Peter Gabriel

Gabriel was the original lead singer of prog-rockers Genesis since 1967 but left in 1975 to pursue solo projects. As well as becoming a multi-platinum selling albums artist, he was the founder of the annual Womad music festival, owns one of Britain’s most in-demand recording studios, Real World Studios, and jointly owns the recording studio hardware manufacturer Solid State Logic.

Peter Brian Gabriel was born in Chobham on 13 February 1950, the son of Edith Irene (1921–2016) and Ralph Parton Gabriel (1912–2012). His mother came from a musical family, while his father was an electrical engineer and dairy farm owner from a long-established family of London timber importers and merchants.

Gabriel attended the private primary school Cable House in Woking and St Andrews Preparatory School for Boys in Horsell. During his time at the latter, his teachers noticed his singing talent, but he instead opted for piano lessons from his mother and developed an interest in drumming. In September 1963, he started at the public Charterhouse School in Godalming. There, he was a drummer and vocalist for his first band, the trad jazz outfit the Milords. This was followed by a holiday band called the Spoken Word.

In 1965, while still at Charterhouse, Gabriel formed the band Garden Wall with his schoolmates Tony Banks on piano, Johnny Trapman on trumpet, and Chris Stewart on drums.

Garden Wall disbanded in 1967; Gabriel and Banks were invited by their Charterhouse schoolmates Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford, who were in their own band at the school called Anon until it split up the previous year, to work on a demo tape of songs together. Gabriel and Banks contributed “She Is Beautiful”, the first song they wrote together. The tape was sent to Charterhouse alumnus, musician Jonathan King, who was immediately enthusiastic largely due to Gabriel’s vocals. He signed the group and suggested that their name be Gabriel’s Angels, but this was unpopular with the other members, and they soon settled on his other suggestion of Genesis.

After splitting from King, the band signed with Charisma Records and shifted to progressive rock with their succeeding album Trespass (1970). Phillips departed after the album’s recording, with Banks, Rutherford and Gabriel recruiting Collins and Hackett before recording Nursery Cryme (1971). Their live shows began to feature Gabriel’s theatrical costumes and performances. Foxtrot (1972) was their first charting album in the UK and Selling England by the Pound (1973) reached number three, featuring their first UK hit “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”. The concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) was promoted with a transatlantic tour and an elaborate stage show, before Gabriel left the group.

Gabriel’s first solo album arrived in February 1977. He was 26. With legendary producer Bob Ezrin taking charge, the intention was to make something more direct and tougher than what had come before. Gabriel did not title his first four studio albums. All were labelled Peter Gabriel, using the same typeface, with designs by Hipgnosis.

The album cover picture was taken in Wandsworth, London in Hipgnosis director Storm Thorgerson’s car, a Lancia Flavia. It was sprayed with water from a hose and Peter sat in the passenger seat. Originally in black and white, the artwork was then hand-coloured and each droplet highlight patiently scraped clean with a scalpel by Richard Manning.

The lead single, “Solsbury Hill”, is an autobiographical song about a spiritual experience on top of Solsbury Hill in Somerset. The single was a Top 20 hit in the UK, peaking at number 13, and reached number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977.

Gabriel’s US distributor who had released his first two albums, refused to put out Peter Gabriel 3: Melt as they thought it was not commercial enough. Gabriel signed a recording contract with Mercury Records. Released in May 1980, the album went to No. 1 in the UK for three weeks. In the US, it peaked at No. 22. The single “Games Without Frontiers” went to No. 4 and “Biko” went to No. 36 in the UK.

The fourth Peter Gabriel, released in September 1982, hit No. 6 in the UK and No. 28 in the US. The second single, “Shock the Monkey”, became Gabriel’s first top 40 hit in the US, reaching No. 29. To handle American distribution, Gabriel signed with Geffen Records, which—initially unbeknown to Gabriel—titled the album Security to differentiate it from the first three.

