album rating: ★★★★☆
Genre: Folk rock / singer-songwriter / acoustic pop. Teaser and the Firecat is the fifth studio album by Cat Stevens (born Steven Demetre Georgiou, London, 1948; later Yusuf Islam), released on 1 October 1971. The album arrived in the immediate wake of Tea for the Tillerman (1970), the critical and commercial breakthrough that had established Stevens as one of the defining voices of the early-1970s singer-songwriter movement, alongside Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Carole King. Teaser and the Firecat commercially exceeded even its predecessor, confirming Stevens' status as a global star. Like Tea for the Tillerman, the album was produced by Paul Samwell-Smith (ex-Yardbirds) and recorded at Morgan Studios in London and Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles, with string arrangements by Del Newman. The album takes its title from a children's book written and illustrated by Stevens himself, published in 1972: Teaser is a young boy in a top hat, Firecat his feline companion, who together attempt to return the moon to the sky after it falls. The ten songs include three of Stevens' most enduring works: 'Morning Has Broken' (a setting of the 1931 hymn by Eleanor Farjeon, with piano played by Rick Wakeman), 'Moonshadow' and 'Peace Train'. All three became major hits. Stevens recalled writing 'Peace Train' on a train, thinking about Hitchcock films set aboard them, but producing instead an anthem of optimism and collective aspiration that resonated deeply with the mood of 1971. Producer Samwell-Smith described the recording as 'a bit of a mess' technically — finding room on 16-track for all the parts — but acknowledged the result worked.
Label: Island Records (UK) / A&M Records (USA), released 1 October 1971.
Producer: Paul Samwell-Smith.
Recording studios: Morgan Studios, London, UK; Paramount Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Critical reception: Reception was mixed but leaning favourable on release. In Sounds, Penny Valentine praised Stevens as 'one of Britain's most brilliant and worthwhile musical talents.' Rolling Stone's Timothy Crouse found the album more commercially oriented than Tea for the Tillerman, praising 'Peace Train' as infectious and 'Moonshadow' as 'a simple, unadorned song whose beauty lies in its mystery.' He described 'Morning Has Broken' as 'a gorgeous hymn.' AllMusic's William Ruhlmann gave it five stars retrospectively, writing that it was 'the Cat Stevens album that gave more surface pleasures to more people.' It was one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Commercial success: Teaser and the Firecat peaked at number 2 in both the UK and USA, held off the top position in the US by Led Zeppelin IV. It remained on the Billboard 200 for 67 weeks and spent fifteen weeks at number 1 in Australia, becoming the country's best-selling album of 1972. 'Peace Train' reached number 7 on the US Hot 100; 'Morning Has Broken' reached number 6; 'Moonshadow' reached number 30. The album sold more than three million copies. A 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition was released in 2021, remastered at Abbey Road Studios under Samwell-Smith's supervision.
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