Cat Stevens
MATTHEW & SON/NEW MASTERS
UMC
“Nothing looks weird, not even a beard…” sings the artist formerly known as Steven Demetre Georgiou on Portobello Road. Before he became a 1970s facial hair poster boy, Cat Stevens was a clean-shaven Tin Pan Alley singer-songwriter, managed by an ex-member of Dusty Springfield’s first outfit. Matthew & Son contains some enduring pop tunes (don’t miss undiscovered Northern Soul classic Come On And Dance), as does New Masters, which boasts the original The First Cut Is The Deepest. Both have been remastered at Abbey Road to “breathe new life” into them. This amounts to bringing Cat’s vocals up over the orchestral backing and enhancing the bass – something worth hearing, as it’s played by a pre-Led Zep John Paul Jones.