Genesis – From Genesis To Revelation (1969)

Genesis are an English rock band formed at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, in 1967. The band’s most commercially successful line-up consisted of keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and drummer/singer Phil Collins. The 1970s line-up, featuring singer Peter Gabriel and guitarist Steve Hackett, was among the pioneers of progressive rock.

The group were formed by five Charterhouse pupils, including Banks, Rutherford, Gabriel, and Anthony Phillips, and named by former Charterhouse pupil Jonathan King, who arranged for them to record several singles and their debut album From Genesis to Revelation in 1968. After splitting from King, the band began touring, signed with Charisma Records and became a progressive rock band on Trespass (1970). Following Phillips’ departure, Genesis recruited Collins and Hackett and recorded Nursery Cryme (1971). Their live shows began to feature Gabriel’s theatrical costumes and performances. Foxtrot (1972) was their first hit in the UK and Selling England by the Pound (1973) reached number three there, featuring their first UK hit “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”. The concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) was promoted with a transatlantic tour and an elaborate stage show, before Gabriel left the group.

BBC Technical College in Evesham (10.-15.10.1968):

Collins took over as lead singer, and the group released A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering (both 1976) with continued success. Hackett left Genesis in 1977, reducing the band to Banks, Rutherford, and Collins. Their ninth studio album, …And Then There Were Three… (1978), contained the band’s first major hit “Follow You Follow Me”. Their next five albums – Duke (1980), Abacab (1981), Genesis (1983), Invisible Touch (1986) and We Can’t Dance (1991) – were also successful. Collins left Genesis in 1996, and Banks and Rutherford replaced him with Ray Wilson, who appeared on their final album Calling All Stations (1997). The commercial failure of the album led to a group hiatus. Banks, Rutherford and Collins reunited for the Turn It On Again Tour in 2007, and again in 2021 for The Last Domino? Tour.

With between 100 million and 150 million albums sold worldwide, Genesis are one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Their discography includes 15 studio and six live albums. They have won numerous awards (including a Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video with “Land of Confusion”) and have inspired a number of tribute bands recreating Genesis shows from various stages of the band’s career. In 2010, Genesis were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (wikipedia)

And here´s their debut album:

From Genesis to Revelation is the debut studio album by English rock band Genesis, released on 7 March 1969 on Decca Records. The album originated from a collection of demos recorded in 1967 while the members of Genesis were pupils of Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey. It caught the attention of Jonathan King who named the group, organised deals with his publishing company and Decca, and studio time at Regent Sound Studios to record a series of singles and a full album. A string section arranged and conducted by Arthur Greenslade was added later on some songs. By the time Genesis had finished recording, John Silver had replaced original drummer Chris Stewart.

The album and its singles were a commercial flop, and received a mixed to negative reaction from critics. By mid-1969, the group had severed ties with King and resumed education until they reformed and turned Genesis into a full-time band. The album spawned three singles; “The Silent Sun” and “A Winter’s Tale” were released in 1968, followed by “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet” in 1969. In October 1974, after the group had grown in popularity, it peaked at No. 170 on the Billboard 200 in the US. King retains the rights to the album which has been reissued multiple times since, including a 1974 release as In the Beginning and a 1987 release as And the Word Was…. A reissue in 1990 and 2005 included a bonus disc with extra tracks.

The founding line-up of Genesis consisted of guitarist Anthony Phillips, bassist Mike Rutherford, lead vocalist Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, and drummer Chris Stewart, all pupils of Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey. The five had played in the school’s two active bands; Rutherford and Phillips were in Anon while Gabriel, Banks, and Stewart made up Garden Wall. In January 1967, after both groups had split, Phillips and Rutherford continued to write songs and invited Gabriel and Banks to participate. During the Easter school holiday the five entered a primitive recording studio run by Brian Roberts in Chiswick to record the material. They assembled a tape of six songs originally intended for someone else to perform as the group saw themselves foremost as a collection of songwriters. This included five songs from Phillips and Rutherford: “Don’t Want You Back”, “Try a Little Sadness”, “That’s Me”, “Listen on Five”, and “Patricia”, an instrumental, plus one from Gabriel and Banks, “She Is Beautiful”. “Patricia” was later reworked into “In Hiding” and “She Is Beautiful” was later known as “The Serpent”. Banks described the material as “straight pop music” as it was the direction the band wanted to explore. At this point, the group were known as The New Anon.

