Cat Stevens’ wife, British musician and multi-instrumentalist Steven Demeter Georgiou, was born on July 21, 1948.
Stevens was born in Maylebone, London, to Ingrid Wickman and Stavros Georgiou. He has the same parents as his older sister Anita and his brother David Gordon.
Stevens was sent to St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School on Macklin Street, although his mother was Baptist and his father Greek Orthodox, as it was closer to his father’s place of business on Drury Lane.
Young Stevens became interested in the piano and eventually learned the chords on the family baby grand piano because no one else could teach him.
At the age of 15, he developed an interest in the guitar, stimulated by the success of the Beatles. He asked his father to spend £8 (around £200 in 2021) on his first guitar, and then he started playing it and making music.
From time to time he escaped his family obligations by going to the roof of their house and listening to music from musicals coming from Denmark Street, then the center of the British music industry.
Stevens claimed that West Side Story had a profound impact on him and gave him a “different perspective on life.”
He and his mother moved to Gävle, Sweden, where he attended primary school (Solängsskolan) and began honing his drawing skills under the influence of his uncle Hugo Wickman, a painter. He was interested in both music and art. Then they returned to England.
Career of Cat Stevens
Stevens is a British multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. Cat Stevens has logged over 2 billion streams and sold over 100 million records as of this writing.
Folk, pop, rock and, later in his career, Islamic music form his musical palette. In 2006, he began creating secular music again after two decades of only playing music that conformed to strict religious standards. In 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The title track from his 1967 debut album, “Matthew and Son”, and the album itself both reached a peak position in the top ten of the UK charts. Stevens’ albums Tea for the Tillerman (1970) and Teaser and the Firecat (1971) were certified triple platinum in the United States.
His 1972 album Catch Bull at Four reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for several weeks.
His composition “The First Cut Is the Deepest” was a hit for four performers and earned him ASCAP Songwriters Awards in 2005 and 2006.
“Father and Son”, “Wild World”, “Moonshadow”, “Peace Train” and “Morning Has Broken” are among his other big hits.
Stevens converted to Islam in December 1977 and took the name Yusuf Islam the following year. In 1979, he auctioned off all his instruments and abandoned his musical career to concentrate on charitable and educational activities among the Muslim community.
He has since purchased at least one of these guitars thanks to the efforts of his son Yoriyos. He became embroiled in a lengthy debate over his comments in 1989 in relation to the death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie in response to the publication of Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses”.
He received two honorary doctorates, peace promotion awards, and other humanitarian honors.
He made his return to pop music in 2006 with the release of “An Other Cup”, his first studio album featuring all-new pop songs in 28 years.
He used the stage name Yusuf as a mononym and eliminated the surname “Islam” from the album cover of this and future releases.
He released the CD Roadsinger in 2009 and Tell ‘Em I’m Gone in 2014 and embarked on his first tour of the United States since 1978.
His second North American tour since his comeback ran from September 12 to October 7, 2016 and included 12 performances in small venues.
The Laughing Apple, her first album under the stage name Cat Stevens in 39 years, was released in 2017 under her new stage name Yusuf.
To mark the 50th anniversary of Tea for the Tillerman, he released Tea for the Tillerman 2 in September 2020. King of a Land, a new studio album with elements of children’s music and religious music, was released in June 2023.
Who is Cat Stevens’ wife?
Cat Stevens is married to Fauzia Mubarak Ali. They were married on September 7, 1979 at Regent’s Park Mosque in London. They have six children together.