Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Tell 'Em I'm Gone (2014)

Tell ’Em I’m Gone is the first new Yusuf album to be released since 2009’s acclaimed Roadsinger. Recorded all over the world, including Los Angeles, Dubai, Brussels, and London, the album features 10 brand-new studio recordings, including five originals and five carefully-chosen cover songs. Tell ’Em I’m Gone features musical contributions from Richard Thompson, blues harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite, singer-songwriter Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Tuareg group Tinariwen, and guitarist Matt Sweeney. The album was produced by Yusuf and Rick Rubin, and was mixed by Yusuf & Paul Samwell-Smith.

Each track on Tell ’Em I’m Gone revives the age-old themes of freedom and peace that have prevailed through more than four decades of Yusuf’s musical career. On this album, Yusuf returns to the roots of his teenage musical inspiration: American blues and R&B, using these genres to explore humanity’s climb to freedom with songs that recall the spirit of his earliest days as a nascent singer-songwriter in London.

Stunning originals like “I Was Raised In Babylon” and “Cat And The Dog Trap” plus covers of American standards (“Big Boss Man,” “You Are My Sunshine”) and a moving version of Edgar Winter’s “Dying To Live” find Yusuf as strong of voice and as engaging a performer as ever before.