Cat Stevens
Tea For The Tillerman

Of his third life, the current one, very little is known: he goes by the name Yusuf Islam and at one point he endorsed the fatwa against Salman Rushdie issued by the ayatollahs, which suggests that Allah has now taken over his brain. This never has good effects, and it's not only true for Allah (see how Buttiglione turned out in this regard).

Of his first life even less is known: little more than the name, which was Steven Georgiou then. But the name itself reveals his Greek origins, at least on his father's side, and this would have a certain impact on his art.

His art is almost entirely concentrated in his second life, the shortest and the most interesting, under the name Cat Stevens.
The debut is mediocre: rather predictable little songs, often overwhelmed by inappropriate and cloying layers of strings. But from 1969-70 onwards, there is such a drastic change that this son of a Greek immigrant becomes one of the few Europeans, if not the only one, who could at least stand up to the masters of acoustic ballads from across the ocean, who answer to illustrious names like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell...
Certainly his lyrics do not have literary or content value comparable to those of a Dylan or a Cohen, but they earn respect for their simplicity and wisdom: Cat Stevens often speaks to us like a philosopher who has been through a lot and always has some good advice to give, whether it's about love or politics, ecology or life choices. Even though in 1970 he was only 23 years old, in Father And Son, the famous and splendid ballad-dialogue between a father ("look at me, I am old but I'm happy") and a restless son ("I know I have to leave", presumably away from home and around the world), Cat Stevens is more believable in the role of the parent. But as interesting as they are, the lyrics end up taking a back seat to the melodic vein and the musical intensity of these ballads, and this is where his Greek origins come into play, with skilled incorporations of Mediterranean color on the robust trunk of British folk, exuberance of sounds, mainly thanks to the rich weaves of the two acoustic guitars, by Stevens himself and the excellent Alun Davies.

In the not very long series of excellent records from this period, "Tea For The Tillerman" stands out for its concentration of masterpieces, similar to that of a Greatest Hits.
Perhaps the most well-known of these ballads is Wild World ("Oh baby baby it's a wild world...") where the bitterness of a farewell intertwines with a vague tone of denunciation, and its fame is certainly not undeserved, but the album features many other moments of great inspiration, splendid songs that are no less, like Hard Headed Woman, where amid a network of precious guitar arpeggios an image of an ideal woman emerges who ultimately turns out to be very common, or like Sad Lisa, which with a melancholy, unusual chamber accompaniment of piano and violin, sketches the figure of a crying woman, imprinting her in the soul with indelible ink. Delightful too are the tenderly ecological sketch of Where Do The Children Play? and the more surreal one of Into White, a kind of Hansel and Gretel house, full of colors that, however, fade into white, as the enchanting guitar melody seems to fade into the theme introduced by the violin, so angelic it truly seems to be white-colored. With Cat Stevens, the drummer can occasionally take a nap: we find him in full action in the imposing and slightly progressive Miles From Nowhere, or in Longer Boats representing the menacing approach of the ships to the shore, otherwise he discreetly highlights some salient features of these ballads.

This too gives an idea of the concentration of melody present in this album, a true acoustic masterpiece.