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Peter Brian Gabriel (born February 13, 1950, in Chobham, Surrey, England) is an English musician. He first came to fame as the lead vocalist, flautist, and percussionist of the progressive rock group Genesis, went on to a successful solo career, and more recently has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. In addition he has been involved in various humanitarian efforts.
Gabriel founded Genesis in 1967 while a pupil at Charterhouse School with bandmates Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford, and drummer Chris Stewart. The name of the band was suggested by fellow Charterhouse School alumnus, the pop music impresario Jonathan King who produced their first album 'From Genesis to Revelation'.
Genesis quickly became one of the most talked-about bands in the UK and eventually 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. The concerts made extensive use of black light with the normal stage lighting subdued or off. A backdrop of fluorescing white sheets and a comparatively sparse stage made the band into a set of silhouettes, with Gabriel's fluorescent costume and makeup the only other sources of light.
Backing vocals in Genesis during Gabriel's tenure in the band were usually handled by bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford, keyboardist/guitarist Tony Banks, and (most prominently) drummer Phil Collins, who (after a long search for a replacement) eventually became Genesis's lead singer after Gabriel left the band in 1975.
Gabriel's departure from Genesis (which stunned fans of the group and left many commentators wondering if they 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 personae, 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 of the group. 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's interest in a film project with Friedkin was another contributing factor in his decision to leave Genesis. The decision to quit the band was made before the tour supporting The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, but Gabriel stayed with the band until the conclusion of that tour.
Gabriel recorded his first solo album in 1976 and 1977 with producer Bob Ezrin, simply titled Peter Gabriel. His first solo success came with the single "Solsbury Hill", an autobiographical piece expressing his thoughts on leaving Genesis. In it, he sings, "My friends would think I was a nut...", alluding to his decision to begin a period of self-exploration and reflection, while he grew cabbages, played the piano for long hours, practised yoga and biofeedback, and spent time with his family. Although mainly happy with the album, Peter Gabriel felt that the track "Here Comes the Flood" was over-produced. A far simpler rendition can be found on Robert Fripp's album, Exposure, in his first compilation, and in his 2003 concert DVD. His recent live performances of this track are even more raw with just piano and vocals. The stripped-down version is on Gabriel's greatest hits albums Shaking the Tree (1990) and Hit (2002).
Gabriel worked with guitarist Robert Fripp (of King Crimson fame) as producer of his second solo LP, in 1978. That album was darker and more experimental, and yielded some fine recordings, but no major hits. (Fellow King Crimson member, drummer, Bill Bruford, had previously served as Genesis' live drummer while drummer Phil Collins attended to lead vocal duties in 1976 and 1977 including on the tour recorded as Seconds Out). Gabriel's third, in 1980, arose as a collaboration with Steve Lillywhite, who also produced early albums by U2. It was notable for the hit singles "Games Without Frontiers" and "Biko," for Gabriel's new interest in world music (especially for percussion), and for its bold production, which made extensive use of recording tricks and sound effects. Gabriel's third album is generally credited as the first LP to use the now-famous "gated drum" sound, invented by engineer Hugh Padgham and Gabriel's old Genesis band-mate Phil Collins. Collins played drums on several tracks, including the opener, "Intruder," which featured the reverse-gated, cymbal-less drum kit sound which Collins would make famous on his single "In the Air Tonight" and through the rest of the 1980s. The massive, distinctive hollow sound arose through some experiments by Collins and Padgham. Gabriel had requested that his drummers use no cymbals in the album's sessions, and when he heard the result from Collins and Padgham, he asked Collins to play a simple pattern for several minutes, then built "Intruder" on it.
Arduous and occasionally damp recording sessions at his rural English estate in 1981 and 1982, with co-producer/engineer David Lord, resulted in Gabriel's fourth LP release (the aforementioned Security), 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. 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 well and had a hit single in "Shock the Monkey", which also became a groundbreaking music video.
Gabriel toured extensively for each of his albums, continuing the dramatic shows he began with Genesis, often involving elaborate stage props and acrobatics which had him suspended from gantries, distorting his face with Fresnel lenses and mirrors, and wearing unusual makeup. For one tour, his entire band shaved their heads. His 1982-83 tour included a section opening for David Bowie, where many audience members and critics thought that Gabriel as opener (especially with his elaborate makeup) overshadowed Bowie at the height of his popularity. The stage was set for Gabriel's true breakout with his next studio release.
