Cat Stevens

From folk songs to Islam, Cat Stevens was born Steven Demetre Georgiou on July 21, 1947 in London, England to a Swedish mother and a Greek father. After discovering a love for music in his teens, Stevens began performing under the stage name "Steve Adams" at age 18.

Stevens was discovered by record producer, Mike Hurst, formerly of the folk group the Springfields, who recorded Stevens’ first studio venture, I Love My Dog. This demo resulted in Stevens getting signed to Decca Records under a new stage name, "Cat Stevens." I Love My Dog cracked the British top 40 in October 1966, and subsequent releases such as Here Comes My Baby proved that Stevens was an adept songwriter, and generated popularity in the US.

In 1968, Stevens, by this time a famous folk/rock singer, had contracted tuberculosis, and landed in hospital for three months. The year of recuperation which followed sidelined Stevens’ music career, and he ended up severing ties with his record label. This sparked a period of more personal writing, and Stevens then signed with Island Records to release his third record, Mona Bone Jakon, in 1970.

In the late 1960’s Stevens recorded and toured - with artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Engelbert Humperdinck and his song "The First Cut Is the Deepest"  become an international hit for both  Rod Stewart and Sheryl Crow, and has won several song-writing awards.

The 70s saw Stevens becoming recognized as a formidable folk song writer in the ranks of James Taylor and Carole King. With his career success came also complications, and Stevens left the U.K. to live in Brazil for a year, donating the tax money he would have paid to charity. Despite the success of his next two albums, Foreigner and Buddha and the Chocolate Box both going gold, Stevens shunned the public eye and began doing fewer interviews and public appearances.

In 1977, Stevens made his transition to the Islamic faith official, changing his name to "Yusuf Islam." He retired from popular music to start a family, entering into an arranged marriage and eventually having five children. Stevens also auctioned off his possessions, and founded a Muslim school just outside of his native London.

Following a decade of self-imposed exile from the public eye, Stevens shocked the public by supporting the death sentence of Satanic Verses author, Salman Rushdie. Many radio stations banned Stevens’ songs from the airwaves as a result; however his subsequent "best of" compilations continued to sell successfully.

As recently as 2006, Stevens released An Other Cup, his first studio album in nearly 30 years. With eight consecutive gold albums and 10 hit singles to his career credit, Stevens is still on a U.S. government watch list and banned from entering the country due to his outspoken protest of the war in Iraq.