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Miles Jay (born 13 February 1980) is a multi instrumentalist and composer, specialized in the musical traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and engaged in extensive collaborations with many prominent artists from that region. Miles own live concerts and recordings (the Troposphere, 2012) combines the use of live electronic sampling and repetition with his prefered instruments, the Contrabass, Buzuk, and Lyra, in order to create multiple layers of each instrument in textures ranging from traditional to avant garde, and Rock to classical.

More recently, Gabriel has focused on producing and promoting

Gabriel founded Genesis in 1967 with fellow Charterhouse School pupils Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford, and drummer Chris Stewart. The name of the band was suggested by fellow Charterhouse alumnus, the pop music impresario Jonathan King, who produced their first album, From Genesis to Revelation.

Gabriel was influenced by many different sources in his way of singing, such as Family lead singer Roger Chapman. In 1970, he played the flute on Cat Stevens' album, Mona Bone Jakon.

Genesis drew some attention in England and eventually also in Italy, Belgium, Germany and other European countries, largely due to Gabriel's flamboyant stage presence, which involved numerous bizarre costume changes and comical, dreamlike stories told as the introduction to each song (originally Gabriel developed these stories solely to cover the time between songs that the rest of the band would take tuning their instruments and fixing technical glitches). The concerts made extensive use of

Costumes

Early Genesis concerts were hampered by a bad

In an episode of the 2007 British documentary series Seven Ages of Rock, Steve Hackett recalled the first appearance of Gabriel 'in costume'. It was the dress-wearing, fox-headed entity immortalised on the cover of Foxtrot. Hackett and the rest of the band had no inkling that Gabriel was going to do this, and at the time Hackett worried that it would ruin the performance. However, it was a success, encouraging Gabriel to continue wearing costumes while singing.

Among Gabriel's many famous costumes, which he developed to visualise the musical ideas of the band as well as to gain press coverage, were "Batwings" for the band's usual opening number, "Watcher of the Skies".

Other costumes included "The Flower" and "Magog", which were both alternately worn for "Supper's Ready" from the album Foxtrot.

"Britannia" was worn for "

"The Old Man" was worn for "The Musical Box" from Nursery Cryme.

"The Slipperman" and "Rael" were worn during "The Colony of Slippermen", in which "Rael" was the protagonist of the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Departure

Gabriel's departure from Genesis in 1975—which stunned fans of the group and left many commentators wondering if the band could survive—was the result of a number of factors. His stature as the lead singer of the band, and the added attention garnered by his flamboyant stage persona, led to tensions within the band. Genesis had always operated more or less as a collective, and Gabriel's burgeoning public profile led to fears within the group that he was being unfairly singled out as the creative hub. The band had also begun to feel confined by the reputation (and fans' expectations) attached to their famously elaborate theatrical performances, believing that the visual element of their performances was receiving more attention than their actual music.

Tensions were heightened by the ambitious album and tour of the concept work The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, a Gabriel-created concept piece which saw him taking on the lion's share of the lyric writing. During the writing and recording of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel was approached by director William Friedkin, allegedly because Friedkin had found Gabriel's short story in the liner notes to Genesis Live interesting. Gabriel left Genesis to pursue a film project with Friedkin, only to rejoin a week later.^[6] The decision to quit the band was made before the tour supporting The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, with Gabriel explaining his decision to the band while keeping it from the press until the conclusion of that tour. Bassist Mike Rutherford recalled that they all "could see it coming."^[6] Although tensions were high, both Gabriel and the remaining members of Genesis have stated publicly that Gabriel left the band on good terms.

The breaking point came with the difficult pregnancy of Gabriel's wife, Jill, and the subsequent birth of their first child, Anna-Marie. When he opted to stay with his sick daughter and wife, rather than record and tour, the resentment from the rest of the band led Gabriel to conclude that he had to leave the group. "

Solo career

Gabriel refused to title any of his first four solo albums, which were all labelled Peter Gabriel using the same typeface, but which featured different cover designs (by Hipgnosis); in all of these designs, Gabriel's face is wholly or partially obscured in some way. The albums are usually differentiated by number in order of release (I, II, III, IV), or by sleeve design, with the first three solo albums often referred to as Car, Scratch and Melt respectively, in reference to their cover artwork. His fourth solo album, also called Peter Gabriel, was titled Security in the U.S. at the behest of Geffen Records.

