YUSUF / CAT STEVENS

Steep Learning Curve

“My first guitar was an eight-quid Eko made in Italy. It was pretty cheap and didn’t sound that great, either. All the problems you have learning the guitar were quadrupled by the fact it had such a high action, and I didn’t understand what strings to use or what gauge. So I was trying to keep my fingers down and make the notes as clear as possible. I was trying to do The Kinks’ You Really Got Me... But it was way too fast. My fingers just wouldn’t react quick enough… It was just too much of a challenge, so I gave it up. But then I came back to it and, when I did, I found I mastered it more easily. I don’t know why that happened. But the second time around I knew what I was doing. So that was the process that got me going towards playing the guitar.”

First Good Guitar

“I never had any doubt that I had something. It was just how long would the world take to catch up with me? Even though I wasn’t really that great at writing songs in the beginning, although I did have a few – in fact, was one of the earliest. So I had this confidence pretty much from day