super groovy delicious bite: tea for the tillerman

Cat Stevens had to go away and came a long way through a wild world to find his head where the children play. The singer songwriter had become a sensation as a teenager with two albums released in 1967 (Matthew and Son and New Masters); but he had to put his musical career on hold when he spent a year recovering from consumption: "I caught tuberculosis and suddenly I've got this medieval disease, you know — middle of modern society, and I'm sort of in hospital. And all of the spotlights are switched off. And now I say: 'Well, hey, where is the light?' And that's what got me going, if you like, looking for a different kind of light."

He wrote more than forty songs during that time, and signed a new deal with Island Records, recording his comeback Mona Bone Jakon in early 1970: “I had to get everything right before I started again. The situation and the timing was wrong before. There just wasn’t the time to do things and it wasn’t the right time to do the things I set out to do...It seems as if I am making a comeback but I have never really been away. It’s very strange because the whole attitude changes and everything is turned inside out. Now I am seeing the shiny side again...It has made all the difference to me because I had to have that break. If it wasn’t the illness it had to be something else. Before I was almost slaughtering myself working so hard and in no particular direction. Now I feel alive much more than I have ever done...The main thing is to concentrate on LP’s now. I only do record producing when I feel like it and when there are artists I want to work with. In my opinion all the musicians that ever take part in sessions are producers...The album is my first long player on Island records and it has taken two and a half months to do. With Deram, my old label, we got to the point where I was going in one direction and they were going in another. We eventually decided to quit it because nothing was happening. We just split. They were very nice about it ... I loved trying out new ideas–thinking and pondering this world from different angles-and I suppose that all began for me back when I had my first crisis in life with getting tuberculosis. After an initial year of success and flashbulbs and adoring fans, my seat was vacant and I was in bed thinking about this world whizzing by me and where I was going. It was my first brush with death. That made me think more seriously...It wouldn’t be difficult to decipher my spiritual ambitions through listening to my lyrics. So therefore, I think people would have already had a premonition that I was on my way somewhere but it wasn’t quite clear where we were going....My first period of success was an inoculation [laughs] towards preparing me for the next phase of exposure to fame and fortune. I was on a secret mission, perhaps not everybody could see it, but through my words they could kind find my story and my longings and yearnings for peace and enlightenment."

His next album was also recorded with producer Paul Samwell-Smith at Olympic Studios in London; but also at Morgan Studios and Island Studios. The sessions featured Cat Stevens on classical guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and lead vocals with Alun Davies on acoustic guitar and backing vocals; Harvey Burns on drums, congas, and tambourine; John Ryan on double bass; Del Newman on string arrangements; and Jack Rothstein on violin. 'Tea for the Tillerman' was a major breakthrough for Stevens outside of the UK, going to number twenty-five in Norway, twenty in New Zealand and the UK, eleven in Canada, and eight in the US where it was certified triple platinum.