After acquiescing to distinctive titles, Gabriel used a series of 2-letter words to title his next three albums:

compilation is titled Hit; within the two-CD package, disc one is labelled "Hit" and disc two is labelled "Miss".

Peter Gabriel albums (1977–1985)

Gabriel recorded his

Shaking the Tree

Gabriel worked with guitarist Fripp as producer of his second solo LP, in 1978. This album was leaner, darker and more experimental, and yielded decent reviews, but no major hits.

Gabriel developed a new interest in world music (especially percussion), and for bold production, which made extensive use of recording tricks and sound effects. Gabriel's interest in music technology is considered by many people to be the spark of his success as it inspired his third album. The third album is often credited as the first LP to use the now-famous "gated drum" sound.^[8] Phil Collins played drums on several tracks, including the opener, "Intruder", which featured the reverse-gated, cymbal-less drum kit sound which Collins would also use on his single "In the Air Tonight" and through the rest of the 1980s. Gabriel had requested that his drummers use no cymbals in the album's sessions, and when he heard the result he asked Collins to play a simple pattern for several minutes, then built "Intruder" around it. The album achieved some chart success with the songs "Games Without Frontiers" (#4 U.K, #48 U.S.), and "Biko".

Arduous and occasionally damp recording sessions at his rural English estate in 1981 and 1982 resulted in Gabriel's fourth LP release, on which Gabriel took more production responsibility. It was one of the first commercial albums recorded entirely to digital tape (using a Sony mobile truck), and featured the early, extremely expensive, Fairlight CMI sampling computer, which had already made its first brief appearances on the previous album. Gabriel combined a variety of sampled and deconstructed sounds with world-beat percussion and other unusual instrumentation to create a radically new, emotionally charged soundscape. Furthermore, the sleeve art consisted of inscrutable, video-based imagery. Despite the album's peculiar sound, odd appearance, and often disturbing themes, it sold very well. This album featured his first Top 40 hit in the U.S., "Shock the Monkey", as well as the song "I Have the Touch". The music video for "Shock the Monkey", which featured Gabriel in white face paint and a caged macaque, held the #1 spot on "MTV" for 9 weeks. Geffen records forced Peter to give his fourth self-titled album a name in the US - Security - to mark his arrival on the label and to differentiate his fourth album from the other three.

Alternate versions of Gabriel's third and fourth albums were also released with German lyrics. Peter Gabriel 3 consisted of basically the same recording overdubbed with new vocals, while Security was also remixed and several tracks were extended or altered in slight ways.

Gabriel toured extensively for each of his albums. Initially, he pointedly eschewed the theatrics that had defined his tenure with Genesis. For his second solo tour, his entire band shaved their heads. By the time of Security he began involving elaborate stage props and acrobatics which had him suspended from gantries, distorting his face with

The stage was set for Gabriel's critical and commercial breakout with his next studio release, which was in production for almost three years. During the recording and production of the album he also found time to develop the film soundtrack for Alan Parker's 1984 feature Birdy, which consisted of new material as well as remixed instrumental tracks from his previous studio album.

So, Passion and Us (1986–1994)

"Don't Give Up"

A 1986 duet with Kate Bush, "Don't Give Up" tells of the despair of a man who feels defeated by the economic system, and the support and wise counsel sung in the refrain.

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Gabriel achieved his greatest popularity with songs from the 1986 album

OVO, Up, Scratch My Back and New Blood (1995–present)

After five years of not releasing any new music, Gabriel re-emerged with

He was one of the founders of On Demand Distribution (OD2), one of the first online music download services. Its technology is used by MSN Music UK and others, and has become the dominant music download technology platform for stores in Europe. OD2 was bought by US company Loudeye in June 2004 and subsequently by Finnish mobile giant Nokia in October 2006 for $60 million.

Additionally, Gabriel is also co-founder (with Brian Eno) of a musicians union called Mudda, short for "magnificent union of digitally downloading artists."

In 2000, Peter Gabriel collaborated with Zucchero, Anggun and others in a charity for kids with AIDS. Erick Benzi wrote words and music and Patrick Bruel, Stephan Eicher, Faudel, Lokua Kanza, Laam, Nourith, Axelle Red have accepted to sing it.

