Cat Stevens' Return

[coda]

www.catstevens.com

Yusuf's (formerly Cat Stevens) first album of modern pop songs since

1978's Back To Earth. On his return to music, Yusuf says "I feel right

about making music and singing about life in this fragile world again.

It is important for me to help bridge the cultural gaps others are

sometimes frightened to cross."

Perhaps the timing is right.

Due out in stores in mid-November.

.

[IndyKlipschFan]

An artist I loved... Still do.... to a point as well.

The older songs are great, the sound is from his heart, and if you grew up with "Cat Stevens" I suppose you know that anyhow instantly. He hated the success he worked so hard to gain. (Some artists just can't handle it.)

Sad thing is, you either embrace it, or you drag others with you in your downfall aka Bobby Brown w/ Whitney Houston or find religion.. as "Cat" did. Makes me wonder if M.C.Hammer is happy on all of the religious channels now adays too. I hear his church is huge.. and doing QUITE well.

I hope, more than anything else, he uses his power (whatever that is... is debatable..) more like celeb status for good. We seem, in the USA, to make a spokespersons of artists which is not always a good idea..... on things we do not understand. Take Tom Cruise on Scientology LOL.)

Maybe I need to do what I used to do on this one.. Just enjoy the music for what it is. Ignore the politcs of his/ her life. While he denounced his former self as "Cat" he never let go of his royalty income or sold his rights..(smart move) So he is not dumb. Maybe he has something to say to all of us creativly wise..

That said.... LOL.. I will probably buy it.

[colterphoto1]

have we offended everyone yet?

[IndyKlipschFan]

I hope not on this thread.... I didn't mean to.

[colterphoto1]

gotcha ROTFLMAO~!

[edwinr]

Cat Stevens? Care factor...? Let me think [*-)] No.. it's gone... [|-)]

[Fish]

Cat was a great artist,I listened to Tea for the Tillerman many nights of my youth,and still do.When he called for murder for writing a book I knew it was over,I'd buy Cat but not Yusuf.

[colterphoto1]

Teaser and the Firecat was another old fave.

[PhilMays]

I liked Cat, but he got a little weird for me

[Daddy Dee]

I loved Cat Stevens music and played it to no end. Even went to Memphis to hear him live in 76. Fabulous concert.

He did vehemently condemn the 9/11 perpetrators saying that anyone who took innocent life was as guilty as killing the whole world. He noted this was the correct understanding of Islam.

[sunburnwilly]

Didn't we , America , ban him ?

[maxg]

I was a Cat fan too - back in the day and even have a couple of albums of his greatest hits for the nostalgia.

When he found Islam he denied everything he did as Cat Stevens. At least he is a man of peace and is totally against all forms of war.

Yes - America did refuse him entry in the aftermath of 9/11.

No - it didnt make any sense at the time either.

Not sure I will buy this new album - wouldn't mind a quick listen though.

[Werner Enge]

Personally for me , actually nothing sounds better than the live version of : Lady d ´ Arbanville .

I don´t believe that he will reach this energy today after all his problems of identification or finding himself .

greetz .

[PhilMays]

I loved Cat Stevens music and played it to no end. Even went to Memphis to hear him live in 76. Fabulous concert.

He did vehemently condemn the 9/11 perpetrators saying that anyone who took innocent life was as guilty as killing the whole world. He noted this was the correct understanding of Islam.

I didn't know this...well....I'll give it to him then. Of course it helps that I loved the old Cat music! I think I might still like to hear his music. A lot of the 60's music very well can be compared..Peace, Love, & stop the war !

[Colin]

Cat Stevens Teaser Mona Bone Jakon on a tubed Gundman? console was probably the event that sold me on quality music listening as a young man

[kaiser SET say]

One of my all time favorites and I was spinning IZITSO on the old Thorens last night[]

Tea for the Tillerman, Trouble, Father & Son and so many other songs written from the heart[]

So true Werner[H]

[mas]

FYI, for those wondering what the commotion is/was about or those who simply dismiss the issue...

Make up your own mind...

