Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, 1966-1967

I'm delighted to present this album, because it's something that's very hard to find. As you may know, Cat Stevens had a couple of years as a young star in a poppy style in the late 1960s before disappearing for about a year due to illness and then reinventing himself as a sensitive singer-songwriter. He had a lot of success in his poppy phase, including the songs "I Love My Dog," "Matthew and Son," and "The First Cut Is the Deepest," but it tends to be overlooked in favor of his even more popular later style.

I knew that Stevens performed for the BBC a lot in the 1960s, but I'd assumed all of that material had been lost. For instance, there's no videos of that on YouTube, nor can bootlegs of it be found. Until now, that is. Although he played on lots of BBC radio shows, it seems that just his performances from the show "Top of the Pops" have emerged in recent years. (Note that's not to be confused with a BBC TV show of the same name.) So it's pretty remarkable to have this material at all.

But what's even better is that the sound is fantastic. You'd be forgiven if you thought at first that these were simply the studio album versions, especially because they all have the same full production as those versions, often with horns and/or orchestra. But if you listen carefully you'll notice they're all completely different performances, both vocally and instrumentally. There's even a song here that has never been officially released in any form, as far as I can tell: "(You and Your) Shiny Golden Hair."

What's also nice is that even though we only get a sampling of all of his BBC performances, this is a great selection of his 1960s material, and includes his hits from that era. Actually, one of his best known songs from the time, "The First Cut Is the Deepest," wasn't included with the Top of the Pops material. But I found a live version from 1967. It's the one and only fully live version of any song I could find from that era. (There are a few videos of him lip-syncing, or singing new vocals to a backing track, but those aren't worthy of inclusion here.) Its sound quality is a bit rougher than the rest, but I included it since it's possibly the only chance to get a hint of what he sounded like on stage in those early years.

As for the rest of the songs, there was one significant sound problem, which is something that often bedevils me with BBC recordings. Namely, the annoying DJs who talk over the music. Ugh! That happened several times here, always to the starts of the songs. (I've marked those by adding "Edit" to the song titles.) Luckily, Stevens' full band versions for the BBC were so similar to the studio album versions that I was usually able to patch in bits to replace the talked over parts. Sometimes I had to change the tempo and/or pitch to get a good match, but I think they all worked out. The only exception is "(You and Your) Shiny Golden Hair." As I mentioned above, there is no studio version of that one, so I had to leave the intro part out.

The songs total up to 44 minutes, which makes for a nice album length. This also serves as a de facto greatest hits for his 1960s material, which was made up of two studio albums plus a few singles. The source material lacked any detail about when the songs were recorded, but I did some deep Internet research and managed to figure it all out. But in some cases I may be using the dates the songs were recorded, and in others the dates they were broadcast. The information I found was sometimes vague about that.

01. I Love My Dog (Cat Stevens)
02. [You and Your] Shiny Golden Hair [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
03. The Tramp [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
04. Matthew and Son (Cat Stevens)
05. Granny [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
06. Portabello Road (Cat Stevens)
07. School Is Out (Cat Stevens)
08. I'm Gonna Get Me a Gun (Cat Stevens)
09. Hummingbird (Cat Stevens)
10. Lady [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
11. I Found a Love [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
12. The Laughing Apple (Cat Stevens)
13. A Bad Night (Cat Stevens)
14. Moonstone (Cat Stevens)
15. Kitty (Cat Stevens)
16. Blackness of the Night [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
17. I Love Them All [Edit] (Cat Stevens)
18. The First Cut Is the Deepest (Cat Stevens)

https://www36.zippyshare.com/v/pDoNhKqM/file.html

For the cover art, I used a photo that is said to be of Stevens "circa 1967."