This is a slight deviation from my usual blogs. Because music has always played a major role in my life. It is nice to acknowledge that every once in a while.
When you think of classic Rock bands, Genesis is usually not a band which springs to mind, strange in a way because that is basically what they are a classic Prog Rock band.
Their rise to fame was a bit of a strange one. although they had some successes in the early years but nothing really noteworthy.
They started off in 1967 with Peter Gabriel as their singer and front man, and their music was slightly psychedelic . Gabriel was only 17 at the time. I think the reason why they didn’t have any real success with him as a singer is because their music and appearance might have been a bit to extravagant.
In 1975/76 Phil Collins took over the reign as a singer. He had been the drummer until then. And it was with Phil Collins they got their biggest successes and turned out to become a major global band. Their first big hit was ‘Follow You, Follow me’ from the album “.. and there there were three” after guitarist Steve Hackett left , leaving only Collins,Banks and Rutherford in the band
Aside his career as the singer of Genesis ,Phil Collins also was a vert successful solo artiste. As was the former singer Peter Gabriel, both men sold millions of albums as solo artists.
In 1996 Collins thought it was better to leave the band. After 25 years in the band he thought it was time to change direction in his musical life and wanted to focus on music for movies and jazz.
This left Banks and Rutherford with a problem. They wanted to continue the band but had no singer. They auditioned several singer, including Francis Dunnery who had worked with Robert Plant before and had been in the prog rock band It Bites, who had a hit with ‘Calling all the heroes’ in 1986.
Another contender was Nick Van Eede who had been the lead singer of Cutting Crew an anEnglish rock band formed in London in 1985 and are best remember by their debut single, which became a massive global hit’ “(I just) died in your arms tonight”
They also auditioned David Longdon a British multi-instrumentalist and singer byt eventually they settled for Ray Wilson a Scottish singer and guitarist who had been the lead singer with the Rock Band “Stitskin” who had a hit with the song “Inside” which was used in a Levi’s 501 jeans ad.
The band disbanded in 1996 which gave Ray Wilson to join Genesis. In 1997 Wilson was announced as the new lead singer of Genesis. Although Banks and Rutherford had already finished writing the album “Calling all stations” Wilson was still able to make some contributions to to the album which included writing the lyrics to “Small Talk” and riffs on “Not About Us”
Although the albuM did reasonably well in the UK and Europe it only reached the number 54 spot in the US charts.
In 1998 the band decided to take a prolonged break.
In 2014, Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, Collins and Hackett reunited for Genesis: Together and Apart, a BBC documentary.
On 4 March 2020, Collins,Banks and Rutherford announced their reformation and The Last Domino? Tour. It is great to see them back again.
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