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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/arts/20yusuf.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=login
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During his onstage interview with KCRW’s music director, Nic Harcourt — to be broadcast and webcast at 2:15 p.m. Thursday at www.kcrw.org — Mr. Islam revealed that his return to pop might have happened sooner. In 2004, he was turned away when he tried to enter the United States because his name was on the no-fly list created to fight terrorism. With that London-to-Washington trip, Mr. Islam said on Tuesday, he was headed for Nashville, where he had booked recording sessions and musicians. The deportation led to official protests from the foreign office of Great Britain, where Mr. Islam is a citizen and has spoken repeatedly against terrorism. He was allowed into the United States this time without incident. Visiting the United States now, he said onstage, was, “One small step for a man, one giant step for common sense.” One of his new songs, “Maybe There’s a World,” envisions, “an open world, borderless and wide/Where the people move from place to place and nobody’s taking sides.”
Mr. Stevens didn’t touch a guitar for more than 20 years, he said onstage, “to stay out of trouble more than anything.” But when he picked one up a little over two years ago, he said, “My fingers just felt at home.” The 2004 tsunami inspired him to write a song, “Indian Ocean,” for a charity album; it’s a long, detailed narrative about an English family on an island holiday that takes in an orphan after the tsunami. He performed it on Tuesday night, along with another recent topical song, “Little Ones,” set to an old Celtic melody, with lyrics that mourn children killed in war and promise they’ll go to heaven.
After nearly three decades, Mr. Islam has stepped back into a sound that Cat Stevens’s old fans will find familiar. His voice is still gentle and kindly, and his stage presence is unassuming, almost humble. He still builds songs around syncopated guitar and piano vamps, like the near-calypso of “Midday (Avoid City After Dark),” and uses eccentric structures that give his songs a subtle lift.
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