Review book Peter Gabriel

SPENCER BRIGHT-PETER GABRIEL (An authorized biography)

(1999, Sidgwick & Jackson, UK pounds 17,99, ISBN 0 823 06187 1)

Peter Gabriel is a kind of progrock hero for me. When I saw the cover of Genesis Live with the blue light and the mysterious figure with the cloak and the mask I realised that this had to be something special. And it was, they used to call it ‘progressive rock’! So my first progrock experience was with the early Genesis and since then they remained my all time favorite progrock band. I started to collect material from Peter Gabriel, from pictures in magazines until books, like this one. The seize of this book is ‘like a large brick’ but every page  is worth to read: his upbringing in wealthy middle class circumstances, his father as a known inventor, his long and lonely walks in the area of his grandfather’s farm, his obsession with nature and sex, his terrible time at the Charterhouse, the beginning of Genesis, his friendship, marriage and divorce with Jill, the difficult time during “The lamb lies down on Broadway”, the break with Genesis, his incredible solo carreer, the commercially disastrous WOMAD-festival, the Genesis reunion concert in ’82, his relationships with actress Rosanna Arquette and popstar Sinead O’Connor and his innovative role in multimedia. But also the development of his remarkable imagination: his father was often busy with his work and his mother spent a lot of time with his sister Anne so Peter was often on his own. He started to create his unique and very vivid world of fantasy, later culminating in his stunning  ‘stage antics’ with the early Genesis and the making of the famous video-clip Sledgehammer. Also very interesting is his whimsical behaviour in the Seventies, his father-in-law even thought Peter was a schizophrenic! He wasn’t but he had his mental problems and later asked for professional help, this is also described. Spencer Bright has succeeded in writing a captivating and compelling book about a very complex personality: honest, shy and pleasant but sometimes led by very primitive emotions .This books reveals a lot about the person Peter Gabriel without writing on the level of the ‘yellow press’ like The Sun. The story about Peter Gabriel contains 477 pages (including 35 great pictures, from a little boy and behind his first drumkit untill shots from his solo tours and his video-clips), the rest (45) features a comprehensive discography (’67-’99): Genesis, solo, compilations, soundtracks, guest appearances and compositions, videos, CD-ROMS, concluded with an index. An excellent book for all those Gabriel fans who are curious to read facts and details about his early years and childhood, his time at the Charterhouse, the Genesis-era, his emotional split with Genesis, his solo-carreer and, last but not least,  his very creative mind and his complex personality (from warm and peaceful until stubborn and ‘passive-agressive’).

Erik Neuteboom

Try: www.abc.nl