Catch Bull at Four Showcases Cat Stevens as an Explorer

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Catch Bull at Four Showcases Cat Stevens as an Explorer
by Alexis Andrews - November 29, 2008

Album cover for Cat Stevens' Catch Bull at Four

In the TMZ show I was watching last night on television (hey – there was nothing else on!), the paparazzi caught up with Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens. With the Muslim beard. At a US airport. Luckily, unlike before, the security check he had to go through was more routine than racist. He didn’t have the same problem as years ago, when US airport officials and authorities had denied him entry. Okay, he may be one of the most prominent Muslim activists right now, but do you remember when he used to do music? When he was one of the world’s best-selling artists?

Having grown up to Cat Stevens records like “Father and Son” and “Wild World”, it’s still hard for me to reconcile the man’s signature introspective sound and sensitivity with how he’s being treated at the airports. I’m like, really? (In Seth Meyers’ Saturday Night Live voice, of course.) Islam has sold over 60 million music albums worldwide as Cat Stevens and his name is being included in the FBI watchlist? Really? Here is a 2004 Man for Peace Award and 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace recipient who has devoted himself to promoting peace and goodwill around the world, and he’s being labeled as a terrorist? I mean, really.

Before his conversion to Islam, this London-based British, Greek, and Swedish singer-songwriter was better known as Cat Stevens. After his early musical career saw him perform solo as a teenager in coffee houses and pubs, he snatched a record deal in 1967 and released his debut album, Matthew and Son, under Deram Records. Over the next several years, he came to be known as an artist and perfectionist who heavily explored folk rock and pop, with a hint of R&B, as evident in Cat Stevens albums like Mona Bone Jakon, Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and The Firecat. These works made him a music sensation, unique for his introspection, trademark acoustic stylings and spiritual themes. He recorded what would later turn out to be timeless pop tunes like “Peace Train,” “Father and Son,” “Wild World,” and “Hard-headed Woman”.

My favorite Cat Stevens album, however, has to be the one which didn’t yield a single Top 10 hit. It’s called Catch Bull at Four, a vibrantly orchestrated collection of tracks that showcased Stevens’ gravelly but emotionally direct voice; lyrical themes that evolved from spiritual to meditative to almost metaphysical; and broadening musical palette, which introduced new elements such as the use of the synthesizer, female back-up vocals, penny whistles, the piano, and dual acoustic guitars. Fans and critics might argue that the 1972 album – released by Island Records in the UK and AM Records in the US – is a more difficult listen than the previous ones, but Catch Bull at Four featured quintessential Stevens in his element: searching always for deeper meaning, despite the fame, wealth, and success he had at the time already achieved.

In 1978, Stevens adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, and left a successful musical career in order to focus on philanthropic and educational causes in the Muslim communities of London and other places – building schools, funding charities, supporting orphans in Bosnia. But he remains the same: after all these years, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens is as earnest an explorer as any we’ve ever seen or heard.

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