In 1985, he recorded his fifth studio album, So (co-produced with Daniel Lanois). So was released in May 1986 and reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US. It remains Gabriel’s best-selling album with over five million copies sold in the US alone. It produced one of Gabriel’s signature songs, that has become a concert staple: “In Your Eyes”, with a distinctive vocal appearance by Youssou N’Dour, and three UK top 20 singles: “Sledgehammer”, “Big Time” and “Don’t Give Up”, a duet with Kate Bush.

The album’s lead single, “Sledgehammer”, was promoted with an innovative animated music video and achieved particular success, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and subsequently winning a record of nine MTV Video Music Awards and Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards. The song also saw Gabriel nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In a 2005 poll conducted by Channel 4 in the UK, the music video was ranked second on their list of the 100 Greatest Pop Videos.

For the “Sledgehammer” music video Gabriel laid under a sheet of glass for 16 hours while filming the video one frame at a time. For each frame of one ten-second sequence, clouds were painted across Gabriel’s face to create the illusion of moving clouds. According to Time magazine, “Sledgehammer”‘s music video is the all-time most played music video on MTV.

Gabriel wrote “Don’t Give Up” from a reference point of American roots music and approached country singer Dolly Parton to sing it with him. However, Parton turned it down, so his friend Kate Bush took her place. Gabriel said that Bush was originally nervous about participating. Over the years, Gabriel has collaborated with Bush several times; Bush provided backing vocals for Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” and “No Self Control” in 1980.

In 1986, he started what has become a longstanding association with Amnesty International, becoming a pioneering participant in all 28 of Amnesty’s Human rights concerts.

In 1987, Gabriel appeared on Robbie Robertson‘s self-titled solo studio album, singing on “Fallen Angel” and appeared on Joni Mitchell‘s 1988 studio album Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm, on the opening track “My Secret Place”.

In a 2014 interview, Elton John attributed his sobriety to “Don’t Give Up”, in particular the lyric from Bush, “Rest your head. You worry too much. It’s going to be all right. When times get rough you can fall back on us. Don’t give up.” He states, “she [Bush] played a big part in my rebirth. That record helped me so much.”

At the 29th Annual Grammy Awards, So was nominated for Album of the Year, losing to Paul Simon‘s Graceland (1986), while “Sledgehammer” received nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.

The album is one of Gabriel’s most personal. It met with less success than So, reaching No. 2 in the album chart on both sides of the Atlantic, and making modest chart impact with the singles “Digging in the Dirt” and the funkier “Steam”, which evoked memories of “Sledgehammer”. Gabriel followed the release of the album with the Secret World Tour.

In 2002 he worked on the soundtrack for the Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) with worldbeat music. Released in June 2002, Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score – Motion Picture.

Gabriel’s music featured prominently on the popular 1980s television show Miami Vice. The songs include “The Rhythm of the Heat” and “Biko” (from “Evan”), “Red Rain” (from “Stone’s War”), “Mercy Street” (from “Killshot”), “Sledgehammer” (from “Better Living Through Chemistry”), “We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)” (from “Forgive Us Our Debts” and “Deliver Us from Evil”) and “Don’t Give Up” (from “Redemption in Blood”). With seven songs used total, Gabriel had the most music featured by a solo artist in the series.

In 2009, Gabriel recorded Scratch My Back, an album of cover songs by various artists including David Bowie, (“Heroes”), Lou Reed, (“The Power of the Heart”), Paul Simon, (“The Boy in the Bubble”), Radiohead, (“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and Neil Young, (“Philadelphia”). The original concept was for Gabriel to cover an artists’ song if they, in turn, covered one of his for an album simultaneously released as I’ll Scratch Yours, but several participants later declined or were late to deliver and it was placed on hold.

I/O (stylised as i/o) is the tenth studio album by Gabriel, released on 1 December 2023 through Real World Records his first album of new original material since Up (2002). I/O had been in the works for nearly three decades (27 years and eight months), with its initial production dating back to April 1995.

Gabriel created the Real World Studios and record label to facilitate the creation and distribution of such music by various artists, and he has worked to educate Western culture about such musicians as Yungchen Lhamo, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Youssou N’dour.