Vinyl plays with some crackles and a few light-clicks (play-graded). Cover looks good; moderate scuffing, creases, tiny surface abrasions, discoloration spots and surface impressions (front/back); back has some surface bubbling. Inner-sleeve is generic white. Spine is easy-to-read with wear and developing split near top. Minor shelf-wear along bottom-edge, more noticeable wear to top edge and corners. Opening is crisp with signs of use and a few small divots and tiny tear near top. (Not a cut-out.)
Mona Bone Jakon, by singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, was certified gold by RIAA. In the fall of 1968, Stevens collapsed, with the diagnosis of tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. For over a year, while recovering, Stevens virtually disappeared from the British pop scene. Mona Bone Jakon is notable not only for his return, but for the emergence of a very different artist. During his hospital-dictated year of bedrest, he began writing a catalogue of songs to fill far more than his next album. After his recovery, Stevens negotiated out of his contract with Deram Records and joined with former Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith with a stripped down sound, with songs played in spare arrangements on acoustic guitars and keyboards and accompanied by a sparse backing band, consisting only of three other performers: second guitarist Alun Davies, bassist John Ryan, and drummer Harvey Burns—and on one song, Katmandu, Peter Gabriel on the flute. Smith also produced the album and brought Stevens a high fidelity sound that was not as present on his previous releases. Stevens began to make the transition from pop star to a folk-rock performer, when the term "singer-songwriter" was just being coined. The album attracted attention in the wake of the commercial breakthrough of its follow-up, Tea for the Tillerman, and with the inclusion of three of its songs (Trouble, I Wish, I Wish, and I Think I See the Light) in Hal Ashby and Colin Higgins's black comedy Harold and Maude in 1971. According to a 1972 interview with Stevens, the inspiration for the title was a name he created to describe his penis: "'Mona Bone Jakon' is another name for my 'penis'. It's the name I give it. It's not some sort of secret vocabulary, it's just something I made up."