Back to Earth (Cat Stevens album)
| Back to Earth | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Cat Stevens | ||||
| Released | 3 December 1978 | |||
| Recorded | November 1978, Sweet Silence Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark; Le Studio, Morin Heights, Canada; Advision Studios, London, England; CBS Studios, New York City; Longview Farms, North Brookfield, Massachusetts |
|||
| Genre | Soft rock | |||
| Length | 32:51 | |||
| Label |
Island (UK/Europe) A&M (US/Canada) |
|||
| Producer |
Paul Samwell-Smith Cat Stevens |
|||
| Cat Stevens chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Back to Earth is the eleventh studio album released by the British singer/songwriter Cat Stevens. It was the only album he recorded using the name Cat Stevens after his conversion to Islam in December 1977. It was also the last album of contemporary western music that he recorded until An Other Cup, nearly 30 years later.
On 8 December 1977 Stevens was awarded the "Sun Peace Award" by the Symphony for the United Nations in New York City. On 23 December 1977 Stevens entered the Regent's Park Mosque in London and formally embraced Islam.
On 4 July 1978, Steven Georgiou changed his name to Yusuf Islam. Although he wanted to retire from popular music after his religious conversion, Islam owed his record company Island/A&M one more "Cat Stevens" album under his recording contract.
Yusuf recorded this album in November 1978, re-uniting with his producer from the early 1970s, Paul Samwell-Smith, and arranger Del Newman, which includes his guitarist, Alun Davies, also his drummer Gerry Conway, neither of whom had appeared on Stevens' previous 1977 album "Izitso". Alun co–wrote two new songs. The old team had now come back together to complete the final record. Recorded in several places including Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Longview Farms in Massachusetts, Advision in London, and CBS in New York City, the album was completed at Le Studio in Quebec.
At this point, Yusuf was praying five times daily and the sessions took on a melancholy edge, as it was implicitly understood that they were to be the last. On 3 December 1978, the album "Back to Earth" was released. The same day the album was released, Yusuf's father Stavros Georgiou died. As he was unwilling to promote the album "Back to Earth" with a tour, it peaked at only No. 33 on the Billboard charts, and its singles "Bad Brakes"/"Nascimento", and "Randy"/"Nascimento" made a poor showing in the charts. The UK single release, "Last Love Song"/"Nascimento", released on Island in February 1979, similarly failed to chart.
...
Wikipedia