Most inspiring music / musicians – Cat Stevens
I will myself be adding occasional crtiques on whoever I happen to be listening to, and I invite you to do the same.
Today it’s Cat Stevens. Click on the link (left) to visit his wikipedia entry if you are interested in his history.
My first experience of the music of Cat Stevens was as a very, very young child when my father used to play and sing Moonshadow to me on his guitar.
More recently I have found his lyrics and guitar work to be quite incredible. Whilst never showing off with loud riffs or long solos, the inner subtleties of each note and the way it flows into the next are so perfect that I doubt many artists have bettered them since.
Listen to the albums “Teaser and the Firecat” and “Tea for the Tilerman” with headphones on a warm summers day at the top of a hill in the countryside or on a cold winters evening in your car on the way home from work. Wherever you happen to be, his words and music will make you realise the beauty and tragedy in this world and have you pondering the next.
As a guitarist, you may want to try playing Moonshadow. It’s very simple and quite satisfying. I like to play my own guitar based version of Sad Lisa (which is a song about the inner child in the writer, and I suspect in all of us). Another good one is If I Smile, which requires the guitar to be either retuned into E, or into D with a cappo on the second fret.
If anyone wants to try these and cannot find a tab on the net or would like some help, I can post tabs or more instructional, erm… instructions.
Until next time… (hopefully soon) Bon soir.
The Guitar Master
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