Short Biography
Genesis is a member of a small elite of British bands that have not only achieved massive international success but have sustained this over four decades. The news that the band's most successful line-up of Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford were reforming after a break of 15 years for a European tour, was seized on by both fans and media alike.
Genesis have a sort of Midas Touch:Â the band released a series of groundbreaking albums in the seventies, became superstars in the eighties, survived the departures of not one but two lead vocalists/members at a crucial stage in their career, and have inspired tribute bands dedicated to just about every album in their superlative catalogue. They have sold over 130 million albums worldwide, played 1400 shows, including some of the most ambitious and theatrical performances ever staged, and gone from bottom of the bill with their Charisma label mates Lindisfarne and Van Der Graaf Generator in 1971 to headlining four consecutive sell-out dates at Wembley Stadium in 1987 playing to 288,000 people in total
They have topped the charts around the world with albums as diverse as Duke, Abacab, Genesis, Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance and they remain a staple at radio across Europe, the US, Canada and beyond with tracks like ‘I Know What I Like', ‘Follow You, Follow Me', ‘Mama', ‘That's All', ‘In Too Deep', ‘Land Of Confusion', ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' and ‘Throwing It All Away'. They have influenced bands as diverse as Simple Minds, Marillion, It Bites, the Flaming Lips, Elbow, The Feeling and Captain. In fact, over thirty years before Pete Doherty sang about ‘Albion', Genesis took their Lewis Carroll/Alice In Wonderland infused vision of Britain around the world with albums like Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound.
Now, following a fifteen-year hiatus, the classic line-up of core members Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford is reuniting for Turn It On Again - The Tour, a series of European concerts, in 2007. The trio will perform material from their classic albums and reconnect with their huge fan-base who have been speculating about this eagerly-awaited reunion every time the musicians have given interviews to promote the critically-acclaimed box-sets Genesis Archives, Vol 1: 1967-1975 and Genesis Archives, Vol. 2: 1976-1992 and the best-selling compilations Turn It On Again - The Hits and The Platinum Collection.
It all started in the mid-sixties at Charterhouse, an English public school whose most famous alumnus was composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vocalist and flautist Peter Gabriel, keyboard-player Tony Banks and drummer Chris Stewart played in a band called The Garden Wall while guitarists Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford were members of Anon. After playing a school concert together in 1966, they joined forces as Genesis and released their debut single, ‘The Silent Sun', on Decca, at the beginning of 1968. By the time the group belatedly made their live debut in September 1969, their first album, From Genesis To Revelation, had sold a paltry 650 copies but, having passed their A-levels, the budding songwriters decided to give music a go. John Mayhew replaced Stewart behind the drum kit and they signed to Tony Stratton-Smith's Charisma label in March 1970 and issued the Trespass album - with early fan favourite ‘The Knife' - in October that year. 1971 saw the arrival of drummer Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett, both recruited via ads in Melody Maker, who helped the group's vision coalesce on Nursery Cryme, in particular on ‘The Musical Box', the album's opening track. This line-up built a big cult following around the UK, made the first of many forays into continental Europe and began making a name for itself in Belgium, Italy and France. When Foxtrot - complete with tour de force suite ‘Supper's Ready' - came out in October 1972, it made the albums chart in Britain. Gabriel became rock's premier frontman, telling whimsical stories and sporting a variety of masks and costumes, while the band made short shrift of the technical limitations of the day. Genesis Live, their first top ten album, further capitalized on their emerging popularity and worked even without the group's stunning visuals. Selling England By The Pound, issued at the tail end of 1973, gave them a well-deserved hit single with the quirky ‘I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)' in 1974. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, an ambitious concept album, put a New York spin on Gabriel's story of the proto-punk Rael and led to one of their most visually-stunning live presentations. However, when the frontman left after a lengthy world tour in the middle of 1975, observers were quick to write the group off.