Here is an account and a relatively reasonable assessment of Cat's issues:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/003377.php

Cat Stevens was guest of Canadian Hamas front

From the National Post,

TORONTO - Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was the guest of honour at a Toronto fundraising dinner hosted by an organization that has since been identified by the Canadian government as a "front" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

In a videotape of the 1998 event obtained by the National Post, Mr. Islam describes Israel as a "so-called new society" created by a "so-called religion" and urges the audience to donate to the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services to "lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land."

The Jerusalem Fund is one of four "fronts" named in a secret Privy Council Office memo that was sent to Jean Chretien, then prime minister, on May 23, 2000, discussing what it called groups that "have unsavoury links with terrorism.

"In a limited number of cases, fundraising in support of violent foreign struggles takes place in Canada through the cover of ethnic, religious or community-based associations and groups, lobbying and even criminal activity," the report says.

"Front groups operating in Canada include the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (Hamas Front), the World Tamil Movement (Tamil Tigers Front), the Canadian Kurdish Information Network (Kurdistan Workers Party Front) and the Babbar Khalsa (a Sikh extremist front)."

Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is responsible for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis. Canada has outlawed Hamas under federal anti-terrorism legislation, making it illegal to support the group....

But on June 20, 1998, Mr. Islam gave the keynote address at a Jerusalem Fund fundraising dinner held in Toronto. The event was videotaped, and a copy was obtained by the SITE Institute, a U.S. terrorism research organization.

The video opens with a scene of Niagara Falls, overlayed with the Jerusalem Fund logo, which features the al-Aqsa Mosque and the maple leaf. It begins with an unidentified man explaining the activities of the Jerusalem Fund, which he describes as "helping the Muslims in Palestine" by financing hospitals, health clinics, families in need and orphans.

"Palestine is close to the heart of each and every Muslim. What the Muslims of Palestine have been doing for many years now has been that bright light shining, that hope ... that they are still believers that can raise the banner of jihad in the most difficult of circumstances."

Mr. Islam then begins a 45-minute speech in English in which he says it is "intolerable" for Muslims to "stand and watch" the situation in the Middle East. He describes Jerusalem as the centre of a land that is holy because of its connection to Allah.

"So this city which is blessed because of its religious nature. Therefore, what we see today is the result of the departure of religion from this area, of the uprooting of religion. So many of the people of the faith have been exiled from this region, moved on, to make way for what? Strangely and ironically, they moved on in the name of so-called religion, on behalf of ... the Jews.

"Of course, that would explain what is happening. Because the moment that religion and religious virtues disappear, there for sure follows trouble, tyranny, oppression," he says. "So what do we see then today? The concoction of a so-called new society based on an old society."

He says there could be "no redeemer except Allah. No political concept or construct or treaty or agent except the laws of Allah, which he instructed for this world. Jerusalem is that, the symbol of that. Out of the hands of the righteous then it falls into disrepute and blood.

"Jerusalem, al-Quds, it is a mirror reflecting the reality ... If it is dark, if it is bloody, then so too is the world. Today it reflects injustice of the secular man over the religious man. And how can the secular man be given the control and the sanctuary of the divine place of worship when he doesn't even respect what is holy? How? And how can those of faith allow that to happen? Therefore, peace will not return until we return to the Holy Land."

The Real Problem With the Cat Stevens Affair

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15293

One thing that has been overlooked in the whole recent Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens imbroglio is that if he is indeed telling the truth, the implications are even worse than if he is lying.

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Islam, the former pop star, was denied entry into the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />U.S. last week because, according to Homeland Security department spokesman Brian Doyle, of activities that could potentially be related to terrorism. Its a serious matter.

DHS has steadfastly remained mum about what exactly these activities are. Opponents of the department have rushed to fill the vacuum with theories mining both the incompetent and the sinister. Yusuf Islam himself complained: The whole thing is totally ridiculous. Half of me wants to smile, half of me wants to growl. Time magazine asserted that it was a case of mistaken identity based on a spelling error: it quoted aviation sources with access to the list to the effect that there is no Yusuf Islam on the no-fly registry, though there is a Youssouf Islam. The Muslim American Society chipped in with the sinister angle by posting at its website a message from a leftist blogger named Kurt Nimmo, asserting that Bush kept the singer out of the U.S. as a public relations ploy in an effort to seize control of airline passenger lists and also portray a famous Muslim and peace activist as a terrorist in support of Hamas.