The group sent the demo tape to two people, one being BBC radio presenter David Jacobs. The second was sent to former Charterhouse pupil Jonathan King who had scored commercial success as a singer-songwriter and producer with his UK top five single “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” in 1965, and therefore seemed a natural choice.[10] King visited the school during Old Boys Day, so the group had a friend give the tape to him. He listened to the tape in his car on his drive home and, despite its roughness, was immediately enthusiastic, particularly about Gabriel’s vocals.

King offered his support to the band and paid them £40 to record four songs. He pressed for more simple arrangements, but maintained that his suggestion for the group to avoid playing electric instruments was because acoustic instruments were cheaper, rather than his personal taste.[11] These early sessions took place between August and December 1967 at Regent Sound Studios on Denmark Street, London, with the intent on releasing them as singles.[12] The four tracks put down were new arrangements of “She’s Beautiful” and “Try a Little Sadness”, with “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet” and “The Image Blown Out”, the latter ultimately rejected from the album. King was happy with the results enough to sign them, offering a ten-year deal with his publishing company JonJo Music with a five-year option and 2% of the royalties, and a five-year recording deal with Decca Records with an optional second year. However, the group’s parents expressed concern as they were aged between 15 and 17 at the time and preferred their children to pursue careers away from music. Upon their intervention, family solicitors took charge and arranged for a new, one-year deal with an optional second.

King noticed the band’s tendency to expand and complicate their arrangements, which he disliked and suggested they stick to straightforward pop songs. This culminated in King either trimming Banks’s solo spots or removing them entirely, much to his annoyance.[9][14] In response, Gabriel and Banks wrote “The Silent Sun” as a pastiche of the Bee Gees, one of King’s favourite bands, though King later clarified the Bee Gees pastiche description as inaccurate. The song was recorded at Regent Sound studio A in December 1967, with a section arranged and conducted by Arthur Greenslade added later in production. It was released on 22 February 1968 with “That’s Me” on the B-side as the first Genesis single. King came up with the group’s name, thinking it marked the beginning of a “new sound and a new feeling”, and that it was the true start of his career as a producer.[9] Other names included King’s suggestion of Gabriel’s Angels and Phillips’s idea, Champagne Meadow. In May 1968, the second single of “A Winter’s Tale” with “One-Eyed Hound”, was released and, like their first, also flopped. Stewart then left the group to continue with his studies.

Despite their lack of success King continued to support the group and, by mid-1968, suggested that a studio album might reverse their fortunes. The group were a little overwhelmed in working with a greater amount of available time on an LP, so King suggested the idea of a loose concept album that told a story about the Book of Genesis at the start and the Book of Revelation at the end, with linked instrumental tracks. The idea worked, and the group began to write at a faster pace.[20] The band recruited fellow Charterhouse pupil John Silver on the drums, and wrote and rehearsed their new material at his parents’ country home in Oxford and the parents of school friend David Thomas.

In August 1968, during the school summer holidays, the band returned to Regent Sound studio 2 to record From Genesis to Revelation. The music was recorded within two days, and the album was put together in ten. King was the producer, and brought in Brian Roberts and former Charterhouse pupil Tom Allom as recording engineers. The sessions involved two four-track recording machines, and marked Banks’s first time playing an organ. The material put down, Greenslade and Lou Warburton then added more string and horn arrangements to one stereo channel while mixing the band’s performance on the other. This was done without the band’s knowledge, which they thought compromised the strength of the songs. Phillips was particularly angered at the decision and was the only member to express his feelings towards it by stomping out of the studio on the last day.

