The two times Phil Collins failed to make the cut for The Beatles
From the moment he could walk, Phil Collins was a creative dynamo. Although fans of his popular solo work and prior material with Genesis will remember him as a drummer and songwriter, Collins also had an iron in the fire of dramatics. Most memorably, the musician appeared in the major movies Miami Vice, Buster and Hook, but as a child, he was a prominent force at the theatre.
In 1964, at the age of 13, Collins was cast as the Artful Dodger for two West End runs of the musical Oliver. The aspiring child actor enjoyed a wage of £15 a week and, in a 1986 interview with Playboy, reflected on the early role as “the best part for a kid in all London”. Sadly, Collins’ days as the Artful Dodger were numbered; during what became his final outing as the Dickensian character, his voice started to break, and he had to speak his lines.
Earlier in 1964, just before he landed the Oliver role, Collins took on an uncredited part as an extra in The Beatles’ first movie, the musical comedy A Hard Day’s Night. In the classic film, Collins joined a swarm of screaming teenagers for the TV concert sequence. Sadly, Collins’ involvement was edited out of the final cut.
Undeterred, Collins pursued his musical ambitions as an avid Beatles fan. Like many of their prog-rock brethren, Genesis used the band’s psychedelic-era albums as a blueprint for their early work. Initially, the band was helmed by founding frontman Peter Gabriel, but with his departure in 1975, Collins began to assert his creative whim.
Beyond his drumming expertise, the 19-year-old auditionee may have appealed to Genesis in 1970 due to his history with The Beatles. Not only did the youngster perform on the A Hard Day’s Night cast in 1964, but he was also invited to play congas on ‘Art of Dying’, a psychedelic track written by George Harrison for his first solo album following The Beatles’ dissolution.
The ‘Art of Dying’ session occurred at Abbey Road Studios in May 1970. At the time, Collins played drums for a band named The Herd, but he would be admitted to Genesis within three months. Harrison’s producer, Phil Spector, presided over the session and allegedly had Collins playing for 90 minutes until his hands started to blister.
When the album finally arrived in November 1970, Collins was dismayed to discover that his name didn’t appear in the liner notes and his conga tracks were excluded from the song’s final mix. As Collins noted in his 2016 autobiography, Harrison eventually recognised his efforts in the liner notes of the 2001 remastered edition of All Things Must Pass.
Listen to George Harrison’s ‘The Art of Dying’ below.
