|
peter |
||
|
Peter Gabriel was born Febuary 13th, 1950 son of Ralph and Irene Gabriel. As a young child, Peter and his sister would dress up in strange costums from their grandfather's atic. Soon he would where this costums on stage while he performed his music. While growing up Peter learned to play the drums and played sessions for small soul bands. Peter attended Charterhouse, one of Britian's public schools. That's where he met Tony Banks, Michael Rutherford, Anthony Phillips, and Chris Stewart. They then formed a band in 1966 called Genesis, with Tony on piano, Mike and Anthony on guitars, Chris on drums, and Peter played the flute and sang the vocals. The group made a demo that was passed onto Jonathan King who just had his first hit called, "Everyone's Gone To The Moon". Jonathan liked their music especailly a song titled, "The Silent Sun" writen by Pete and Tony which was soon released onto Decca as their first single on Febuary 2nd, 1968. The song didn't have much success. They tried again a few months later with a new single called "A Winter's Tale". The success of the second single equaled the first. Jonathan then thought they could earn success with making a complete album. This time the band worked very hard with John Silver, their new drummer. They came back to London to record the album only in one day! When they released it, it was titled "from Genesis to Revelation" with gold letters on a black cover. Record shops would misplace it in the religious section. The group left Jonathan King and John Silver left the group. They began work on a new album called Trespass with a new drummer, John Mayhew. Trespass was a giant step for them even though it had only a little success on their new record label, MCA. They finally find their pace and style. Trespass grabbed the attention of record companies. They went on to record another album hoping for more success but Anthony Phillips didn't follow because he had a severe case of stagefright. John Mayhew didn't stay either. Genesis was left as a skeleton crew. They went and picked up Steve Hackett to play guitar and Phil Collins on drums. The released "Nursery Crime" in November of '71. The album was a success with their hit song , "The Musical Box". When Genesis performed the song Peter wore an "old man" mask. The next year they released "Foxtrot" on October 12th. It's success came from their stage performances. The album had a 23 minute song called "Supper's Ready" which many fans call "The Genesis Masterpiece". A segment in the song called "Willow Farm", Peter wore a flower costume pertaining to the song. Genesis released another album in '73 titled, "Selling By The Pound". The song , "I Know What I Like" reached 17th on the Billboard chart and 15th on the Pop chart. Genesis was finally getting noticed around the world especially after their next album released November 18th, 1974. "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", both the album and the song were landmark hits. But soon after they finished the tour in 1975, Peter Gabriel decided to leave Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Peter started work on his solo career. He and The London Symphony Orchestra recorded "Strawberry Fields Forever", originally a Beattles song. Soon Peter was married and began work on his first album, untitled but nicknamed as "rainy car". He had a hit called "Solsbury Hill" about his decision to leave Genesis. It reached 12th on the U.K. chart and 68th in the U.S.. He released his second album in 1978, also untitled and nicknamed as "scratch" or "fingernails". His wife Jill gave him some help on the album. She cowrote "Mother Of Violence" with him. The album's success came from "D.I.Y." which stands for do it yourself. Then later began work on another album. During the making of this album, Phil Collins helped with some of the drum tracks when Jerry Marotta was buisy with other artists. Peter's writing style on this new album was different than the first two. Peter finished and released the album in 1980 being untitled again and nicknamed , "Melting Face". This was his biggest album yet by far. "I Don't Remember" and "Games Without Frontiers" were topping the charts. Other hits such as "Biko" related to the death of Steven Biko, and "Family Snapshot" was about the assanination of Governer Wallace. Another song called "No Self Control" was a hit in the U.K. but not the U.S.. Later that year, Peter had writen a script for the movie of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway which the group would rejoin and re-record some tracks for the movie. It was a rumor that Peter would star as Rael. The group put about five million dollars into making it until they hit a dead end. They lost their American label to release the movie. They still wanted to try and make the film but soon their hopes died down and they gave up. So instead of making the movie they had a reunion concert which was called the "Best Of Six". For one last time, Peter performed Supper's Ready wearing his grandfather's flower costume. they performed many old songs such The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, I Know What I Like, Back In N.Y.C., Firth of Fifth, The Musical Box, and many more. They also performed more newwer songs such as Follow You Follow Me, Here Comes The Flood, On The Air, Solsbury Hill, and more. While this was all happening, Peter had already been working on a forth album. He was going to use songs such as "I Go Swimming" and "Milgram's 37" but decided not to. He released his forth album in September of 1982. It was untitled in the U.K. but was titled "Security" on his U.S. label because they couldn't handle a fourth untitled album. The album reached number two on the U.K. chart and reached 29 in the U.S.. It had huge hits such as "San Jacinto" and "Shock The Monkey". In 1983, he re-recorded "I Have The Touch" from the forth album. Peter released "I Go Swimming", from "Plays Live", on the Hard To Hold soundtrack. "Walk Through The Fire" , another cut from his third album, was released on the Against All Odds soundtrack. In 1984, Peter was working on the soundtrack to the motion picture, "Birdy". He used a lot of recyced material from previous songs such as the song, "Under Lock And Key" came from "The Wallflower". The album and the movie did not have much success. The next work he started was a sixth album. The song, "Milgram's 37" was going to make its album debut as, "We Do What We're Told" another cut, but cut from Security. Stewart Copeland, former member of "The Police", played some drum sessions for the new album. The album was released in late May of 1986 and titled, "So". "So" hit the charts right away making it to number one on both U.K. and U.S. charts. This would turn out to be his biggest album and one of the best of all time. The song "Sledgehammer" reached number one and the video of Sledgehammer has won more MTV awards than any other video. "Big Time" peaked at number eight and "In Your Eyes" was among the top 25. This was a land mark in Gabriel's career. In 1988, he started to make another album for the movie, "Thr Last Temptation Of Christ". Peter was first asked to do it in 1983 and was very excited nut was worried because of the controversial novel. But Martin Scorsees, the maker of the film, was intending to show the difference between Christ and the everyday man. Peter then agreed to do the music. David Bowie, starred as "Pilot" in the movie. Peter released the album in 1989 and titled it "Passion" which contained songs from the movie and songs that didn't make the movie. "Passion Sources", a sister to Passion, was a mix of other artists who helped with the music to Passion. Passion was the first Real World Production created in 1988. Why making Passion, Peter met Youssou N'Dour who helped make the album. The became great friends. Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour, Sting, Tracy Chapmen, and Bruce Springsteen performed at Fidel Castro's 70th Birthday. Toussou released his own album called "The Lion" in 1989 which didn't have much success but Gabriel liked the song, "Shaking The Tree" from it. In 1990, Peter released a new album called "Shaking The Tree" after the re-recorded and rewriten version by Peter and Youssou. The album contained many of Gabriel's early hits such as Mercy Street, Red Rain, Don't Give Up, and more. Also included a re-recording of Here Comes The Flood. The new version was more softer than the 1977 version. Shaking The Tree became a success. His next album was released in late 1992, and was titled "Us". The hits, "Steam" and "Digging InThe Dirt" made it to the top ten on the charts. Peter has won many awards for the videos of "Steam", and "Kiss That Frog." He went on tour after this album with Paula Cole who sang the female vovals for him on his "Secret World Tour". |
||