The album was released in March 1969 and failed to chart. “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet” was released as a single on 27 June 1969 in an attempt to stimulate new interest. The album was released in the U.S. in 1974 after the group had grown in popularity, and peaked at No. 170 on the Billboard 200 in October of that year.

Review in The Evening Standards (1968):

Prior to its release, Decca discovered that an American act had also called themselves Genesis and asked the band to change its name to avoid confusion. King reached a compromise so the band’s name would be omitted from the sleeve, leaving the album’s title written in gold text in a Gothic style in order to evoke mystery when presented in music shops. The American Genesis in question was likely a Los Angeles-based group that released In the Beginning on the Mercury label in 1967. Banks later said that they remained Genesis in the UK and put themselves down as Revelat

Noel Gallagher is a fan of the album, saying, “I became obsessed with early Genesis” despite being a frequent critic of the group’s later work, particularly the Phil Collins-led era. The track “If Love Is the Law” from his album Who Built the Moon? was written as a pastiche of “The Conqueror”. (wikipedia)

This debut Genesis album, which has appeared under license to various labels in addition to Decca and London in different configurations, is largely of historical interest. The group was still in its formative stages, the members barely past their 18th birthdays and still working out what they wanted to sound like. Mostly they sound like the Bee Gees trying to be the Moody Blues (picture something similar to the sound of the former group’s Odessa album). “The Silent Sun” and “Where the Sour Turns to Sweet” are pleasant enough, but scarcely indicate the true potential of the group or its members. A pleasant enough piece of pop-psychedelia/art rock, but not a critically important release, except to the truly dedicated. (by Bruce Eder)

OK, not everyone gets this album, but pay close enough attention to it and you will discover a treasure. True, there area some influences here and there, Moody Blues being the most obvious (I have not noticed any Bee Gees) , but it’s 99% Genesis, the embryo of many good things to come. But apart from that, it stands on its own as a wonderful blend of psychedelic rock, with early stages prog. Peter is in fine form, Phillips also, but the sound is quite cohesive, resulting in a mesmerizing, almost hypnotic and addictive, unique sound. (by Dan Duran)

Personnel:
Tony Banks (keyboards, background vocals)
Peter Gabriel (vocals, flute)
Anthony Phillips (guitar, background vocals)
Mike Rutherford (bass, guitar, background vocals)
John Silver (drums)
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Chris Stewart (drums on 12.)

Alternate front+backcover form a re-issue (1974):

Tracklist:
01. The Silent Sun 2.14
02. That´s Me 2.39
03. Where The Sour Turns To Sweet 3.14
04. In The Beginning 3.45
05. Fireside Song 4.18
06. The Serpent 4.38
07. Am I Very Wrong? 3.31
08. In The Wilderness 3.30
09. The Conqueror 3.40
10. In Hiding 2.37
11. One Day 3.21
12. Window 3.33
13. In Limbo 3.30
12. Silent Sun 2.13
14. A Place To Call My Own 2.00
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14. A Winter’s Tale (single track) 3.31
15. One Eyed Hound (single track) 2.33
16. Image Blown Out (single track) 2.48
17. She Is So Beautiful (single track) 3.42

All songs written by Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, and Mike Rutherford.

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More alternate frontcovers:

More from Genesis:

The official website:

Genesis – A Trick Of The Tail (1976)

A Trick of the Tail is the seventh studio album by English progressive rock band Genesis. It was released in February 1976 on Charisma Records and was the first album to feature drummer Phil Collins as lead vocalist following the departure of Peter Gabriel. It was a critical and commercial success in the UK and U.S., reaching No. 3 and No. 31 respectively.

Following Gabriel’s decision to leave the band, the remaining members wanted to carry on and show they could still write and record successful material. The group wrote and rehearsed new songs during mid-1975, and listened to around 400 audition tapes for a replacement frontman. They entered Trident Studios in October with producer David Hentschel to record the album without a definitive idea of who was going to perform lead vocals. After the search for a singer proved unfruitful, Collins was persuaded to sing “Squonk”, and the performance was so strong, he sang lead on the rest of the album.