Brian Peter George St. Jean le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born Brian Peter George Eno on 15 May 1948 in Woodbridge, Suffolk) is an English electronic musician, music theorist and record producer. As a solo artist, he is probably best known as the father of ambient music.
Eno first came to prominence as the keyboard and synthesiser player and general sonic wizard of the 1970s' glam and art rock band Roxy Music (see 1970s in music). After leaving the group, Eno recorded two highly idiosyncratic and original rock albums, before turning to more abstract soundscapes on subsequent albums such as Another Green World (1975) and Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978). Since then, he has produced dozens of albums (many with similarly-minded collaborators such as Harold Budd and Robert Fripp) which have demonstrated his unique approach to music. He has also occasionally returned to the pop song format.
His production credits include some of the most respected albums by Talking Heads, James and U2.
Contrary to popular belief, Brian Eno did not produce David Bowie's popular Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes", and Lodger). He performed and co-wrote tracks on all three albums, but they were produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti. He did, however, co-produce Bowie's 1995 album Outside.
Eno has pursued several artistic ventures parallel to his music career, including visual art installations, a regular column in the newspaper The Observer and, with artist Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards recommending various artistic strategies.
Eno started his professional musical career in London, as a member of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music, working with them from 1971 to 1973. As a self-described "non-musician," Eno performed from behind the mixing desk at the band's earliest live shows, where his efforts went way beyond the usual balancing of the volume levels: he would alter the sounds by processing the other band members' instruments through his VCS3 synthesizer, tape recorders and other electronic devices, frequently singing backing vocals as well. Eno soon joined the rest of Roxy Music on stage, where his flamboyant costumes became a hallmark of the band's visual appeal. Eno left the group after completing the tour to promote their second album, For Your Pleasure. By Eno's later account, his departure was partially result of disagreements with Roxy's lead singer and principal songwriter, Bryan Ferry, and partially due to his growing boredom with the life of a touring rock star.
Eno embarked on a solo career almost immediately. Between 1973 and 1977 he created four influential solo albums of electronically inflected pop songs - Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World and Before and after Science. Tiger Mountain contains the galloping "Third Uncle", one of Eno's best-known songs. Critic Dave Thompson writes that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion, "Third Uncle" could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist."
Eno describes himself as a "non-musician" and coined the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill at using "The Studio as a Compositional Tool" (the title of an essay by Eno [4]) led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognized at the time (mid-70s) as unique, so much so that on Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he is credited with 'Enossification' and on John Cale's Island albums as playing the 'Eno'.
Eno returned in June of 2005 with Another Day on Earth, his first major album since Wrong Way Up (with John Cale) to prominently feature vocals. The album differs from his 70s solo work as musical production has changed since then, evident in its semi-electronic production.
In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne to reissue My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks, recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, are featured. --Bio Courtesy of wikipedia
Another Green World - Eno first emerged as a member of Roxy Music, where the synthesizer player electronically "treated" the band's other instruments, the first indicator that the recording process was itself Eno's chosen instrument. His subsequent career has been one of the most provocative in pop, for not only did he devote himself to such obscure pursuits as "ambient music," but he produced vital albums by David Bowie, Talking Heads, and U2. Eno made a handful of relatively conventional pop albums in the 1970s, and Another Green World ranks with Before and After Science as his most enduring solo work. Another Green World finds Eno mixing distorted guitars (courtesy of Robert Fripp) with a variety of keyboards and exotic rhythms to create a meditative wash of sound that is nonetheless awash with colorful touches. Particularly appealing is the bubbling "St. Elmo's Fire," with a stunning guitar part by Fripp, and "I'll Come Running," in which Eno shows that even a dedicated experimentalist can have a soft heart. From the strange-but-true file, Phil Collins contributes drums and percussion to three tracks. --John Milward
14 Video Paintings is comprised of two separate works ("Mistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan" and "Thursday Afternoon") created in the early ‘80s by Brian Eno for art gallery exhibition only. Available for the first time on DVD, viewers are presented with a series of slowly evolving "video paintings," with "Thursday Afternoon" focusing on the human figure and "Mistaken Memories" on the Manhattan skyline. The music for "Thursday Afternoon" is a different version than what appears on Eno's album of the same name, while the music that accompanies "Mistaken Memories" comes from two of his acclaimed ambient albums (On Land and Music For Airports) and features an unreleased track.
