YUSUF ISLAM aka CAT STEVENS – WPAP BY TONI AGUSTIAN

Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948 in London, England), originally and commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam.

His early 1970s record albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat were both certified as Triple Platinum by the RIAA in the United States; his 1972 album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of release alone and was Billboard's number-one LP for three consecutive weeks. He has also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years for "The First Cut Is the Deepest", which has been a hit single for five different artists.

Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame, in December 1977, and adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam, the following year. In 1979, he auctioned all his guitars away for charity and left his music career to devote himself to educational and philanthropic causes in the Muslim community. He has been given several awards for his work in promoting peace in the world, including 2003's World Award, the 2004 Man for Peace Award, and the 2007 Mediterranean Prize for Peace. In 2006, he returned to pop music with his first album of new pop songs in 28 years, entitled An Other Cup. He now goes professionally by the single name Yusuf. His newest album, Roadsinger, was released on 5 May 2009. 

Early life (1948–1965)

Steven Georgiou was the third child of a Greek-Cypriot father, Stavros Georgiou (b. 1900), and a Swedish mother, Ingrid Wickman (b. 1915). He has an older sister, Anita, and brother, David. The family lived above Moulin Rouge, the restaurant that his parents operated on the north end of Shaftesbury Avenue, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus in the Soho theatre district of London. All family members worked in the restaurant. His parents divorced when he was about 8 years old, but they continued to maintain the family restaurant and live above it.

Although his father was Greek Orthodox and his mother a Swedish Lutheran, Georgiou was sent to a Catholic school, St. Joseph Roman Catholic Primary School in Macklin Street, which was closer to his father's business on Drury Lane. Georgiou developed an interest in piano at a fairly young age, eventually using the family baby grand piano to work out the chords, since no one else there played well enough to teach him. Inspired by the popularity of The Beatles, at age 15 he extended his interest to the guitar, convinced his father to pay £8 for his first instrument, and began playing it and writing songs. He would escape at times from his family responsibilities to the rooftop above their home, and listen to the tunes of the musicals drifting from just around the corner; from Denmark Street, which was then the centre of the British music industry. Later, Stevens has emphasized that the advent of West Side Story in particular affected him, giving him a  "different view of life", he said in 2000, on a VH1 Behind the Music programme. With interests in both art and music, he and his mother travelled to Gävle, Sweden, where he started developing his drawing skills after being influenced by his uncle Hugo Wickman, a painter.

He attended other local West End schools, where he says he was constantly in trouble, and did poorly in everything but art. He was called "the artist boy" and mentions that "I was beat up, but I was noticed". He went on to take a one-year course of study at Hammersmith School of Art, as he considered a career as a cartoonist. Though he enjoyed art (his later record albums would feature his original artwork on his album covers), he wanted to establish a musical career and began to perform originally under the stage name "Steve Adams" in 1965 while at Hammersmith. At that point, his goal was to become a songwriter.  Among the musicians who influenced him were Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, blues artists Leadbelly and Muddy Waters, John Lennon, Biff Rose (who played on his first album), Leo Kottke, and Paul Simon. He also wanted to emulate composers who wrote musicals, like Ira Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. In 1965 he signed a publishing deal with Ardmore & Beechwood and cut several demos, including "The First Cut Is the Deepest".

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