Upon release, critics were impressed by the improved sound quality and the group’s ability to survive the loss of Gabriel without sacrificing the quality of the music. The group went out on tour with Collins as frontman and Bill Bruford as an additional drummer, and the resulting performances in the US raised Genesis’ profile there. The album has been reissued on CD several times, including a deluxe package with bonus tracks in 2007.

Founding member and lead singer Peter Gabriel decided to leave Genesis in late 1974, midway through the tour for the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.[1] His bandmates hoped he would reconsider, as they were still in debt and felt his departure could destroy the band’s future, but ultimately accepted that he would leave.[2] The remaining members felt they still wanted to collaborate musically, and show journalists and critics they were primarily a song writing team that could still produce good music.[3] Keyboardist Tony Banks had been close to Gabriel personally, and did not want the band to split up on top of seeing less of one of his best friends. He had written a number of songs for a possible solo project before deciding they should be used on the new Genesis album.

Following the end of the tour, guitarist Steve Hackett recorded a solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte with guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford and drummer Phil Collins, feeling unsure that Genesis would survive. He reconvened with the remaining group members in July 1975. Banks and Rutherford were particularly keen to write and record new material so that critics and fans would accept Gabriel’s departure.[4] The group began rehearsals in a basement studio in Acton, and quickly wrote material they were happy with, but had not yet found a replacement lead singer. They placed an anonymous advertisement in the music paper Melody Maker for “a singer for a Genesis-type group”, which received around 400 replies. Some applicants sent photographs of themselves in costume and wearing masks, as Gabriel had done on stage. A few weeks into rehearsals, Melody Maker managed to find out about Gabriel leaving the band, and their story made the front page of the 16 August issue, where journalist Chris Welch declared Genesis dead. The group spoke to the music papers to deny they were splitting up and explained they had a new album written and waiting to be recorded.

“I didn’t want to not be the drummer … this is what I did. This is my territory.” (Phil Collins recalling the choice of a new lead singer to replace Peter Gabriel)

Recording began in Trident Studios in October 1975 with producer David Hentschel. Hentschel had served as tape op and then engineer on earlier Genesis albums and Collins had become a fan of his album Startling Music, a re-recording of Ringo Starr’s album Ringo on an ARP 2500 synthesizer. Collins thought the group could carry on as an instrumental act, but the others felt that it would be boring without vocals.[6] The group had still not decided on a replacement singer, so they decided to start recording backing tracks and audition singers as they went. Gabriel visited the band in the studio and listened to the album, and thought they had succeeded in proving to others that they still were “a whole, strong band without me”. He knew that the group could write strong material, but the little effort it took them surprised him the most.

A Trick of the Tail had a positive reception from music critics, who were impressed that the group could not only survive the loss of Gabriel but still deliver a good album.The sound quality had improved from previous albums as a result of Hentschel’s production skills. The album reached No. 3 in the UK, remaining on the charts for 39 weeks, and No. 31 in the U.S. It was certified Gold in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry in June and in the US by the RIAA in March 1990. The album remained in the UK charts for 39 weeks and recouped a significant amount of $400,000 worth of debt they had accumulated by the time Gabriel left.

For the first time in their career, Genesis filmed promotional videos for their songs. The first to be filmed was the title track, which features the band playing to the song together around a piano, including composite shots of a miniature Collins hopping around on a piano and a guitar. The group also produced promotional films of “Ripples…” and “Robbery, Assault and Battery” (by wikipedia)

