Genesis

Genesis biography

Creating the ambitious The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album strained relations between band members, particularly Banks and Gabriel, who were good friends. Gabriel was the album's lyricist, while the other band members (chiefly Banks and Rutherford) wrote the music, with the exception of "Counting Out Time" and "The Carpet Crawlers". "The Light Dies Down on Broadway" was co-authored by Banks and Rutherford. The other-worldly, blurbling, sequenced synth sounds and shattering glass loops in the track "The Waiting Room", as well as the vocal effects in the track "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging" coined "Enossifications", were produced by the ambient composer Brian Eno.

During the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour, Gabriel announced to his bandmates that he had decided to leave the band, citing estrangement from the other members, and the strains of his marriage and the difficult birth of his first child. Nonetheless, he saw his commitment through to the conclusion of the tour. In a letter to fans, delivered through the music press at the end of the tour, entitled Out, Angels Out, Gabriel explained that the "...vehicle we had built as a co-op to serve our songwriting became our master and had cooped us up inside the success we had wanted. It affected the attitudes and the spirit of the whole band. The music had not dried up and I still respect the other musicians, but our roles had set in hard." Collins later remarked that the other members "...were not stunned by Peter's departure because we had known about it for quite a while." The band decided to carry on without Gabriel. Gabriel's first solo album, Peter Gabriel 1977, features the hit single "Solsbury Hill", an allegory that refers to his departure from the band.

1976-1977: The four-man era

The group auditioned reportedly over 400 lead singers to find a replacement for Gabriel. Phil Collins, who had provided backing vocals, coached prospective replacements. Eventually, the band decided to use Collins as the lead vocalist for 1976's A Trick of the Tail. The new producer David Hentschel, who had served as engineer on Nursery Cryme, gave the album a clearer-sounding production. Music historians later commented that Collins sounded "more like Gabriel than Gabriel did".

Despite the success of the album, the group remained concerned with their live shows, which now lacked Gabriel's elaborate costume changes and dramatic behaviour. Since Collins required the assistance of a second drummer while he sang, Bill Bruford, drummer for Yes and King Crimson was hired for the 1976 tour. Their first live performance without Peter Gabriel was on 26 March 1976, in London, Ontario, Canada.

Later that year, Genesis recorded Wind & Wuthering, the first of two albums recorded at the Relight Studios in Hilvarenbeek in the Netherlands. the album took the second part of its title from Emily Brontí«'s novel Wuthering Heights, whose last lines-"how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth"-inspired the titles of the seventh and eighth tracks.

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