Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060148
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON KAMPEAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
The man who wrote ``Peace Train'' emerged from retirement Tuesday to sign copies of his first album in 18 years - complete with a Muslim hymn to fit his revised outlook on life.
The former Cat Stevens, the singer-songwriter who has changed his name to Yusuf Islam, says his conversion to Islam means he now considers the love songs he sang in the 1970s impure.
``In the context of Islam, love should be connected to marriage,'' he said, surrounded by hundreds of fans jammed into a central London store.
He described as ``still halal'' - or acceptable - songs such as ``Peace Train,'' ``On the Road'' and ``Morning Has Broken.''
``On those songs, the words are unknowingly reaching for something higher than this world,'' he said.
Fans longing for the lilting Stevens melodies of yore will be disappointed: The new album is 80 percent talk. In it, Islam has taken on the tradition of the ``qussa,'' the wandering storyteller who recounts the life of the prophet Mohammed. Three years in the making, the album, on the singer's own Mountain of Light label, is called ``The Life of the Last Prophet.''
Stevens ended his career as a pop singer in 1977 when he embraced Islam. His beliefs, which bar mixing voices with instruments, severely limited what he could do.
Islam was drawn to God when a sudden wave saved him, washing him ashore while he was swimming off Malibu in 1976.
He renounced his singing career in 1981. But he acknowledges now that ``something was missing. I came back into the studio.''
by CNB