In 2003, Gabriel's song "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" was featured in Cyan Worlds' video game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. In 2004, Gabriel contributed another song ("Curtains") and contributed voice work on another game in the Myst franchise, Myst IV: Revelation.

During the latter part of 2004, Gabriel spent time in a village in eastern Nepal with musician Ram Sharan Nepali, learning esoteric vocal techniques. Gabriel subsequently invited Nepali to attend and perform at the Womad festival in Adelaide, Australia.

In June 2005, Gabriel and broadcast industry entrepreneur David Engelke purchased Solid State Logic, a leading manufacturer of mixing consoles and digital audio workstations.^[25] SSL is among the top 2 or 3 recording console manufacturers in the world of recording.

In May 2008, Gabriel's

In the late 1990s, Gabriel and entrepreneur Richard Branson discussed with Nelson Mandela their idea of a small, dedicated group of leaders, working objectively and without any vested personal interest to solve difficult global conflicts.

On 18 July 2007, in

In November 2007 Gabriel's non-profit group WITNESS launched The Hub, a participatory media site for human rights.

In September 2008 Gabriel was named as the recipient of Amnesty International’s 2008 Ambassador of Conscience Award. In the same month, he received Quadriga United We Care award of Werkstatt Deutschland along with Boris Tadić, Eckart Höfling and Wikipedia. The award was presented to him by Queen Silvia of Sweden.^[32]

Gabriel lent his support to the campaign to release Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.^[33]

Politics

At the

In 1998, Gabriel was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to Labour.[35] In 2003, he revealed he had voted for Labour and admired what they had done for health and education but distanced himself from the Labour government over Tony Blair’s support for George W. Bush and Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War, which he strongly opposed, although he continued to believe Blair was a man of conscience.^[36] Quoted in The Mirror newspaper, he said:

This is a fundamental issue of life and death and I very much think the Prime Minister is in the wrong. I'm also sure George W. Bush is an affable bloke but he's highly dangerous and I wish America was in the hands of someone else. To put oil interests ahead of human life is appalling. War is always terrible but unjustified war is obscene and on present evidence that is what we are facing. People want peace and I think it's great that the Mirror is leading this campaign. I think the consequences of this war would be the biggest threat to world peace in my lifetime...There is a slogan which says: 'Peace is what happens when you respect the rights of others'. Iraqis have rights too.^[37]

In 2005, Gabriel gave a Green Party of England and Wales general election candidate special permission to record a cover of his song "Don't Give Up" for his campaign.^[38]

In 2010, The Guardian described Gabriel as "a staunch advocate of proportional representation".^[39]

In 2012, Gabriel condemned the use of his music by American talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh during a controversial segment in which Limbaugh vilified Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. A statement on behalf of Gabriel read: "Peter was appalled to learn that his music was linked to Rush Limbaugh's extraordinary attack on Sandra Fluke. It is obvious from anyone that knows Peter's work that he would never approve such a use. He has asked his representatives to make sure his music is withdrawn and especially from these unfair, aggressive and ignorant comments."^[40]

Personal life

Gabriel has two daughters with his first wife Jill Moore: Anna-Marie (born 26 July 1974) and Melanie Gabriel (born 23 August 1976). Married on 17 March 1971, they divorced in 1987. Moore's father was Lord Moore of Wolvercote.

Anna-Marie is a filmmaker and Melanie is a musician. Anna-Marie filmed and directed the Growing Up On Tour: A Family Portrait and Still Growing Up: Live & Unwrapped DVDs. Melanie has been a backing vocalist in her father's band since 2002.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gabriel lived with actress Rosanna Arquette but they never married.

Gabriel also has two sons with Meabh Flynn: Isaac Ralph (born 27 September 2001) and Luc (born 5 July 2008). Gabriel and Flynn have been married since 9 June 2002.

Gabriel has resided for many years in the county of Wiltshire in England, where he also runs his Real World Studios. He previously lived in the Woolley Valley near Bath, Somerset. In 2010 he joined a campaign to stop an agricultural development at the valley, which had also inspired his first solo single "Solsbury Hill" in 1977.^[41]

Appearances: 2005–present

Gabriel actively coordinated and performed at the Eden Project Live 8 concert in July 2005. In his earliest days, Gabriel played flute on

A double DVD set, Still Growing Up: Live & Unwrapped, was released in October 2005.