Chick Corea has been one of the most significant jazzmen since the '60s. Not content at any time to rest on his laurels, Corea has been involved in quite a few important musical projects, and his musical curiosity has never dimmed. A masterful pianist who, along with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, was one of the top stylists to emerge after Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, Corea is also one of the few electric keyboardists to be quite individual and recognizable on synthesizers. In addition, he has composed several jazz standards, including "Spain," "La Fiesta," and "Windows."
Corea began playing piano when he was four and, early on, Horace Silver and Bud Powell were influences. He picked up important experience playing with the bands of Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo (1962-1963), Blue Mitchell (1964-1966), Herbie Mann, and Stan Getz. He made his recording debut as a leader with 1966's Tones for Joan's Bones, and his 1968 trio set (with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes) Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is considered a classic. After a short stint with Sarah Vaughan, Corea joined Miles Davis as Herbie Hancock's gradual replacement, staying with Davis during a very important transitional period (1968-1970). He was persuaded by the trumpeter to start playing electric piano, and was on such significant albums as Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and Miles Davis at the Fillmore. When he left Davis, Corea at first chose to play avant-garde acoustic jazz in Circle, a quartet with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul. But at the end of 1971, he changed directions again.
Leaving Circle, Corea played briefly with Stan Getz and then formed Return to Forever, which started out as a melodic Brazilian group with Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell, Airto, and Flora Purim. Within a year, Corea (with Clarke, Bill Connors, and Lenny White) had changed Return to Forever into a pacesetting and high-powered fusion band; Al DiMeola took Connors' place in 1974. While the music was rock-oriented, it still retained the improvisations of jazz, and Corea remained quite recognizable, even under the barrage of electronics. When RTF broke up in the late '70s, Corea retained the name for some big band dates with Clarke. During the next few years, he generally emphasized his acoustic playing and appeared in a wide variety of contexts; including separate duet tours with Gary Burton and Herbie Hancock, a quartet with Michael Brecke r, trios with Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes, tributes to Thelonious Monk, and even some classical music.
In 1985, Chick Corea formed a new fusion group, the Elektric Band, which eventually featured bassist John Patitucci, guitarist Frank Gambale, saxophonist Eric Marienthal, and drummer Dave Weckl. To balance out his music, a few years later he formed his Akoustic Trio with Patitucci and Weckl. When Patitucci went out on his own in the early '90s, the personnel changed, but Corea continued leading stimulating groups (including a quartet with Patitucci and Bob Berg). During 1996-1997, Corea toured with an all-star quintet (including Kenny Garrett and Wallace Roney) that played modern versions of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk compositions. He remains an important force in modern jazz, and every phase of his development has been well-documented on records.
Corea started out the 21st century by releasing a pair of solo piano records, Solo Piano: Originals and Solo Piano: Standards, in 2000, followed by Past, Present & Futures in 2001. Rendezvous in New York appeared in 2003, followed by To the Stars in 2004. The Ultimate Adventure was released in 2006.--Bio Courtesy of allmusic.com
Chick Corea is one of the most significant jazzmen of recent times. He first came to notice as a keyboard player for Miles Davis in the late sixties and early seventies before founding his own jazz-fusion band Return To Forever with Stanley Clarke, which started the career of Al Di Meola. In more recent times he has been operating as either the Chick Corea Akoustic Band or, as in this case, the Chick Corea Elektric Band.
Chick Corea has played Montreux on many occasions both in his own right and as a sideman for other performers. This two and a half hour concert from 2004 was part of the tour for the most recent Elektric Band album To The Stars and the first part of the concert is made up of a number of tracks from that album. After the interlude, the band come back to offer a selection of classic tracks including Eternal Child, Spain and Blue Miles.
Herbie Hancock will always be one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz -- just as his employer/mentor Miles Davis was when he was alive. Unlike Miles, who pressed ahead relentlessly and never looked back until near the very end, Hancock has cut a zigzagging forward path, shuttling between almost every development in electronic and acoustic jazz and R&B over the last third of the 20th century. Though grounded in Bill Evans and able to absorb blues, funk, gospel, and even modern classical influences, Hancock's piano and keyboard voices are entirely his own, with their own urbane harmonic and complex, earthy rhythmic signatures -- and young pianists cop his licks constantly. Having studied engineering and professing to love gadgets and buttons, Hancock was perfectly suited for the electronic age; he was one of the earliest champions of the Rhodes electric piano and Hohner clavinet and would field an ever-growing collection of synthesizers and computers on his electric dates. Yet his love for the grand piano never waned, and despite his peripatetic activities all around the musical map, his piano style continues to evolve into tougher, ever-more-complex forms. He is as much at home trading riffs with a smoking funk band as he is communing with a world-class post-bop rhythm section -- and that drives purists on both sides of the fence up the wall.
