Yusuf / Cat Stevens (Father)

And that's where I got introduced to Paul Samuel Smith.

I used to go and listen to him.

He was the bass player with the Yardbirds.

So I used to dance to his music in the club just down the road from where I lived in Oxford Street.

So we worked through all the songs.

And of course, one of them would have been Father and Son.

It was.

But I didn't like the way it turned out.

So it never ended up on the first album that I recorded called Mona Bonejackin.

So the second album was where we were really primed, I think, after the first album.

And the second one just seemed to work.

So that was Tea for the Tillerman.

When I sang that song in Morgan Studios, which is where we finally got hold of the song, it was a moment where I was singing the son's part, where I could actually hear the timbre, the sound of my own father's voice.

And that was very strange because I was singing the son's part.

But I got my father's voice up there.

He was from Cyprus, so he had a very strong Mediterranean passionate side.

You knew when he was angry.

And so I got that kind of anger out of me in the role of the son.

And it was a very important moment in my recording memories, that moment where I sounded like my father.

But I was singing the son's part.