“I didn’t have any strength left,” says Yusuf. As he tried to swim back to shore, he realized the current was too strong to fight, and after struggling for a time he found himself on the verge of drowning.
I became a vegetarian, and I carried around a suitcase full of vitamins and special drinks everywhere I went.”Įverything changed one day in 1976, when Stevens went for a swim in the ocean near Malibu. “I did LSD a few times, but I stayed away from the rock-star life because I was so worried about my health. “TB is a very bluesy kind of illness,” he says. It was the era of the sensitive singer-songwriter, and Stevens fit right in on the airwaves next to James Taylor and Carly Simon.Įven when he became a superstar, Stevens had a hard time enjoying himself – tuberculosis helped see to that. The 18-year-old Georgiou began playing London coffeehouses under the name Cat Stevens and penning future classics like “The First Cut Is the Deepest.” A case of tuberculosis in 1968 nearly killed him, but his career exploded in 1970 when “Father and Son” and “Wild World” hit radio. Hearing Bob Dylan for the first time changed his life. “I was never a supporter of the fatwa, but people don’t want to hear that” Everything was in this small radius in the West End of London.”
“I lived on the same street as the 100 Club, and Dick James Music was four doors down from my father’s cafe. Georgiou came of age just as his hometown was becoming the center of the rock universe. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou in London, the son of a Greek father and Swedish mother. The Beacon cancellation is just the latest bold, principled and (many feel) self-defeating move of Yusuf’s long career. “It just institutionalizes the scalping business, and that’s not fair,” Yusuf says. A show at New York’s Beacon Theatre was guaranteed to sell out, though he canceled it when he learned that New York outlawed paperless ticketing, causing tickets to sell for hugely inflated values on the resale market. Yusuf recently wrapped his first North American tour since 1976. There was a couple of times where he wanted to go over bits again, and I said, ‘I’ve done it, Rick. “We did the whole thing in a week,” Yusuf says. Yusuf moved to Dubai in 2010 (“I like the sunshine”) but traveled to Los Angeles to cut the album with Rick Rubin. The conversation starts on solid ground: Tell ‘Em I’m Gone, Yusuf’s R&B-flavored new LP, his third disc since 2006. Prior to the interview, they urged me to be “sensitive” when it comes to “religion and past controversies.” His son anxiously looks up from his laptop when the conversation veers from music, and two publicists sit outside the door. Yusuf is relaxed and friendly, but everyone else seems a little on edge. More than at any other point since his return to secular music eight years ago, he looks like a rock star. Yusuf’s salt-and-pepper hair is saltier than ever, and he’s wearing sunglasses, a gray peace train 2011 T-shirt and a stylish blue jacket.
Yusuf’s 29-year-old son, Yoriyos, is seated and gazing at a laptop. His ever-present bodyguard, a beefy dude who stands at least six feet four, is perched on a nearby piano bench. It’s now eight months later, and Yusuf, 66, is sipping tea in a conference room high atop the Sony Building in midtown Manhattan. Singer Paulette McWilliams on Her Years With Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, and Steely Dan