Cat Stevens Was Already Recognised As A Prodigious Songwriting Talent But With Tea For The Tillerman He Elevated His Art To A New Level With A Fresh And Simple Approach
By the time Cat Stevens was ready to hit the studio for the Tea for the Tillerman sessions, the twenty-one-year-old had already survived a lifetime of tumult. A child of divorce, a schoolboy outsider and a survivor of a serious illness, Stevens managed to funnel these experiences into a single record.
Despite already being a star of some renown, Tea for the Tillerman was the effort that broke Stevens on a truly international stage. Except it didnt sound like an effort at all. Gone were the lavish orchestrations of his earlier work, replaced with simplicity, strength and clarity of messageeven if it contained the breadth of human experience.
Back To Earth 40th Anniversary Box Set Track Listings
We are delighted to be able to announce the tracklistings for the upcoming 40th anniversary re-issues of Back To Earth. Long overdue for re-evaluation, Back To Earth is a brilliant and fascinating album capturing Yusuf / Cat Stevens at a defining point in his life. Now, as he said at the time of his departure from the music world, Ive
Father & Son: A Duet 50 Years In The Making
Father & Son is the latest release from Tea For The Tillerman2. The song is probably the most archetypal and beloved from the original 1970s album, examining a theme which has invaded the emotional gaps in the lives of so many generations worldwide. Yusuf / Cat Stevens 50th anniversary re-imagining of his classic album presents
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New Olympic Studios Cinema And Studio Complex
The London newspaper reported that a buyer for the building as a studio could not be found and it seemed likely that Olympic Studios would lose its musical and cinematic history due to a development of flats and shops. After four years of closure, Olympic Studios re-opened on 14 October 2013 as a cinema with two screens, a café with dining room and a recording studio. The conversion of part of the original building to a small recording studio was undertaken by architect Robertson Grant and the acoustics completed by original studio designer Keith Grant and Russel Pettinger. The new studio facility operates alongside the building’s historical role as a cinema using Flare Audio cinema sound. The cinema also uses a Flare sound system.
Tea For The Tillerman Tracklist
Cat Stevens’ first album made him a UK teen sensation. His rushed follow-up was called unsuccessful. After almost dying of tuberculosis and a collapsed lung, Stevens’ third album saw him re-emerge as a gentle folk singer. But it was his fourth album Tea For The Tillerman that made Stevens an international superstar.
On the strength of its second single Wild World, the album made the top 20 in the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and was the launching pad for his next four albums to reach the top 5 in several countries.
Despite Wild World being its only single with massive chart success, many of the songs on Tea For The Tillerman are Stevens’ most popular and remembered, and the album is still considered a masterpiece.
Tea for the Tillerman Q& A
Album Credits
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Yusuf / Cat Stevens Tea For The Tillerman Review: 70s Pop
A seasoned pro trades in boxset boredom for charming re-records with this update of his seminal 1970 LP, which featured ‘Wild World’ and ‘Father And Son’
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Cat Stevens was only 22, but already impressively bearded and professing worldly wisdom, when he released 1970s Tea for The Tillerman, a cosy collection of pop-leaning folk songs. The record made the shy singer-songwriter a global phenomenon. With swooning lead single Wild World a tribute to the Londoners girlfriend, actor Patti DArbanville he invented the softer side of dad-rock, and topped it all off with a cutesy cover illustration of the titular tillerman sipping on a nice cup of Earl Grey.
50 years later and Stevens known as Yusuf Islam since converting to Islam in the late 1970s has decided to commemorate its release not by packaging it up in a tasty boxset, but by re-recording the whole damn thing. The tillerman of the artwork too has jetted 50 years forward, now sporting a spacesuit instead of his classic Captain Birdseye jumper, and drinking his tea under ominous moonlight rather than next to a blazing sun.
On the other hand, fan-favourite Wild World takes a totally different tack, with a glitzy cabaret sound and oompa jazz this accordion-assisted version seems more suited to a low-lit burlesque bar, Yusuf shimmying around in a plunging velvet gown and tapping a long cigarette holder into rich mens martinis.
Release date: September 18
Release label: A& M Records
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Cat Stevens Tea For The Tillerman
After months of ballyhoo, setbacks, and hokey YouTube coverage of Mikey Fremer and Chad Kassems love fest , Quality Record Pressings first major release is available. Does it match up to the hype? As Eric Cartman from South Park likes to say, mostly.
To gauge its merit, we compared the new QRP pressing to a number of existing versions: A pristine copy of the first issue Island Pink Label, a first issue tan-label A& M pressing, and both Mofi releasesthe standard vinyl and the UHQR. While we feel that more treble extension and a smoother overall tonal balance grace the Pink Island LP, the QRP is definitely the one to beat in every other area.
This is a beautiful record to hear. Surfaces are CD-quiet. Music emerges from between your speakers in a lush, full-bodied way that will convince those with top systems that they are experiencing a live, intimate performance. Much like a Patricia Barber or Diana Krall record, it will make average systems sound much better than their owners might have thought possible. Well be hearing this one for years to come at various audiophile shows. Bottom line, if you love Tea For The Tillerman, this is the one you want.
The QRP score? Audiophiles 1, New Music Lovers 0. Jeff Dorgay and Tom Caselli
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New Album: Tea For The Tillerman
Like it was destiny waiting to happen, T4TT² feels like the timing of its message has arrived again. Yusuf / Cat Stevens
50 YEARS on from the release of Tea for the Tillerman, the 1970 multi-platinum selling, era-defining album that made a superstar, Yusuf / Cat Stevens is set to release Tea for the Tillerman² on 18th September via UMC. The albums lead single, a stunning re-vamped version of his ecological anthem Where Do The Children Play? is available to stream and download right now!! Click HERE
Tea for the Tillerman² sees Yusuf recast the same eleven songs for a new age with dramatic results. Half a century and an entire universe of experiences after they were originally laid down on tape, T4TT² is a beautiful reunion between the artist and the songs that helped define the melodious 70s. The impact of Tillerman has subtly intertwined with the fabric of popular culture while its songs have magnified and developed a life of their own through their ever-expanding use in film, TV, and numerous reinterpretations by other artists.
The album cover of T4TT² illustrates the same picturesque Tea-Time scene that adorned the original album, fifty years later. The Tillerman has returned from an expedition to outer space only to discover a world that has become decidedly darker. The two toddlers, Grady and Timmy, are still playing next to him this time streaming the latest music and gaming on their mobile phones.
Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Barnes Studios Recording History
As Grant added to and completed the studio, engineer recounted that in 1967 “Olympic Studios was at the cutting edge of technology. We were very innovative and of course we had the best console in England and possibly the world at the time”. “We were ahead in terms of design.”
The Rolling Stones were among the first clients of the new Olympic Studios in Barnes, consecutively recording six of their albums there between 1966 and 1973, and becoming such regular visitors that even contributed to the design of parts of the studio himself.
Having been happy with their recording of earlier that year, in the summer of 1967 it was at Olympic in Barnes that conceived the first parts and ideas of , which a fortnight later debuted as part of , the first ever global satellite broadcast to millions worldwide.
With both bands regularly sharing the studio in the summer of 1967, Lennon and McCartney joined the Rolling Stones recording of .
Having moved to the UK in the mid-1960s, also spent a significant proportion of his entire recording career at Olympic, recording large parts of his albums , , and at the studio.
For his seminal recording of Bob Dylan’s , Hendrix was joined by two other musicians regularly to be found at Olympic of and , founder of . He returned to Olympic for sessions in 1969, and, having recently returned from the U.S., for the last time in the first few months of 1970.
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