Acoustic Nation with Dale Turner: The Essential Acoustic Cuts of Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens

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Born Steven Demetre Georgiou, Cat Stevens rose to fame in the early Seventies with an impassioned and groovy folk-rock sound that put him in step with singer-songwriter legends like James Taylor, Carole King and Van Morrison.

In 1977, a near-drowning experience—coinciding with his receiving a copy of the Koran—prompted Cat to convert to Islam, change his name to Yusuf Islam and retire from the music business.

Stevens resumed his music career in the Nineties, and today he’s back on the prowl, touring the U.S. for the first time since 1978 and armed with a new record, the Rick Rubin–produced Tell ’Em I’m Gone, featuring Richard Thompson and harmonica ace Charlie Musselwhite, among others.

In this lesson, we’ll look at a few of Cat’s classics—acoustic “chord-based” gems, ripe with internal moving voices, ornaments and strums—all of which he performs to this day.