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Yusuf Islam's 'An Other Cup' Echoes Cat Stevens

After 28 years, Cat Stevens has returned to secular music. The singer, songwriter and guitarist was the mellow philosopher of 1970s pop, whose hits included "Peace Train" and "Wild World." Stevens left the recording industry in 1978, after converting to Islam and changing his name to Yusuf Islam.

Since then, he's occasionally found himself in the middle of controversies involving the Muslim world and the West. The former star lives in London; he says that several years ago he returned to writing pop songs as a response to escalating world tensions. Some of them are collected on a new CD, An Other Cup.

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Tom Moon has been writing about pop, rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop and the music of the world since 1983.
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