Eight lives left
After a brush with death, a new improved Cat Stevens. By Jim Irvin.
MY APPRECIATION OF Cat Stevens has always been affected by two memories, both occasions which, for different reasons, made me shudder. First, as a small child in the late ’60s, being riveted by the image, “a cup of cold coffee and a piece of cake” in his smash hit, Matthew And Son, and wondering whether that was a pleasant or revolting snack. The second was around the age of 13, at a school friend’s house, witnessing his older sister, a usually reserved fan of classical music, go gooey while hearing Teaser And The Firecat.
The Morning Has Broken Effect: the dark, dishy guy who sang hymns and approachable folk songs clearly gave her all the feels, as we didn’t say then. From that point, and notwithstanding his subsequent retreat from the business, I considered Cat Stevens off to one side of pop, a singular figure with an ability to communicate with kids and an ever-present spiritual undercurrent, either because of that hymn, or the fact that someone was always murdering one of his hits during school assembly.
Somewhere between my two shudders came two defining albums, Mona Bone Jakon HHHH and Tea For The Tillerman HHHH both released in 1970 and thus celebrating their 50th anniversaries with expanded, deluxe 4-CD editions. After a busy year of pop glory with Deram in 1967, Stevens had suffered an enforced hiatus from the business, thanks to a life-threatening brush with tuberculosis, a long convalescence and a change of heart, during which he demoed about 40 songs. Signing with Island, who let him record them any way he wished, the brash pop star was reborn as a thoughtful bedsit laureate.
Mona Bone Jakon (released two weeks after Elton John) showed post-traumatic Stevens to be part of the emerging singersongwriter set, on a spare collection, produced in conjunction with former Yardbird Paul SamwellSmith, based around acoustic guitar, piano, multitracked voices, and light drums (with flute on one track, Katmandu, played by future star, Peter Gabriel). The opening song, Lady D’Arbanville, was an immediate, possibly unexpected, million seller and, when licensed to A&M, a US hit too. Pop Star lightly satirised his recent past. The vaguely prog I Think I See The Light felt akin to hot labelmates Jethro Tull. Stevens sounded vulnerable on Trouble, one of his most affecting songs, supposedly beloved of Elliott Smith and Chris Cornell. Whether the endorsement of two celebrity suicides is helpful isn’t for me to say, but there it is. The song ends suddenly and unresolved, too.
Both these new editions include, alongside the original, a fresh 2020 remix, which will replace the original on new vinyl pressings. On Mona Bone Jakon, the difference is quite pronounced. Now sharper, more upfront, more threedimensional, the remix makes the most of Stevens’ engagingly fragile voice, indeed brings out a depth it didn’t appear to possess at the time, giving the record a focus which more resembles his subsequent works.
Tea For The Tillerman, the one with Wild World and Father And Son on it, always sounded more rounded, so one could argue that the fuller presence of the voice is more distracting. But the benefits of the new mix are such that it shouldn’t upset anyone who knows the original intimately. CD3 in each package features demos and outtakes, while CD4 collects contemporary live performances, some of them of poor, cassette-onthe-lap quality, some taken from high-grade TV and radio slots.
Markedly of their time, these records still thrum with the strange kind of solitude that attracted a huge fanbase half a century ago. Once recovered from those Proustian shudders on hearing him again, I enjoyed them a lot, but nostalgically; it’s hard to imagine what modern ears might make of him.
“Brash pop star reborn as bedsit laureate.”