Collins' subsequent emergence from behind the drum kit shouldn't have come as a surprise since he'd already been the featured vocalist on ‘More Fool Me' and had enjoyed success as a child actor. He stepped up to the plate and excelled on tracks like ‘Robbery, Assault And Battery and ‘Ripples', helping A Trick Of The Tail become the band's biggest-selling album to date in 1976. The drummer took centre stage, developed a completely different stage persona to his predecessor, and endeared himself to long-standing Genesis fans while engaging a whole new generation, especially in the US. Following the delicate, pastoral Wind And Wuthering and the Spot The Pigeon EP - whose lead track ‘Match Of The Day' made the Top 20 in 1977 - Hackett left too but Banks, Collins and Rutherford continued and again defied the doubting jeremiahs. Their first album as a trio, . . . And Then There Were Three . . . went gold in the US in 1978 and they scored their first Top Ten single in Britain with the melancholy ballad ‘Follow You, Follow Me' right in the middle of the punk era, while many of their contemporaries fell by the wayside.
Against all predictions, Genesis became bigger still in the eighties. The Duke album topped the UK album charts in 1980 while the irresistible ‘Turn It On Again' blared out of radios around the world. Banks, Collins and Rutherford pared down their songwriting to its melodic core and simpler, gentler, more tender songs like ‘Misunderstanding' hit a nerve with the mainstream. Abacab and its infectious title track built around a chord sequence jam at their Surrey studio, triumphed at the end of 1981. This looser, more informal approach worked a treat again on Genesis, their 1983 album, and the atmospheric ‘Mama' in particular. By 1986, all three members had released successful solo albums and had further enhanced their profile. Invisible Touch spawned five worldwide hits - the title track, ‘In Too Deep', ‘Land Of Confusion', ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight' and ‘Throwing It All Away' - as Genesis headlined stadiums and their videos became a staple of MTV. In 1991, Banks, Collins and Rutherford repeated this unbelievable feat with We Can't Dance, another UK number one album containing five, yes five, hit singles - ‘ No Son Of Mine', ‘I Can't Dance', ‘Hold On My heart', ‘Jesus He Knows Me' and ‘Tell Me Why' - and bowed out after the lengthy world tour which followed throughout 1992. Four years later, Collins announced he was leaving the group.
Banks and Rutherford recorded one more Genesis album, Calling All Stations, and toured with Stiltskin vocalist Ray Wilson in 1998 before taking a well-deserved break despite the album selling over 1million copies.
With Banks, Collins and Rutherford now reunited, the most successful incarnation of Genesis is together again, ready, as the song says, to Turn It On Again.
www.genesis-music.com
In-depth Biography
This West Coast quintet didn't survive long, which was probably just as well for a certain identically named British band that did -- but they deserved a better fate than the obscurity to which they've been consigned. Lead guitarist Jack Ttanna, who had previously played with the Sons of Adam, shared vocal chores with Sue Richman, and they could easily have given Grace Slick and Paul Kantner a run for their money, especially in the harmony department -- throw future Steppenwolf member Kent Henry's angular lead guitar into the mix, and the result was a leaner rival to Jefferson Airplane, who also showed off some good in-house songwriting and the smarts to know what to do with it. The rest of the band was filled out by Fred "Foxey" Rivera on bass, and Bob "Crusher" Metke on drums. They were good enough to be signed to Mercury Records, where their one album, In the Beginning, demonstrated a range that encompassed lyrical folk-rock and baroque pop ("Gloomy Sunday"), pounding West Coast psychedelia ("Angeline," "Ten Second Song"), shimmering, ethereal acoustic mood pieces ("Girl Who Never Was"), and one killer long-form guitar-based jam ("World Without You"). Based on the evidence, they should have been an iconic psychedelic band, and at least rated support-act status nationally to lesser, more commercial outfits. Part of the problem may have been their sheer range -- given the limited thinking of the record companies at the time, it's entirely possibly that Mercury never knew what to do with them. And Rivera's being drafted in 1968 didn't help, leading to a lineup change, with Jimmy Chappell replacing him. In any case, the failure of the album and a pair of singles precipitated their breakup in late 1968, just in time to free up the name for use by a budding British band. Their album kicked around cut-out bins for years after, enticing and annoying fans of the U.K. group -- but in 2007 In the Beginning got its first release on CD, and gave Ttanna, Richman, and company their first official worldwide exposure in 40 years. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
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