How Cat Stevens Found Himself
On September 21, 2004, a United Airlines flight from London to Washington D.C. was diverted to Bangor, Maine. Six federal agents boarded the plane and took a 57-year-old British man traveling with his 21-year-old daughter into custody. “Are you Yusuf Islam,” the agents demanded. The man confirmed he was. “Do you spell your name Y-O-U-S-U-F?” “It’s Y-U-S-U-F,” the man answered. His daughter was allowed to continue traveling but the man was denied entry to the United States. He was flown back to England the next day after Homeland Security officials determined the man had associations with terrorists.
Yusuf Islam was not always treated this way. Thirty years earlier he was one of the biggest rock stars in the world. He played to 40,000-seat arenas and was friends with Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan. Those days were a lifetime away.
He was born Steven Georgiou in London in 1948. His father was a Greek Cypriot and his mom was Swedish. They owned and lived above a restaurant called Moulin Rouge where he worked washing dishes at the age of eight. When he was 15, his father bought him a guitar. He escaped to the Soho rooftops, a quiet refuge he called “the Upper World.” He began writing and playing his own songs influenced by the Beatles, the Kinks and Nina Simone.
By age 18, he performed in London coffee houses and pubs. He changed his name to Cat…
