(Credit: Bryan Ledgard)
As essentially the most influential group in musical historical past, The Beatles will be heard inside the sound of numerous bands and artists. Famously, the Fab Four had been a number of the first pop stars to normalise writing their very own materials. The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney has considerably impacted the face of fashionable music. One such artist the Beatles influenced was none aside from people and pop icon Yusuf/Cat Stevens.
Cat Stevens, who later modified his title to Yusuf after changing to Islam in 1977, is an extremely influential artist in his personal proper. One of essentially the most well-renowned songwriters of his technology, Stevens gained notoriety throughout the people revival and singer-songwriter growth of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies alongside the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. The songwriter discovered early success with ‘Matthew and Son’, which reached quantity two on the UK singles charts.
Over the following few years, Stevens adopted up on his early success with tracks like ‘Wild World’ and ‘Father and Son’. Although his musical fashion modified and developed, thanks partially to a near-death expertise while affected by tuberculosis in 1969, his songwriting capability by no means dwindled.
Now in his seventh decade, Stevens revealed a few of his main influences final yr throughout an interview with Red Bull. Among his picks was the early Beatles observe ‘There’s a Place’. “It would be impossible not to mention the impact of The Beatles,” explains the singer, a sentiment probably shared by the overwhelming majority of musicians who had been round on the top of Beatlemania. The Liverpool quartet impacted nearly each facet of the music business within the Nineteen Sixties, from fresh-faced pop stars on The Ed Sullivan Show to mature and well-respected artists recording Abbey Road.
It was that early interval that Stevens picked out as being influential in his personal work. ‘There’s a Place’ is taken from The Beatles’ debut studio album, Please Please Me and has that signature optimism inherent in a lot of the band’s earlier work. Described by Lennon as his try at writing within the Motown fashion, the tune is maybe not their biggest effort.
Nevertheless, Stevens spoke about his love of the observe, “What songs represent The Beatles for me? Well, one of them is about a place, which I think is a [theme that links] all the songs I love. There’s a Place was written [primarily] by John Lennon, and I adore it because, for me, it depicts the destination we all want to end up in: that one place where everything is fine.”
Cat Stevens deserted music for some time after changing to Islam within the late Seventies. The songwriter as a substitute selected to deal with his religion and philanthropic endeavours. Gradually returning to performing within the Nineteen Nineties, Stevens reentered the general public consciousness this yr after his sensible set at Glastonbury Festival. Playing a mix of old classics and new materials, the musician proved that his songwriting capability by no means went away when he stopped performing.
