In "roadsinger," the illuminating title track to Yusuf's new
album, he asks, "Where do you go in a world filled with fright?
Only a song to warm you through the night."
For decades, his has been the voice that has carried us through
the darkness. One of the most influential and successful
singer-songwriters of the last 40 years, Yusuf has provided the
perfect salve for a troubled world--a beautifully nuanced, warm
voice shielding us against harsh, turbulent times bringing songs
of truth and hope.
Just when we need him most, Yusuf is back with roadsinger, an
11-song collection about the evanescent dreams of life and the
promise that spiritual fulfillment brings for those who are ready
to travel far enough.
"While writing these songs I was getting a new idea every day and
every song said, `sing me', Yusuf says, sitting casually on a
sofa in a hotel suite in Los Angeles. "You don't `make' the
music; you just interpret something that's passing through you."
The enjoyment that comes in being part of this process of
creating music is palpable in every note on roadsinger. And Yusuf
is certain that every step of his amazing journey has led him to
this place. "Songwriting is a life vocation if you're really
serious about it," he says. "And, therefore, it comes from your
experiences and the times, tastes and troubles that make up your
life."
And what a life it has been. Born of a Greek her and Swedish
mother in England, Steven Georgiou grew up in the shadow of the
West End, London's equivalent of Broadway. On one end of his
street was a statue of Eros, the Greek god of love. On the other
were theaters that brought some of the best music ever written
within feet of his doorstep. "Almost from day one when I decided
to get into music, I wanted to write songs for musicals," he
says. "I was so inspired by the great composers such as
Bernstein, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein."
A self-taught musician, yusuf always felt that, like these
seminal men of music, he had a voice and something to say. "I
just had to wait for other people to discover it."
Of course, they did. As Cat Stevens, he sold more than 60 million
albums. His tender-yet-passionate style became synonymous with
the folk-based singer-songwriter movement of the `70s, although
his music transcended any set place and time. Hits like "Wild
World," "Morning Has Broken," "her and Son," "Peace Train,"
"Oh Very Young," and "Moonshadow" remain as relevant and inviting
today as they did 35 years ago.
Always a seeker of enlightenment and universal wisdom, his
searching led him to embrace Islam in 1977 after reading an
English translation of the Qur'an. There is nothing too posh or
pious about Yusuf. His faith is expressed most beautifully in the
universal truths of "All Kinds of Roses" from roadsinger. There's
a stillness and deliberateness about Yusuf that comes from a
place of serenity and surrender.
He smiles softly when he talks about picking up a guitar for the
first time again in 2004. "It was that moment around dawn,
morning time, when no one else was around. I decided to have a go
and it felt so, so, natural. I could put my fingers exactly where
they were 30 years ago (laughs) and yet it was so fresh. I think
that was the most glorious of moments."
That reentry into mainstream music's atmosphere after a 28-year
absence was the critically-lauded "An Other Cup" in 2006. People
were relieved "that I didn't sound like I'd gone through some
Frankensteinian transformation which made me sound like something
else," Yusuf says with a laugh.
"An Other Cup" bridged his eastern and western sensibilities;
whereas roadsinger is rooted firmly in the West. That shift
happened subconsciously courtesy of a plane trip. "I remember
listening to a playlist on a transatlantic flight of [music from]
the `70s and that just captured my imagination. I said, `oh gosh,
how great it was.' It was Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Carole
King, James Taylor, Neil Young, Elton John. But it was more the
L.A. stuff and that may have edged me toward doing that again."
Yusuf traveled all over the world to record roadsinger including
studios in London, Dubai, and others. He produced the album
himself, with assistance on three tracks provided by producer
Martin Terefe, best known for his work with Jason Mraz, KT
Tunstall, James Morrison and Ron Sexsmith. Some of his musical
friends--Michelle Branch, nar Nelson, James Morrison, Terry
Sylvester and Holly Williams, also chime in on backing vocals.
Much of roadsinger was recorded live with few overdubs, giving
the album an , unpretentious feel. Yusuf says, "I borrowed
from my own experience making `Tea for the Tillerman,' I realized
that some of the best tracks were all live so I went back into
things live again."
That adds to the immediacy and warmth of the tracks. "When you're
doing it live, it has something to do with life right now, which
is much more powerful than `let's try and overdub it again',"
Yusuf says. "Essentially it's all done simultaneously and that
makes it all more vital. The title track actually was a first
take. I haven't done that since 1967," he laughs.
Yusuf also revisits his past on the compelling, lovely "Be What
You Must" which opens with the lilting, delicate piano melody of
"Sitting," an enduring hit from Catch Bull at Four. Accompanied
by a children's choir, Yusuf bravely and boldly sings that in
order to "Be what you must, you must give up what you are."
On "roadsinger," Yusuf praises love both divine and human.
"Thinking `Bout You," is a pure love song of sweet devotion to
one who simply makes the world better by their presence.
While much of the album is dominated by Yusuf's exquisite,
tasteful guitar work, confident, layered arrangements punctuate
the tunes, such as the horns on the lush "Everytime I Dream," or
the cellos and violins that provide "The Rain" with a gravitas as
Yusuf sings of the world after an epic flood.
Similarly, the searing "World O' Darkness" features some of
Yusuf's most plaintive vocals ever captured on disc, often
pierced by his piquant guitar work. Just as he examines war on
"Darkness," on the yearning "This Glass World" he questions how
we've isolated ourselves from others with our material
possessions.
Both songs are featured in "Moonshadow," a musical opening later
this year constructed around his catalog of songs. "'World O'
Darkness' acts as a prologue to the planet in which we find
ourselves," Yusuf says. "A world where only moon shines and there
is no daylight. It becomes the goal of this one boy, who's very
much a dreamer, very much a rebel, perhaps similar to myself, who
leaves the social treadmill to find the lost world of the sun."
Like his best music over the decades, roadsinger is about a
journey of love, after rejection; truth beyond illusion and,
ultimately, hope from the opening track, "Welcome Home," in which
Yusuf invites "all seekers this way," to the closing "Shamsia," a
gentle, meditative instrumental, where he sends us lovingly back
into the world of musical sunshine.
But, luckily for us, Yusuf says his musical "seeking" is far from
done so we can count on him to keep looking for the answers.
"Seeking the perfect song is always the task of every songwriter
and you never make it," he says. "And that's a great thing, that
there's always something more to write about, something more to
sing out loud about."