A Return to the Year of the Cat?
Cat Stevens Working on New Album
 
 
-- Lewis Bachman,
Longtime SGA Executive,
Passes
 
--  Songwriter Annie
Dinerman Receives 2006
SGA Abe Olman Award
 
-- RIAA Sues XM for
Copyright Infringement.
 
-- SGA Pres. Speaks to
Congress About Financial Facts of Songwriting.
 
-- The Year Of The Cat:
Cat Stevens Set To
Make A Comeback.
 
-- SGA Manager Shares
Memories of Billy Preston.

Almost 30 years after leaving the music scene and giving away all of his music possessions and awards, Cat Stevens is making a comeback. Although he once vowed never to work in the music business again, he has just signed a deal with Polydor (his American label had been A&M during the Seventies). 

After becoming one of the best-selling performers of the 1970s with such albums as Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman, Stevens converted to Islam in 1979 and changed his name to Yusef Islam. He taught at a London University for a time.

The 57 year-old has spent the better part of a year writing for the new album, speculated to be secular as opposed to religious. The few recordings that Stevens has made since his conversion were mostly religious, save a remake a few years ago of Peace Train, just after the 9/11 bombings of the Trade Towers. He also appeared at the 46664 concert in South Africa, performing his hit Wild World with Peter Gabriel. Around the same time, he recorded a duet with Ronan Keating.

Talking about the new album, Islam/Stevens said, “There were a hundred reasons for leaving the music industry - not least because I had found what I was looking for, spiritually. Today there are perhaps a hundred and one good reasons why I feel right making music and singing about life again.” He hopes this album will create a better understanding between the western world and Islam (the religion). The album will be produced by Rick Nowels and was started more than 20 years ago when it was abandoned.

Stevens — who had a slew of hit albums and singles including Morning Has Broken, Wild World, Peace Train, Moonshadow and Father and Son, and as a writer had more recent success with one of his older tunes, First Cut Is The Deepest, a hit for Rod Stewart and subsequently Sheryl Crow — made headlines in 2004 when the Bush administration refused to let him enter the US. The administration made false claims that the celebrated writer of hits like Peace Train, was linked to terrorism.

Cat Stevens circa 1970s

Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam, today.