I See The Light


Peace Train

An Other Cup