Peter Gabriel (born Peter Brian Gabriel on 13 February 1950) is an internationally-famous award-winning English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, and the album’s biggest hit, “Sledgehammer”, won a record nine at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. Throughout his career Gabriel has won numerous music awards, including three Brit Awards (winning Best British Male in 1987), six Grammy Awards, and thirteen MTV Video Music Awards. In 2007 he was honoured as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his “influence on generations of music makers”. In 2009 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize and, in 2010, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis.
Gabriel founded Genesis in 1967 with fellow Charterhouse School pupils Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford, and drummer Chris Stewart. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel began to experiment with various elements of world music as the underpinning for his dense, poetic lyrics. Although he released a series of successful song-oriented albums, Gabriel 1, 2, 3, and 4 (aka Car, Scratch, Melt, and Security), he didn’t really hit a commercial high until 1986 with his now seminal album So and its slightly less successful counterpart Us. After this came a 10 year hiatus until the album Up came out. This was followed by the ground breaking Growing Up tour. There was a DVD released of this tour. His 2010 studio album is Scratch My Back.
Gabriel has composed and recorded soundtracks for films as diverse as Birdy (which contained re-purposed snippets of his studio albums to date), Passion: Music from The Last Temptation of Christ, and Rabbit Proof Fence. He also sang the Randy Newman composed title song to Babe: Pig in the City called That’ll Do. He recently contributed to the wall-e soundtrack, singing the end title song Down to Earth, and composing two other tracks.
He created one of the more innovative videos of its time for the song Sledgehammer, with the then-fledgling Aardman Animations studio.
He was also instrumental in founding the long-running festival organization WOMAD (World Of Music Art and Dance), and participated in the UK millennium celebration, for which he wrote the musical OVO. The recording studio he built, Real World, and the record label it spawned, have brought many artists from around the world to the attention of Western ears.
Gabriel also wrote the music for The Millennium Show which was performed throughout the year 2000 in The Millennium Dome. The arena where The Millennium Show was performed is now the O2 Arena.
Rumors of reunion with his former band Genesis have persisted, with conflicting information that changes almost daily, although he has confirmed he will not play a part in Genesis’ reunion tour. [note: the reunion WAS in rehearsals when Gabriel decided not to do it because he felt like he wasn’t having enough input.]
