1966–1978

He began to perform his songs in coffee houses and pubs. Thinking that his Greek name might not be memorable as a stage name, he sought a new one. He said, I couldn't imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for that Stephen Demetre Georgiou album. And in England, and I was sure in America, they loved animals. He adopted the name Cat Stevens, reportedly chosen because a girlfriend said he had eyes like a cat. In 1966, at age 18, he impressed manager/producer Mike Hurst, formerly of British vocal group The Springfields, with his songs and Hurst arranged for him to record a demo and then helped him get a record deal. The first singles, I Love My Dog and Matthew and Son (the title song from his debut album, released in the beginning of 1967) reached Britain's Top 10, and the album Matthew and Son itself began charting.

Over the next two years, Stevens recorded and toured with artists ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Engelbert Humperdinck. Stevens was considered a teen pop sensation, placing several single releases in the British pop music charts. Some of that success was attributed to the pirate radio station Wonderful Radio London, which played his records. In August 1967, he went on the air with other recording artists who had benefited from the pirate station to mourn its closure.

His December 1967 album New Masters failed to chart in the United Kingdom. The album is now most notable for his song The First Cut Is the Deepest which has become an international hit for P.P. Arnold, Keith Hampshire, Rod Stewart and Sheryl Crow, and has won several song-writing awards.

Stevens was living a fast-moving pop-star life and in early 1968 at the age of 19, he became very ill with tuberculosis. During several months in the hospital and a year of convalescence, Stevens began to question aspects of his life, took up meditation, read about other religions and became a vegetarian. During that time, as part of his spiritual awakening and questioning, he wrote as many as 40 songs, which were much more introspective than his previous work. Many of those songs were to appear on his albums in years to come