FIFA asked Gabriel and Brian Eno to organise an opening ceremony for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals in Germany, planned to take place a couple of days before the start of the tournament; however, the show was cancelled in January 2006 by FIFA.

Rumours of a possible reunion of the original Genesis line-up began circulating in 2004 after Phil Collins stated in an interview that he was open to the idea of sitting back behind the drums and "let Peter be the singer." The classic line-up has only reformed for a live performance once before, in 1982. However, the group did work together to create a new version of the 1974 song "The Carpet Crawlers", ultimately released on the Turn It On Again: The Hits album as "The Carpet Crawlers 1999". Gabriel later met with other Genesis band members, to discuss a possible reunion tour of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. He chose to opt out of a reunion tour, and his former bandmates, Collins, Banks, and Rutherford chose to tour as Genesis without him.

At the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Gabriel performed John Lennon's "Imagine" during the opening of the festivities on 10 February 2006.

In October 2006, Gabriel was given the first Pioneer Award at the BT Digital Music Awards, an award presented in recognition of his "profound and lasting influence on the development of digital music."

In November 2006, the Seventh World Summit of

Gabriel took on a project with the BBC World Service's competition "The Next Big Thing" to find the world's best young band. Gabriel is judging the final six young artists with William Orbit, Geoff Travis and Angélique Kidjo.

The album Big Blue Ball was launched in America thanks to a venture capital trust initiative. Bosses at London-based firm Ingenious raised more than $4 million (GBP 2 million) to help promote the release in the United States. The venture capitalists, Gabriel and his Real World Limited partners, have created a new joint venture company, High Level Recordings Limited, to oversee the release of the album, which took place in 2008. Gabriel appeared on a nationwide tour for the album in 2009.^[43]

On 24 May 2007, he was honoured with the

Ivor Novello Award for lifetime achievement.^[44]

Gabriel was a judge for the 6th and 8th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.^[45]

In February 2009, Gabriel announced that he would not be performing on the 2008 Academy Awards telecast because producers of the show were limiting his performance of "Down to Earth" from WALL-E to 65 seconds. John Legend and the Soweto Gospel Choir performed the song in his stead.

Gabriel's 2009 tour of Mexico and South America included visiting Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela. His first ever performance in Peru was held in Lima on 20 March 2009, during his second visit to the country. His concert in Mexico City, on 27 March 2009, attracted more than 38,000 fans.

On 25 July 2009, he played at WOMAD Charlton Park, his only European performance of the year, to promote Witness. The show included two tracks from the then-forthcoming Scratch My Back: Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" and The Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love".^[46]

On 5 October 2011 at the Royal Festival Hall, London Gabriel appeared at the end of an interview of President Carter by Channel 4 News presenter, Jon Snow, to lead the 2,500-strong audience in a rendition of happy birthday to mark the President turning 87.

On 9 November 2011 he appeared and performed on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman.

Discography

Main article: Peter Gabriel discography

• Peter Gabriel 1 (Car) (1977)
• Peter Gabriel 2 (Scratch) (1978)
• Ein deutsches Album
  (1980)
• Deutsches Album
  (1982)
• Birdy (1985)
• So (1986)
• Passion
  (1989)
• Us (1992)
• OVO (2000)
• Long Walk Home (2002)
• Up (2002)
• Scratch My Back (2010)
• New Blood (2011)

with Genesis

• From Genesis to Revelation
• Trespass
• Nursery Cryme
• Foxtrot
• Selling England by the Pound
• The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

See also

• List of best selling music artists
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart

