​Yusuf / Cat Stevens boards the "Peace Train" once again

Cat Stevens released his version of the hymn "Morning Has Broken" back in 1972. Now, as Yusuf, he's touring the United States again after a long absence. Anthony Mason talks with him now . . . For The Record:

On Thursday at the Tower Theater outside Philadelphia, a name appeared on the marquee that had been missing from the concert circuit for decades.

Inside at the sound check, Yusuf, the singer who came to fame as Cat Stevens, was preparing to open his first U.S. tour since 1976.

Mason said, "You could fill theatres bigger than this."

"Well, yeah, sure. But It's the intimacy I'm looking for. It's not a matter making money or proving that I can play the big halls," Yusuf replied. "I just wanted to get close to my audience. That's the buzz for me."

The stage set depicted a train station. "We've transported this station everywhere we go now," Yusuf laughed. "This is the Peace Train station! We've got these tracks along the stage. And we're just waiting for this train to arrive. It's all to do with the message."

The station door seemed like a portal to the 1970s, when he walked through it to a thunderous ovation Thursday night -- what he called "a sea of warmth."

Cat Stevens was back, under a different name, but sounding like he'd never left.

Mason asked if the relatively brief, two-month-long tour was just "testing the waters here."

"Yeah, in some way it is. In another way it's part of my ticking the little boxes. You know, I want to do certain things before I leave this planet. And one of them is, you know, to play the U.S.A. again.

"It's like coming home," Yusuf said, "back to where my first heartbeat began on the musical journey."

Born Stephen Georgiou in London to a Greek father and Swedish mother, Cat Stevens (his stage name) was 18 when he released his first album. He broke through in the U.S. in the Seventies, scoring eight straight gold or platinum albums.

But the singer started looking for a higher purpose in his life.

During his last tour in the U.S. in 1976, he was already studying the Koran. A year later, he would convert to Islam . . . and in November 1979, he turned his back on his music career.

Mason asked, "Did you have any regrets?"

"I think the only regret I had was kind of in a way saying goodbye to a lot of the people that wanted me to hang around and keep singing," he replied. "But I had a life to get on with."

He changed his name to Yusuf Islam - and he would not pick up a guitar again until 2003, when his son brought one home.

How did it feel to play the guitar again? "You know, it hurt a little bit, 'cause you know your fingers get a bit sore at the top. But very soon that vanished and I was back creating songs and writing with another meaning."

"There were some people in the Muslim world who were uncomfortable with [you] picking up the guitar again," said Mason.

"That's true. There is an opinion -- although it's an isolated one perhaps -- which is very loud, that doesn't agree with music or frivolity and generally the entertainment world.

"So I've now written a book called 'Why I Still Carry a Guitar.' And that's kind of to silence those people who perhaps think I'm doing something outside of the religious boundaries. And of course, [it's] nothing like that. The civilization of Islam was probably the first to introduce the guitar as a popular instrument."

At 66 Yusuf has a new album out, "Tell 'Em I'm Gone." His journey back to music has been gradual: First singing, then recording, now touring. And Cat, the name he pushed away, he has embraced again.

"I chose that name. So I'm quite happy now to see that name, you know, alongside Yusuf because, hey, it's me!"

"For a while that wasn't true, though," said Mason.

"For a while I was trying to get as far away from my past as possible," Yusuf said. "And that's a natural thing when a person, you know, converts or embraces religion. They don't want to know anything else.

"So there's a point where you have to come to a balance, right? And thank God, I've come to that balance today. And so I'm able to be a reflection of my Western upbringing, my lifestyle, and also my faith as a Muslim."

"There need to be more bridges?"

"For sure."

"Do you want to be one of those bridges?"

"I'm naturally a bridge," he said. "Yeah, that's my job."

The road has changed since Cat Stevens first went on tour in 1967. A teenager when he had his first hit single, he toured with Jimi Hendrix, Englebert Humperdinck and the Walker Brothers. "All together in one fantastic show!" he laughed. "It was my induction, if you like, into the life on the road with all these other groups, and Jimi Hendrix being one of them, starting fires on the stage and me in the back room there drinking port and brandy with Englebert."

That's not his lifestyle any more, and the married father of five made light of it earlier this year, when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he talked of the judges "voting for someone who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and only sleeps with his wife. I say that was a very brave decision -- and strangely, outrageously rock 'n' roll! Peace!"

Yusuf, who lives in London and Dubai, called his induction a kind of peacemaking. Only a decade earlier, he'd been denied entry to the U.S. when his name mysteriously appeared on a watch list.

"When something like that happens, do you feel like you personally get tarred by it?" Mason asked.

"Yeah, I reckon the media has played kind of a non-positive role in creating my image," Yusuf said. "And I think that it's time that people listen to my words and what comes from my heart, rather than what other people say about me. And that's kind of one of the other reasons why I'm here now to sing my songs."

To watch Yusuf / Cat Stevens perform "You Are My Sunshine," click on the video player below.

To listen to "Gold Digger" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens, from his album "Tell 'Em I'm Gone" (Sony Legacy), click on the video player below.

For more info:

• "Tell 'Em I'm Gone" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens (Sony Legacy); Available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes
• yusufislam.com (Yusuf / Cat Stevens' official website)
• Follow @YusufCatStevens on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
• Tower Theater, Upper Darby, Pa.