ANTHOLOGY
CAT STEVENS SONGBOOK
All these wonderful
photographs and Penny Valentine interview are courtesy of Gary
Gackstatter. Click on the thumbnails for larger views of these wonderful
pictures.
Singer, musician and
songwriter. As such, in the opinion of many, Cat Stevens is one of the most brilliant and
worthwhile talents to have emerged on the music scene in Britain in recent years.
TEASER AND THE FIRECAT
follows the first two albums, Mona Bone Jakon and Tea for the Tillerman, not as just
another step in the passage of time but as evidence of the inexorable linking of a mans
life with his work. MONA BONE JAKON told the story of his early rise to success, the
effects of success his illness and then the start of his comeback. TEA FOR THE TILLERMAN
was a less moribund collection, a series of tracks that reflected Stevens state of mind,
his opinions and his life as it had become.
The latest album, TEASER
AND THE FIRECAT, takes this relationship between the man and his life one more step
forward. TEASER AND THE FIRECAT is a happy album, reflecting the happiness of an artist
who has found a truth in his work.
Cat Stevens was born in
London 23 years ago, ~he son of a Greek father and Swedish mother. A boy who spent most of
his fife in the heart of a city where there are very few places a kid may play, very few
nights not filled with the rumble of long-distance lorries, with someone, somewhere
working. There are no streams to splash in around New Oxford Street. No trees to watch
swaying against the wind. No silence. No dark. No clean day. Yet from all this emerges not
only a talent affected by the childhood environment, but a talent which was to grow so
strong it could express all these missing elements in a few lines of lyric as he does on a
song from
TEASER AND THE FIRECAT:
- ~Morning has broken, like the first
morning
- Blackbird has spoken, like the first
bird.
- Praise for the singing
- Praise for the morning
- See the rains new fall, sunlight
from heaven
- Like the first dew fall on the first
grass.
A song of such purity that
it could only have been sung by a ctiy boy who discovered another country than the city
and became dizzy with its brilliance.
Stevens work has always had
two underlying qualities which have, over the past year, become even more marked, The
first is his lyricism - a quality which has always set him apart from other British
songwriters. It perceived and told - right from his early records- in a direct naively and
uncomplicated way.
- " I love my dog as much as.I
love you,
- Though you may fade,
- my dog will always come through~
The second quality was his
work as a musician.
His early career was often
hampered by overproduction and it wasnt until 1968,when he contracted Tuberculosis and
spent two years recovering from an illness that nearly killed him, that he realized that
his original demos, with their lack of orchestration, were better than the heavy studio
singles and albums. So, when he returned to the studios in 1970 to cut MONA, he knew
exactly the sound he wanted and he and producer, Paul Samwell -Smith, so much an integral
part of the Stevens team’, captured it perfectly. The music is pure, uncluttered,
without trimmings, centred round haunting European rhythms and coming across with an
honesty that is both startling and razor sharp. There is nothing blurred about Cat Stevens
viewpoint of himself and there is equally nothing blurred in the way he projects that
sensitivity to a listener,
Today Cat Stevens has, if
anything, made that lyrical simplicity and musical purity even more telling. On TEASER AND
THE FIRE-CAT it becomes one complete entity. The result is an album combining precision
and perfect melody. Call TEASER AND THE FIRECAT an ‘up album.
- PENNY VALENTINE
- Features Editor
- Sounds
- August, 1971
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Click on a
thumbnail to view larger picture.
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