Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2009.
Early life
Gabriel was born in Chobham, Surrey, England. His father, Ralph Parton Gabriel, was an electrical engineer, and his mother, Edith Irene Allen, from a musical family, taught him to play the clarinet at an early age. He attended Cable House, a private preparatory school in Woking, Surrey, then Charterhouse School from 1963.
Genesis
Main article: Genesis (band)Gabriel founded Genesis in 1967 with fellow Charterhouse School pupils Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford, and drummer Chris Stewart. The name of the band was suggested by fellow Charterhouse alumnus, the pop music impresario Jonathan King, who produced their first album, From Genesis to Revelation .
A lover of soul music, Gabriel was influenced by many different sources in his way of singing – mainly Otis Redding and other soul singers, as well as Family lead singer Roger Chapman. In 1970, he played the flute on Cat Stevens' album, Mona Bone Jakon .
Genesis drew some attention in England and eventually also in Italy, Belgium, Germany and other European countries, largely due to Gabriel's flamboyant stage presence, which involved numerous bizarre costume changes and comical, dreamlike stories told as the introduction to each song (originally Gabriel developed these stories solely to cover the time between songs that the rest of the band would take tuning their instruments and fixing technical glitches). The concerts made extensive use of Black light with the normal stage lighting subdued or off. A backdrop of fluorescent white sheets and a comparatively sparse stage made the band into a set of silhouettes, with Gabriel's fluorescent costume and make-up providing the only other sources of light.
Costumes
Among Gabriel's many famous costumes, which he developed to visualize the musical ideas of the band as well as gain press coverage were "Batwings", for the usual opening number, or "Watcher of the Skies".
Other costumes included "The Flower", and "Magog" which were both alternately worn for "Supper's Ready", from the album, Foxtrot .
"Britannia" was worn for "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", and "The Reverend", worn for "The Battle of Epping Forest" from Selling England by the Pound .
"The Old Man" was worn for "The Musical Box", from Nursery Cryme .
"The Slipperman", and "Rael", were worn during "The Colony of Slippermen", in which "Rael" was the protagonist of the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway .
Backing vocals in Genesis during Gabriel's tenure in the band were usually handled by bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford, keyboardist/guitarist Tony Banks, and (most prominently) drummer, Phil Collins, who — after a long search for a replacement — eventually became Genesis's lead singer, after Gabriel had left the band in 1975.
The departure
Gabriel's departure from Genesis — which stunned fans of the group and left many commentators wondering if the band could survive — was the result of a number of factors. His stature as the lead singer of the band, and the added attention garnered by his flamboyant stage persona, led to tensions within the band. Genesis had always operated more or less as a collective, and Gabriel's burgeoning public profile led to fears within the group that he was being unfairly singled out as the creative hub; in addition, the band had begun to feel confined by the reputation (and fans' expectations) attached to their famously elaborate theatrical performances.
Tensions were heightened by the ambitious album and tour of the concept work The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway , a Gabriel-created concept piece which saw him taking on the lion's share of the lyric writing. During the writing and recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway , Gabriel was approached by director William Friedkin, allegedly because Friedkin had found Gabriel's short story in the liner notes to Genesis Live interesting. Gabriel's interest in a film project with Friedkin was another contributing factor in his decision to leave Genesis. The decision to quit the band was made before the tour supporting The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway , but Gabriel stayed with the band until the conclusion of that tour. Although tensions were high, both Gabriel and the remaining members of Genesis have stated publicly that Gabriel left the band on good terms, supported by the fact that he officially left eight months after telling the band it was time for him to move on.
The breaking point came with the difficult pregnancy of Gabriel's wife, Jill, and the subsequent birth of their first child, Anna. When he opted to stay with his sick daughter and wife, rather than record and tour, the resentment from the rest of the band led Gabriel to conclude that he had to leave the band. "Solsbury Hill", Gabriel's début single as a solo artist, was written specifically about his departure from Genesis. The song also charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978, reaching the Top 70.
Solo career
Gabriel refused to title any of his first four solo albums, which were all labelled Peter Gabriel using the same typeface, but which featured different cover art. They are usually differentiated by number in order of release (I, II, III, IV), or by sleeve design, with the first three solo albums often referred to as Car , Scratch and Melt respectively, in reference to their cover artwork. His fourth solo album, also called Peter Gabriel , was titled Security in the U.S. at the behest of Geffen Records.
After acquiescing to distinctive titles, Gabriel used a series of 2-letter words to title his next three albums: So , Us , and Up . His most recent greatest hits compilation is titled Hit ; within the two-CD package, disc one is labelled "Hit" and disc two is labelled "Miss".
Peter Gabriel albums (1977–1985)
Gabriel recorded his first self-titled solo album in 1976 and 1977 with producer Bob Ezrin. His first solo success came with the single "Solsbury Hill", an autobiographical piece expressing his thoughts on leaving Genesis. Gabriel begin a period of self-exploration and reflection, during which he grew cabbages, carrots, parsnips, broccoli and a wide range of other garden vegetables, played the piano for long hours, practised yoga and biofeedback, and spent time with his family. Although mainly happy with the music, Gabriel felt that the album, and especially the track "Here Comes the Flood" was over-produced. Sparser versions can be heard on Robert Fripp's Exposure , and on Gabriel's greatest hits compilation Shaking the Tree (1990).
Gabriel worked with guitarist Fripp as producer of his second solo LP, in 1978. This album was leaner, darker and more experimental, and yielded decent reviews, but no major hits.
Gabriel developed a new interest in world music (especially percussion), and for bold production, which made extensive use of recording tricks and sound effects. Gabriel's interest in music technology is considered by many people to be the spark of his success as it inspired his third album. The third album is often credited as the first LP to use the now-famous "gated drum" sound. Collins played drums on several tracks, including the opener, "Intruder", which featured the reverse-gated, cymbal-less drum kit sound which Collins would also utilize on his single "In the Air Tonight" and through the rest of the 1980s. Gabriel had requested that his drummers use no cymbals in the album's sessions, and when he heard the result he asked Collins to play a simple pattern for several minutes, then built "Intruder" around it. The album achieved some chart success with the songs "Games Without Frontiers" (#48 U.S.), "I Don't Remember", and "Biko".
Arduous and occasionally damp recording sessions at his rural English estate in 1981 and 1982, with co-producer/engineer David Lord, resulted in Gabriel's fourth LP release ( Security ), on which Gabriel took more production responsibility. It was one of the first commercial albums recorded entirely to digital tape (using a Sony mobile truck), and featured the early, extremely expensive, Fairlight CMI sampling computer, which had already made its first brief appearances on the previous album. Gabriel combined a variety of sampled and deconstructed sounds with world-beat percussion and other unusual instrumentation to create a radically new, emotionally charged soundscape. Furthermore, the sleeve art consisted of inscrutable, video-based imagery. Despite the album's peculiar sound, odd appearance, and often disturbing themes, it sold very well. This album featured his first Top 40 hit in the U.S., "Shock the Monkey", as well as the song "I Have the Touch". The music vide
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Peter Gabriel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. [1]
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Gabriel, Peter, born in 1950, British rock singer and songwriter, known for his creative, meticulously produced recordings of rock music, and for his.
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