Yusuf
Roadsinger (To Warm You Through the Night)
Three Stars
UMe
The time would seem to be nigh for a Cat Stevens revival: The warm, weathered, sensitive-guy folk that made Stevens (now known as Yusuf) a superstar in the 1970s is back in vogue among indie troubadours (his beard has also made a comeback); they may not know it yet, but Bon Iver’s fans are merely the latest generation to go gaga for Tea for the Tillerman. Roadsinger is a crowd-pleaser, hewing to Yusuf’s classic sound in tight, sweet ballads like ”˜Welcome Home,’ which pushes his acoustic guitar and ragged voice to the foreground. Meanwhile, hippie preachiness is still Yusuf’s default mode. ”˜No one cares for anyone else,’ he croaks in ”˜World O’ Darkness.’ In
other words: Ooh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world.