Having taken up the piano at age seven, Hancock quickly became known as a prodigy, soloing in the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11. After studies at Grinnell College, Hancock was invited by Donald Byrd in 1961 to join his group in New York City, and before long, Blue Note offered him a solo contract. His debut album, Takin' Off, took off indeed after Mongo Santamaria covered one of the album's songs, "Watermelon Man." In May 1963, Miles Davis asked him to join his band in time for the Seven Steps to Heaven sessions, and he remained there for five years, greatly influencing Miles' evolving direction, loosening up his own style, and upon Miles' suggestion, converting to the Rhodes electric piano. In that time span, Hancock's solo career also blossomed on Blue Note, pouring forth increasingly sophisticated compositions like "Maiden Voyage," "Cantaloupe Island," "Goodbye to Childhood," and the exquisite "Speak Like a Child." He also played on many East Coast recording sessions for producer Creed Taylor and provided a groundbreaking score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow Up, which gradually led to further movie assignments.
Having left the Davis band in 1968, Hancock recorded an elegant funk album, Fat Albert Rotunda, and in 1969 formed a sextet that evolved into one of the most exciting, forward-looking jazz-rock groups of the era. Now deeply immersed in electronics, Hancock added the synthesizer of Patrick Gleeson to his Echoplexed, fuzz-wah-pedaled electric piano and clavinet, and the recordings became spacier and more complex rhythmically and structurally, creating its own corner of the avant-garde. By 1970, all of the musicians used both English and African names (Herbie's was Mwandishi). Alas, Hancock had to break up the band in 1973 when it ran out of money, and having studied Buddhism, he concluded that his ultimate goal should be to make his audiences happy.
The next step, then, was a terrific funk group whose first album, Head Hunters, with its Sly Stone-influenced hit single, "Chameleon," became the biggest-selling jazz LP up to that time. Now handling all of the synthesizers himself, Hancock's heavily rhythmic comping often became part of the rhythm section, leavened by interludes of the old urbane harmonies. Hancock recorded several electric albums of mostly superior quality in the '70s, followed by a wrong turn into disco around the decade's end. In the meantime, Hancock refused to abandon acoustic jazz. After a one-shot reunion of the 1965 Miles Davis Quintet (Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, with Freddie Hubbard sitting in for Miles) at New York's 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, they went on tour the following year as V.S.O.P. The near-universal acclaim of the reunions proved: that Hancock was still a whale of a pianist; that Miles' loose mid-'60s post-bop direction was far from spent; and that the time for a neo-traditional revival was near, finally bearing fruit in the '80s with Wynton Marsalis and his ilk. V.S.O.P. continued to hold sporadic reunions through 1992, though the death of the indispensable Williams in 1997 cast much doubt as to whether these gatherings would continue.
Hancock continued his chameleonic ways in the '80s: scoring an MTV hit in 1983 with the scratch-driven, proto-industrial single "Rockit" (accompanied by a striking video); launching an exciting partnership with Gambian kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso that culminated in the swinging 1986 live album Jazz Africa; doing film scores; and playing festivals and tours with the Marsalis brothers, George Benson, Michael Brecker, and many others. After his 1988 techno-pop album, Perfect Machine, Hancock left Columbia (his label since 1973), signed a contract with Qwest that came to virtually nothing (save for A Tribute to Miles in 1992), and finally made a deal with PolyGram in 1994 to record jazz for Verve and release pop albums on Mercury. Well into a youthful middle age, Hancock's curiosity, versatility, and capacity for growth showed no signs of fading, and in 1998 he issued Gershwin's World. His curiosity with the fusion of electronic music and jazz continued with 2001's Future 2 Future, but he also continued to explore the future of straight-ahead contemporary jazz with 2005's Possibilities.--Bio Courtesy of allmusic.com
If you are a Peter Gabriel fan then perhaps you will enjoy one of my CDs as well.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Spencer Davis Group
Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born May 12, 1948 in Great Barr, West Midlands) is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who, in addition to his solo career, was a member of the bands the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith.
