Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens is an English singer-songwriter born on 21 July 1948 in London, who later converted to Islam and took the name Yusuf Islam. He emerged in the late 1960s with pop-oriented hits before reinventing himself in the early 1970s as an introspective folk-rock artist, blending acoustic guitar, gentle orchestration and Mediterranean-tinged melodies with lyrics about spirituality, family and inner searching.

His run of albums in that decade, including «Tea for the Tillerman» and «Teaser and the Firecat», produced enduring songs such as «Father and Son», «Wild World», «Moonshadow» and «Peace Train», which helped define the singer-songwriter movement alongside contemporaries like James Taylor and Nick Drake. His interpretation of the traditional hymn «Morning Has Broken» became one of his best-known recordings.

In the late 1970s he stepped away from the music industry after converting to Islam, devoting years to education and charitable work before eventually returning to recording and performing decades later, this time often as Yusuf/Cat Stevens. His early catalogue remains widely covered and sampled, and his songs continue to be recognized as touchstones of folk-pop songwriting.