DHS wouldnt have had to work very hard to portray the ex-Cat as a supporter of the terrorists of Hamas. The connections to the terror group are relatively recent: in 1998, Yusuf Islam spoke at a fundraising dinner sponsored by an organization, the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services, that has been identified by the Canadian government as a Hamas front group. He exhorted his hearers to donate to the group in order to lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land. In 2000, he was denied entry into Israel for donating thousands to Hamas. Again, Islam denied it all, saying: I want to make sure that people are aware that Ive never knowingly supported any terrorist groups past, present or future. Its simply an attempt to cast doubt again on my character and good intentions.

So in essence, if Cat Stevens is not a proponent of the global jihad, he is, by his own admission, a dupe. He sent thousands to Israel to support his brothers and sisters in Palestine; even if he really didnt intend it to go to Hamas, it did. This is an indication of what Muslims who do not support terrorism face daily: so many Islamic charities have turned out to be terrorist fronts that many whose intentions were quite different have ended up being supporters of terror unwittingly. There is no separation in mosques and Islamic communities between moderate and radical Muslims, and neither camp has shown any indication of wanting to create one.

Whats more, the checkered post-conversion career of the former feline himself indicates that even the moderate/radical distinction itself is not hard and fast. He publicly supported the Ayatollah Khomeinis death sentence for blasphemy against Salman Rushdie in 1989 (The Quran makes it clear, said the author of Peace Train, that if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die), although he has backtracked since then. His statements supporting the Rushdie fatwa are a case in point: now he says he spoke out of new converts enthusiasm and based his answer on abstract considerations of Islamic law, not intending actually to support the novelists murder thereby saying something about both Islamic law and converts. Khomeinis fatwa, as Cat the student of Islam had no doubt recently learned, was no innovation, but entirely consistent with Islamic law mandating death for blasphemers. And his converts zeal, anxious as he was to act upon the newly-absorbed lessons of Islam, has manifested itself in more ominous forms more recently: witness American Taliban John Walker Lindh, shoe bomber Richard Reid, dirty bomb hopeful Jose Padilla, and on and on. They didnt set out to learn radical Islam or moderate Islam. They just wanted to learn Islam.

Thus if Cat is telling the truth about not supporting terrorism, his case is a striking reminder of the deep crisis within Islam: terror has intertwined itself with the religion so tightly today that it cannot be separated even by those who claim to abhor all that the terrorists stand for. Muslims today cant seem to ride the peace train even if they want to.

[kaiser SET say]

MAS, anyone who grew up listening to Cat and his music know he is/was a man of peace. I truly believe he was caught in the middle of something he can't back out of now!

I know I want to hear what he's recording now if for no other reason than to see if his head/heart still lies in the same place as it did in my youth[:|]

[mas]

Please understand that I do NOT mean to be rude...but then I don't claim to know what is in anyone elses head or heart.

I too grew up listening to his records and quite enjoyed them...

I also listened to Ike Turner, Jim Morrison, some Whitney, (and maybe the real test would be to say Britney or Jessica Simpson - if I could honestly lie that well, or if anyone can say ANYTHING is going on inside their heads!), as well as watched Vincent Price and Boris Karlof and even a Freddi Krueger movie(s). I also remember well the silly public bruhaha over Alice Cooper (& even had the pleasure - OK it was a bit weird!- of doing a show with them in '72 while with Poco). And I have seen TV 'wrassling'.

I don't make an automatic assumption that what goes on 'on stage' necessarily reflects any personal character assessment. For that, actions seem to be more significant than words. And appearances more often than not seem to deceive...

I have had an opportunity to work with too many notables and to see the act and the reality. Sometimes it is a pleasure. Sometimes a travesty!

And even with that level of exposure, I do not 'KNOW' much at all about what they actually feel or believe as core values.

Please listen if you want.

But please do not limit your assessment of their personal character to how pretty the song is! Reality is a bit more complex. And, in general, few who truly advocate more sinister methods are so stupid as to openly advertise them.

I don't know what Cat Steven's truly believes. I don't even know that it is pertinent to listening to his music.

But I am not going to make any great leaps of faith one way or another based upon what a song says.

[coda]

Yusuf Islam Wins Peace Prize

Peace Train (recorded 17NOV)