Update: Here is Yusuf Islam singing the other role in “Father and Son”
After Missy commented on my last post, which had a brief discussion of Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens, I turned to Veoh and found the Ronan Keating and Yusuf Islam duet of “Father and Son,” in which Islam/Stevens takes on the other perspective, the father’s, than his original.
I also found him performing the song solo on YouTube, a clip from the “Porchester Hall” DVD (originally broadcast by the BBC) that Missy mentioned.
I haven’t listened enough to render a judgment about this. More to come.
One Response to “Update: Here is Yusuf Islam singing the other role in “Father and Son””
1 Missy 20 August 2007 @ 11:02 am
The Ronan Keating and Yusuf version of F&S was the first recording Yusuf did after slowly coming back to mainstream music. He and Ronan have both said that Ronan invited him to come to the studio and maybe at least do some background vocals. Yusuf said he’d come to the studio, but after he got there he agreed to do a little more and sing one section of the father’s part. I think maybe Yusuf’s singing sounds slightly tentative, but is still very good. I think it would have been a better song if Yusuf had done all of the father’s part and Ronan had just done the son’s part. As it was, the song did very well on the British charts coming in at #2 only behind the Band Aid 20 song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”.
The Porchester Hall perfomance is much better as Yusuf is now used to performing again!
Did you see this video on youtube? It shows four different performances of F & S intertwined so you can really compare. I think he still sings the son’s part passionately, but maybe not quite as much as when he was younger, plus his voice is a little deeper now. As for the father’s part, it seems about the same over the years but in the Ronan version when Yusuf was singing in the background right at the end, his voice sounds like he is really pleading with the son not to leave. You have to listen closely for this because his voice is under Ronan’s when Ronan is singing, “I have to go”, Yusuf is singing, “please don’t go. With the experience of being a father he can now feel how much the father wants the son to stay.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2HF8lbcyujU
Did you happen to see Yusuf at “Live Earth”? He was fantastic and I think the huge crowd gave him energy and his perfomance was excellent. He sang 5 or 6 songs and was the final performer in Germany. He sang an excellent cover of Stevie Wonder’s Saturn. Some of these clips are on YouTube.
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