Peter Gabriel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and activist who rose to fame as the original lead singer and frontman of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, Gabriel launched a successful solo career with "Solsbury Hill" as his first single. His 1986 album, So, is his best-selling release and is certified triple platinum in the UK and five times platinum in the U.S. The album's most successful single, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and, according to a report in 2011, it was MTV's most played music video of all time.

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2009. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Gabriel was born in Chobham in southern England. He was educated at the prestigious Charterhouse School where, along with fellow pupils Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford and Chris Stewart, he formed the progressive rock group Genesis, its name suggested by Jonathan King (who would go on to become one of the country's top music producers). Gabriel believed in providing audiences with a proper show, and interwove Genesis' songs with fantastic and humorous stories; he also became known for his dramatic costumes, which he would change several times during a gig. This quickly got the group noticed within the UK, and they became famous across Europe as they produced a succession of hit albums. Unfortunately, the pressures of fame increasingly interfered with their ability to function as a team. Gabriel married Jill Moore and grew apart from his bandmates, who resented the time he spent with her during a difficult pregnancy. Eventually, after completing the concept piece, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he decided to quit, being replaced by their then drummer, his cousin, Phil Collins.

After the birth of his daughter Anna Gabriel, Gabriel was quick to reassert himself in the music business. His first solo album, Peter Gabriel, proved that he still had plenty of fans, and he became known for the song, Solsbury Hill in which he reflected on his reasons for leaving the band. He drove marketers crazy by refusing to title any of the three albums which followed, seeing them as extensions of the same idea rather than separate creations. For the second album, he worked with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. The third, which marked the beginning of his exploration of world music, featured experimental drum work by Phil Collins. By the fourth, he was mixing traditional ideas from a variety of cultures with brand new computer-augmented synthesiser work, giving it a unique sound. Each album was supported by tours with performances as elaborate as those that had made Genesis' name, Gabriel increasingly combined his costumes and dance routines with daring acrobatics. He won a record number of awards with a spectacular animated video for his 1986 hit Sledgehammer and went on to release many more successful albums, as well as collaborating with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, Youssou N'Dour, Joni Mitchell and Sinead O'Connor (whom he also dated following his divorce).

His album, Passion: Music for “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1989), featured a number of African and Middle Eastern artists (several of whom released albums with Real World) and won a Grammy Award. Gabriel's work also has been marked by an imaginative visual component. His performances with Genesis were noted for their supreme theatricality, and his music videos set new standards for the nascent medium; the video for “Sledgehammer” was voted best video of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in 1993, and two of Gabriel's other videos, based on his 1992 album Us, won Grammy Awards in 1992 and 1993.

In 1994 Gabriel released Xplora 1, one of the first multimedia CD-ROMs created by a mainstream artist, and six years later he composed OVO, a multimedia presentation for London's Millennium Dome. In 2000 Gabriel showed that he remained ahead of the technological curve when he founded On Demand Distribution, an Internet service that became one of Europe's leading online music providers; he later sold the company for $38 million. New material emerged in a slow trickle from the Real World studios as Gabriel contributed single songs to film sound tracks or appeared as a guest performer on other artists' albums. In 2002 he composed Long Walk Home, the score to the film Rabbit-Proof Fence, and he followed later that year with Up, his first full-length studio release in 10 years. The former recalled his work on Passion, while the latter was a dark meditation on loss and longing. In 2008 Gabriel received the Ambassador of Conscience award from Amnesty International for the decades of support he had given that organization. That year also saw the realization of Big Blue Ball, a world music project that had been 17 years in the making, and the resulting album featured performances by Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor, Joseph Arthur, and a host of international artists. Gabriel once again distinguished himself for his sound track work with Pixar Animation's WALL-E (2008). Collaborating with composer Thomas Newman, Gabriel crafted “Down to Earth,” an upbeat track that won the Grammy Award for best song written for a motion picture in 2009. He was honoured again later that year when the Royal Swedish Academy of Music conveyed upon him the Polar Music Prize for lifetime achievement, stating that Gabriel had “redefined the very concept” of popular music.

HUMANITARIAN INITIATIVES

In 1980, Gabriel co-founded the WOMAD collective to promote world music by putting on international festivals. He was heavily involved in campaigns for the release of Nelson Mandela and participated in tribute concerts. He also works with Amnesty International and has toured several times to raise funds for their work, alongside the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tracey Chapman and Sting. In 1992 he co-founded WITNESS, an organization that supplies equipment to human rights activists around the world. He was also instrumental in launching the work of Greenpeace in the former Soviet Union. More recently he has promoted the Make Poverty History campaign.

PERSONAL LIFE

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

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

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

Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and humanitarian activist who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, selling five million copies in America, and the album's biggest hit, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. The song is the most played music video in the history of the station.

Gabriel has been a champion of world music for much of his career. He co-founded the WOMAD festival in 1982. He has continued to focus on producing and promoting world music through his Real World Records label. He has also pioneered digital distribution methods for music, co-founding OD2, one of the first online music download services. Gabriel has been involved in numerous humanitarian efforts. In 1980, he released the anti-apartheid single "Biko". He has participated in several human rights benefit concerts, including Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour in 1988, and co-founded the WITNESS human rights organization in 1992. In collaboration with entrepreneur Richard Branson, Gabriel developed The Elders, which was launched by Nelson Mandela in 2007.

Gabriel has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1987, six Grammy Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, the first Pioneer Award at the BT Digital Music Awards, and in 2007 he was honoured as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his "influence on generations of music makers". In recognition of his many years of human rights activism, he received the Man of Peace award from the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in 2006, and in 2008, TIME magazine named Gabriel one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Gabriel was also awarded the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007, and the Polar Music Prize in 2009.

AllMusic has described Gabriel as "one of rock's most ambitious, innovative musicians, as well as one of its most political." He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010, followed by his induction as a solo artist in 2014.