Winwood was a part of the Birmingham rhythm and blues scene from a young age, playing the Hammond B-3 Organ and guitar, backing blues singers like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Eddie Boyd, Otis Spann, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley on their United Kingdom tours (the norm at that time being for US singers to travel solo and be backed by 'pick-up' bands).
Winwood became a member of the Spencer Davis Group at 15 with his older brother 'Muff' (who later had much success as a record producer), and had hit singles with "Keep On Runnin'". Steve co-wrote and recorded "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm A Man" before leaving to form Traffic with Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason.
During the late-1960s, Winwood and Mason became close friends of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix first heard "All Along the Watchtower" at a party he was invited to by Mason, they recorded the Hendrix version later that night in a London recording studio. Winwood played often with Hendrix, featuring prominently on Electric Ladyland.' Notably, he contributed the powerful Hammond organ riffs on Voodoo Chile.
In 1969, Winwood once again gave a powerful organ expression on Joe Cocker's With A Little Help From My Friends, he has later played keyboards on albums as diverse as Toots & The Maytals Reggae Got Soul and Howlin' Wolf's The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions.
He formed Blind Faith in 1969 with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech, but the band was short-lived, due to Clapton's greater interest in Blind Faith's opening act Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Clapton left the band after the tour had ended. However, Baker, Winwood, and Grech stayed together to form Ginger Baker's Air Force. The lineup consisted of basically 3/4 of Blind Faith (sans Clapton, replaced by Denny Laine), 2/3 of Traffic (Winwood and Chris Wood, minus Jim Capaldi), plus musicians who interacted with Baker in his early days like Phil Seamen, Harold McNair, and Graham Bond. But this supergroup turned out to be just another short-lived project. Winwood soon went into the studio to begin work on a new solo album, tentatively titled Mad Shadows. However, Winwood ended up calling Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi in to help with session work, which instead prompted Traffic's amazing comeback album John Barleycorn Must Die. Winwood has always said that the sound of John Barleycorn Must Die really reflects what Winwood intended Traffic to be.
Constant artistic differences and personnel changes led to Traffic's final break-up and Winwood's release of his eponymous first solo album in 1977. This was followed by his 1980 hit Arc Of A Diver and Talking Back To The Night in 1982 (both albums recorded at his home in Gloucestershire with Winwood playing all instruments). He enlisted the help of a coterie of stars to record Back In The High Life (1986) in the US, and again he was rewarded with a hit album. All were released on Island Records. In 1986, he topped the Billboard Hot 100 with "Higher Love".
At the peak of his commercial success, Winwood moved to Virgin Records and released Roll With It and Refugees Of The Heart. Both the album "Roll With It" and the title track hit #1, respectively, on both the album and singles chart in the summer of 1988. He recorded another album with Jim Capaldi released under the Traffic name, Far From Home, then resumed his solo career with his final Virgin album Junction Seven.
In 1995 and 1996, his last hit song that Winwood had reached #1 on the U.S. singles charts was "Reach for the Light (Theme from Balto)".
In 2003, Winwood released a new studio album, About Time on his new record label, Wincraft Music. 2004 saw his 1982 song 'Valerie' used by DJ Eric Prydz, in a song called 'Call On Me'. It spent five weeks at Number 1 on the UK singles chart. Winwood heard an early version of Prydz' remix and liked it so much, he not only gave permission to use the song, he re-recorded the samples for Prydz to use.
In the 2005, Soundstage Performances DVD was released, featuring his recent work from the album About Time along with his classic hits including "Higher Love" and "Back in the High Life". Winwood also performs hits from his days with Traffic (recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) as well as current recordings that represent a tapestry of tastes woven after 40 years in music.
He is currently working on his new studio album slated for release in 2006, and is preparing a live album from his American 2005 tour. Steve also recently announced his fall 2006 tour. Additionally, Christina Aguilera features Steve on one of her songs from her upcoming record 'Back to Basics', called 'Makes Me Wanna Pray'.--Bio Courtesy of wikipedia
Smooth delivery, high-spirited melodies, that velvet voice and a soul-stirring rhythmic foundation. All are the elements that Steve Winwood brings to Soundstage featuring his recent work from the album About Time along with his classic hits including "Why Can't We Live Together" and "Back in the High Life." Winwood also performs hits from his days with Traffic (recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) as well as current recordings that represent a tapestry of tastes woven after 40 years in music.