b. 13 February 1950, Cobham, Surrey, England. After seven years fronting Genesis, Gabriel tired of the extensive touring and band format and went solo in 1975. Until the release of 1983’s Plays Live, his solo albums for Charisma Records were all called Peter Gabriel. His 1977 debut included the track ‘Solsbury Hill’, a metaphorical account of his split from Genesis, which made the Top 20 in the UK. The album charted in the UK Top 10 and the Billboard Top 40 and Gabriel began his solo touring career in the USA, expressing a nervousness of facing his home country audiences. Unlike his earlier extravagant, theatrical presentations, he favoured minimalism and often played shows in a plain boiler suit. Robert Fripp was brought in as producer for the second album, which made the UK Top 10. The album contained chiefly introspective, experimental music, but healthy sales figures were encouraging. However, Atlantic Records refused to distribute his third album in the USA, claiming its maudlin nature would mean ‘commercial suicide’. Mercury Records stepped in and with Steve Lillywhite’s disciplined production the striking collection was far from the flop Atlantic feared, narrowly failing to break into the Top 20 (the album topped the UK chart). ‘Games Without Frontiers’ was a UK Top 5 hit and the track ‘Biko’, about the murdered South African activist Stephen Biko, became an anti-racist anthem.
Continuing his deliberated approach, Gabriel’s fourth album, given the full title of Peter Gabriel (Security), was not released until 1982 and appeared to be hinting at a more accessible approach, tempering the third album’s dense electronic production values with African and Latin rhythms. Geffen Records distributed the album in the USA, and a German-language edition was also released. In 1985, Gabriel composed the haunting soundtrack to the Alan Parker movie, Birdy. The journey to complete commercial acceptance was finished in 1986 with his Virgin Records debut So. The album contained the hit single ‘Sledgehammer’ (US number 1/UK number 4), which was supported by a pioneering, award-winning video featuring puppetry and animation. He was celebrated as an artist whose work was popular without being compromised. A duet with Kate Bush, ‘Don’t Give Up’, also lifted from So, became a UK Top 10 hit in November 1986.
Throughout the 80s, Gabriel dedicated much of his time to absorbing world music and in 1982 inaugurated the WOMAD (World Of Music And Dance) Festival. He also became heavily involved in Amnesty International and recorded with Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour. The pair toured the USA under the banner of ‘Conspiracy Of Hope’ and raised money for Amnesty. He invited musicians from all over the world to record at his luxurious self-built Real World studios in Bath and incorporated many non-Western ideas into his own music. In 1989, Gabriel was commissioned to write the score for Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation Of Christ. Virgin Records, now the owners of the Charisma back-catalogue, released a greatest hits collection in 1990, Shaking The Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats. The title track was written by Gabriel with N’Dour and was included originally on N’Dour’s album, The Lion. Although 1992’s Us fell short of the high standard set by So, it put Gabriel back in the public eye with a series of outstandingly creative videos for singles such as ‘Steam’ (a UK number 10 hit), ‘Digging In The Dirt’, and ‘Kiss That Frog’.
In 1999, Gabriel was commissioned to contribute music and act as musical director for the Millennium Dome show in London. The soundtrack was released the following year on the Ovo album. Gabriel’s next project was the soundtrack to Australian film The Rabbit-Proof Fence, released in June 2002. His brand new studio album, Up followed three months later to mixed reviews and disappointing sales in the UK. Gabriel enjoyed more success with OD2, the music download service he co-founded in 2000, which was sold to US digital media firm Loudeye in June 2004 for $38.2m (£20.9m).
