Peter Gabriel: date of birth, biography, personal life, family, albums and photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Peter Gabriel is an extraordinary personality, an artist who is loved by people with good musical taste. Throughout his career, he went from being a member of an unknown group to a famous dramatic performer. Let's get to know him better.

Peter Gabriel has received worldwide recognition as a talented musician, singer, author of many famous songs and videos. He began his career in the creative project Genesis, which at the time was very popular. The singer left the group in 1975, which upset many fans of Genesis, but in his solo career he achieved much more success.

Start

The biography of Peter Gabriel began on February 13, 1950 in London, the capital of Great Britain. All his adult life he was engaged in music, writing lyrics. When Peter wrote his song at the age of 12, he did not even imagine that such success would overtake him. According to the singer's memoirs, his first song was dedicated to snails. At a time when his peers were already thinking about girls, Peter, in his ownconfession, wrote songs about his interests at the time.

Genesis

When Peter was studying at Charterhouse English School in the small town of Surrey, he met Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Anthony Philips. Together with them, Peter created the quickly become famous group Genesis. Soon they released their first single called The Silent Sun, which sounded on the radio in 1968. Soon, unfortunately, Anthony left the group due to a serious illness. But the guys wanted to move on, and so they began to look for a replacement. In addition, the drummer position remained vacant in the group. The search was successful, and in 1970 Steve Hackett and Phil Collins joined the musical group. Peter Gabriel performed with Genesis from 1967 to 1975. The main task he actively pursued was songwriting. Their themes were completely different - from love and mythical to humorous. Sometimes Peter Gabriel's songs made absolutely no sense.

Free swimming

After leaving Genesis, Peter decided to take a break. For some time he was in a village house with his family, but suddenly at the end of 1975 there was information that the world would soon see the first solo album of Peter Gabriel. The singer worked hard on his album, the process lasted about a year. The main task of the singer was to release an album that would not remind listeners that he was a member of the Genesis group. At that time, the press published many interviews with Peter, in which he compared his solo album withthe work of Genesis. The singer claimed that now his work will be dominated mainly by songs on personal topics, since before he did not have the opportunity to write about his feelings. The record, on the cover of which was simply written Peter Gabriel, was released in early 1977.

In March, the song Solsbury Hill played for the first time on the radio. The track immediately became incredibly popular and took 13th place in the British hit parade. Speculation and speculation immediately began to appear in the press that the song symbolizes farewell to the group, to which Peter gave several years. But the singer claimed that he was misunderstood, that this song is about being able to part with the past, to understand that everything is for the better, and the dropped ballast will allow you to move forward. The entire album was the product of the star's creative search - there was no single style to be seen, each composition was different from the previous one.

1978

Peter Gabriel's next solo album was produced by Robert Fripp, and for this reason, the musician's creative search continued. Fripp gave a precise characterization of the singer as a person who knows exactly what he wants, but making decisions is very difficult for him. Peter Gabriel's music is beautiful, but it is not chaotic or written on a whim, but rather, on the contrary, it is carefully built. This is not because Peter is a perfectionist, but rather because he tends to scrupulously get to the bottom of things. In the summer of 1978, Gabriel's second album was released. It is noteworthy that neither the first nor the second album hadofficial name - fans called the albums themselves, focusing on their cover. Therefore, the first has the unofficial name Car, and the second has Scratch (“Scratch”).

This move was the initiative of an artist who specifically did not want to name his albums. They could be distinguished and recognized only by the picture on the cover. The second album didn't have a clear hit, but Peter continued on his creative path.

News

Although Peter was a fairly recognizable figure in the world of show business, his records were not in great demand. But the third album of Peter Brian Gabriel, contrary to expectations, was an incredible success both in England and in the USA. Gabriel's team did everything to please the fans: they acquired unprecedented innovations at that time - a sampler and a programmable drum machine, which makes it possible to give music a modern sound. According to Peter, the novelty and unusualness of the sound is what the audience needed. The goal was to sweep away everything that set the teeth on edge.

1980

A year later, the recording of the third album was completed. The third album also did not have an official name, and the fans dubbed it Melt ("Melted") as a poet. Success was not long in coming - a week after the release, the album was at the top of the British hit parade. This time the musician and his team managed to create something that resonated in the hearts of the listeners. One of the most popular songs was Games Without Frontiers, which even managed to beat the successfamous Solsbury Hill. The third album turned out to be a bit aggressive and full of sounds that were unusual for those times. Peter in these songs touched on topics that worried him: loneliness, struggle with difficulties, life's hardships. It was not originally planned to create such an album, but Peter is used to expressing emotional experiences in music.

WOMAD

In 1980, the singer became the founder of the festival direction WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance, i.e. "The World of Music, Art and Dance"). WOMAD was a series of international festivals where traditional music and modern art styles and choreography by dancers and musicians from all over the world coexisted side by side. In 1993, WOMAD became the platform for the founding of Real World Studios.

In 1986 one of Peter Gabriel's solo albums So was awarded the highest musical award "Grammy". In addition to amazing musical compositions, the album was distinguished by the excellent quality of video clips, in which Gabriel's talent was revealed in all its facets. The video from this album called Sledgehammer collected all the possible music awards that existed at that time. The most eminent and significant award for Peter was the first place in the British chat Rolling Stones TOP-100. Most often, this clip was broadcast on the MTV channel.

A few years later, Gabriel created his personal music label Real World Records, which gave a start in life and on the stage to many talented people from all over the world.

Peter Gabriel now

Currently, Gabriel pays special attention to his music label Real World and organizes international festivals WOMAD. At the beginning of the 2000s, he released CDs that combined the ability to record audio and video. In 2000, a performance appears in which Peter simultaneously takes part and directs the production. It's called OVO: Millennium Show. Its release is timed to coincide with the onset of the new millennium, it involved the latest technical capabilities of that time. Peter also embodied his idea of the unity of all peoples in the theatrical production: the performance was attended by stars of various nationalities and cultures, such as Elizabeth Fraser, Nena Cherry, Yarla O'Lionard, Richie Havensey and others.