The musician Peter Gabriel said was “like the sun coming out”
In 1967, Peter Gabriel joined his Charterhouse School classmates Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Anthony Philips to form the first incarnation of Genesis. This year was also significant in observing the arrival of The Beatles’ psychedelic masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band. The album is often regarded as ground zero for the prog-rock wave that Genesis would later define.
Like many musicians of his generation, Gabriel was profoundly influenced by the Fab Four from a young age. While the band’s colourful hippie era of the late ’60s held a firm hand on his first foray into music, they first drew his attention with the arrival of their first two albums, both released in 1963. Gabriel was 13 at the time.
“The first record I bought when I saved up my pocket money was With The Beatles,” Gabriel said in a 2010 interview with Nightline. “‘Please, Please Me’ was coming over the radio. I would sit in the back of my parents’ car when we were on these long drives down to the coast. And what people forget, I think, is that at the time, it was really rebellious, rough, mischievous and full of life, and irresistible to any young person. The Beatles were a huge influence as I was growing up, and continued to be as there was all that revolution around their success.”
At around the time he was establishing Genesis in 1967, Gabriel was lucky enough to watch the soul legend Otis Redding. The iconic singer died that December in a tragic plane crash.
“I was extremely lucky in 1967, when I was 17 years old, to go and see Otis Redding perform at the Ram Jam Club in Brixton in London,” Gabriel said of Redding in his conversation with Nightline. “When he came on, it was like the sun coming out. It was just this amazing voice, totally in command, great band, great grooves and passion that permeated everything.”
“I think I would have to choose an Otis track, and ‘A Change Gonna Come’ might be one,” he added, picking out his favourite track. “Obviously, that’s a song associated with other people and Sam Cooke and so on. But it’s just the way Otis put the message over. I think he’s a supreme interpreter, and what a heart.”
Having witnessed Redding’s unbound passion for the craft, Gabriel understood from a young age that technical skill wasn’t important early on in one’s career. If you had a real passion for songwriting and creative exploration through music, skills would undoubtedly develop over time.
“I began as a songwriter, really,” he added elsewhere in the interview. “I think in the Genesis days, too, we were a bunch of songwriters rather than a bunch of musicians, which is how most people start out. That’s always been a passion for me.”
Listen to ‘Change Gonna Come’, Peter Gabriel’s favourite song by Otis Redding, below.
