Yusuf/Cat Stevens Announces Long-Awaited Memoir, ‘Cat on the Road to Findout'
The memoir, which arrives in the U.K. on Sept. 18 and North America on Oct. 7, chronicles Stevens' life and career. It begins with his upbringing in the West End of London, where he was born Steven Demetre Georgiou in 1948, and his start as a musician in the Sixties.
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His career was briefly put on pause in 1969 when he got tuberculosis and famously spent a year in isolation, writing over 40 songs. Several of those would appear on 1970's Tea for the Tillerman, his masterpiece that ushered in the singer-songwriter generation (Yusuf rerecorded the classic in 2020). The book also documents the moment he quit secular music and converted to Islam in 1978, and returned to the stage several decades later.
'I've been on an amazing journey, which began in the narrow streets of London, and led me through the most iconic cities, to perform upon the great stage of Western culture, ascending the dizzying heights of wealth, recognition, and artistic pinnacles,' Yusuf said in a statement.
He added: 'Freely exploring vast ranges of religions and philosophies, wandering through churches, temples, all the way to the Holy abode in Jerusalem — ignoring myths and warnings — and crossing the foreboded, desert heartlands, to arrive at the House of One God in Abrahamic Arabia. What finally elevated my perspective was a luminous Book that perfectly alchemized my thoughts, beliefs, with human nature. It taught me Oneness, and my place and purpose within the universe.'
Stevens has been working on his memoir for several years, even giving Rolling Stone an update on his progress in 2022. 'It's absolutely my whole life,' he told us. 'If you want to know about me and Jimi Hendrix, it's in there.… We were doing a tour [in the spring of 1967]. It was the first time he lit his guitar on fire. I was too scared in my dressing room, thinking about how I'm going to approach my set, to even bother about going down there and having a look. [Laughs.] We got quite close. We shared some times together, and a few puffs, as you would, in that purple haze.'
Yusuf will perform at London's Hyde Park on July 11, alongside Neil Young and Van Morrison. Cat on the Road to Findout, which takes its name from the Tillerman track 'On the Road to Find Out,' is available for preorder; a book tour is expected to be announced.
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