References

1. ^ "Peter Gabriel Receives Top Honor at BMI London Awards". bmi.com. Retrieved 13 October 2010.
2. ^ ^{a b} The BRITs 1987 Brits.co.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2011
3. ^ Past Winners: Peter Gabriel Grammy.com. Retrieved 24 November 2011
4. ^ Peter Gabriel Profile LyricsOnDemand.com
5. ^ Family detective: Peter Gabriel Telegraph.co.uk
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Neer, Dan (1985). Mike on Mike [interview LP], Atlantic Recording Corporation.
7. ^ Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel Songfacts.com
8. ^ Flans, Robyn (1 May 2005). "Classic Tracks: Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight"". MixOnline.com.
9. ^ So - Peter Gabriel (review) Allmusic. Retrieved 21 November 2011
10. ^ ^{a b} Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums. London: Guinness World Records Limited
11. ^ ^{a b c} Whitburn, Joel (2006). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. Billboard Books
12. ^ "British album certifications – Peter Gabriel – So". British Phonographic Industry. Enter So in the field Search. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Click Go
13. ^ "American album certifications – Peter Gabriel – So". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
14. ^ So - Peter Gabriel (credits) Allmusic. Retrieved 21 November 2011
15. ^ The 100 Greatest Albums Of The 80s. Rolling Stone. Special Issue 1990. Retrieved 21 November 2011
16. ^ ^{a b c} Peter Gabriel, 'Sledgehammer' (1986) - The 30 All-TIME Best Music Videos Time. Retrieved 19 November 2011
17. ^ MTV. Top Ten Animated Videos Countdown. June 28, 1998
18. ^ 29th Grammy Awards - 1987 Rock On The Net. Retrieved 19 November 2011
19. ^ "Peter Announces North American Tour 'Back To Front' To Celebrate 25th Anniversary of 'So'". petergabriel.com. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
20. ^ By Andy Greene (4 September 2012). "QA: Peter Gabriel Reflects on His 1986 Landmark Album 'So' | Music News". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
21. ^ "Peter Gabriel To Take A Year Off | Rock News | News". Planet Rock. 5 September 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
22. ^ Volume 3: Further in Time Real World Records
23. ^ "See it. Film it. Change it. Using video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations". Witness. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
24. ^ 'Peter Gabriel goes ape for research project' Top40-Charts.com, 20 July 2001
25. ^ "Peter Gabriel and David Engelke purchase Solid State Logic". 21 June 2005. Retrieved 19 September 2011.
26. ^ Breen, Christopher (27 May 2008). "B&W and Real World Launch Music Club". PC World. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
27. ^ "Peter Gabriel talks about his work for Amnesty International". YouTube. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
28. ^ "Peter Gabriel TV Interview On NBC Today Show about Amnesty concerts". YouTube. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
29. ^ "The North South Prize of Lisbon". North-South Centre. Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 15 February 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
30. ^ "Ms. Vera Duarte, Minister of Education, Cape Verde" (PDF). Council of Europe. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
31. ^ "About". The Elders. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
32. ^ "Die Quadriga - Award 2008" (in (in German)). Loomarea.com. Retrieved 16 July 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
33. ^ "Iran stoning case woman ordered to name campaigners". The Guardian. London. 22 July 2010.
34. ^ "Who's backing whom at the election?". BBC News. 21 April 2005. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
35. ^ "'Luvvies' for Labour". BBC News. 30 August 1998. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
36. ^ The Mirror, 1 March 2003.
37. ^ "Peter Gabriel backs antiwar campaign".
38. ^ "Green candidate sings for votes". BBC News. 29 April 2005. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
39. ^ "Peter Gabriel: 'It doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft!'". The Guardian. 2 June 2010. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
40. ^ "Peter Gabriel Pulls Music From 'Rush Limbaugh Show'". Rolling Stone.
41. ^ "Peter Gabriel attacks Woolley Valley farm plans". BBC News. 19 May 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2011.
42. ^ Durman, Paul. Gabriel deals a blow to the record business, The Times. 21 January 2007.
43. ^ Gabriel Calls on Venture Capitalists To Help Album Launch, contactmusic.com. 24 January 2007.
44. ^ "Winehouse, Madonna win U.K. songwriting prizes". CBC.ca Arts. 24 May 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
45. ^ "Past Judges". Independent Music Awards. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
46. ^ Dalton, Stephen (27 July 2009). "Womad 2009 at Charlton Park Wiltshire". The Times. London. Retrieved 22 May 2010.

External links

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• Works by or about Zsidawi/sandbox in libraries (
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• Audio interview at BBC Wiltshire
• Peter Gabriel takes part in a panel at the Global Philanthropy Forum video

Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:Charisma Records artists Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Brit Award winners Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:English film score composers Category:English male singers Category:English rock keyboardists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:Genesis (band) members Category:Grammy Award-winning artists Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:International opponents of apartheid in South Africa Category:People educated at Charterhouse School Category:People from Chobham, Surrey Category:Real World artists Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Musicians from Surrey