After Peter Gabriel departed for a solo career, Genesis embarked on a long journey to find a replacement, only to wind back around to their drummer, Phil Collins, as a replacement. With Collins as their new frontman, the band decided not to pursue the stylish, jagged postmodernism of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway — a move that Gabriel would do in his solo career — and instead returned to the English eccentricity of Selling England by the Pound for its next effort, A Trick of the Tail. In almost every respect, this feels like a truer sequel to Selling England by the Pound than Lamb; after all, that double album was obsessed with modernity and nightmare, whereas this album returns the group to the fanciful fairy tale nature of its earlier records. Also, Genesis were moving away from the barbed pop of the first LP and returning to elastic numbers that showcased their instrumental prowess, and they sounded more forceful and unified as a band than they had since Foxtrot. Not that this album is quite as memorable as Foxtrot or Selling England, largely because its songs aren’t as immediate or memorable: apart from “Dance on a Volcano,” this is about the sound of the band playing, not individual songs, and it succeeds on that level quite wildly — to the extent that it proved to longtime fans that Genesis could possibly thrive without its former leader in tow. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Personnel:
Tony Banks (keyboards, mellotron, guitar, background vocals)
Phil Collins (drums, percussion, vocals)
Steve Hackett (guitar)
Mike Rutherford (bass, guitar)

Tracklist:
01. Dance On A Volcano (Rutherford/Banks/Hackett/Collins) 5.55
02. Entangled (Hackett/Banks) 6.28
03. Squonk (Rutherford/Banks) 6.24
04. Mad Man Moon (Banks) 7.32
05. Robbery, Assault And Battery (Banks/Collins) 6.11
06. Ripples… (Rutherford/Banks) 8.02
07. A Trick Of The Tail (Banks) 4.34
08. Los Endos (Collins/Hackett/Rutherford/Banks) 5.44

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Genesis – We Can’t Dance (1991)

We Can’t Dance is the fourteenth studio album by English rock band Genesis, released on 28 October 1991 by Atlantic Records in the United States and 11 November 1991 on Virgin Records in the United Kingdom. It is their last album recorded with drummer and lead singer Phil Collins before his departure in 1996 to pursue solo projects. Production began after a four-year period of inactivity from the group, following the commercial success of Invisible Touch (1986) and its tour.

We Can’t Dance was a worldwide commercial success for the band. It became the band’s fifth consecutive No. 1 album in the UK and reached No. 4 in the U.S., where it sold over 4 million copies. Between 1991 and 1993, six tracks from the album were released as singles, including “No Son of Mine” and “I Can’t Dance”. The latter received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. Genesis toured in support of We Can’t Dance in 1992 which saw the band play large stadiums and arenas across North America and Europe.

We Can’t Dance was Genesis’s first studio album in five years, following the international success of Invisible Touch in 1986. After the tour for that album ended, the band took a long hiatus to focus on solo careers. Both Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford expected Collins to leave the band during this time due to his huge solo success, but he stayed until 1996. The album reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 4 in the U.S., selling several million copies (including 4 million in the U.S. alone). The album also spawned several hit singles, including “No Son of Mine”, “Hold on My Heart”, “I Can’t Dance” and “Jesus He Knows Me”, the latter two supported by humorous videos. Two songs, “On the Shoreline” and “Hearts on Fire”, were cut from the album, because “there wasn’t enough room on the record.” Both songs were released as B-sides.

Contrary to popular belief, “Since I Lost You” is not about a broken relationship. The lyrics were written by Collins for friend Eric Clapton. On 20 March 1991, Clapton’s four-year-old son Conor died after falling from the 53rd-story window of his mother’s friend’s New York City apartment, landing on the roof of an adjacent four-story building. Collins played it to him before putting it on the album to get his approval.

Most of the songs were written through improvisation, and rehearsed and recorded at The Farm, their recording studio in Chiddingfold, Surrey in England.

We Can’t Dance was released on 28 October 1991 by Atlantic Records in the United States and 11 November 1991 on Virgin Records in the United Kingdom. The album was a success in the charts, going to number one on the UK Albums Chart for one weeks from 23 November 1991. In the United States, it debuted the Billboard 200 chart at number four, the week of 30 November 1991. It stayed at its peak for one week during its 72-week stay on the chart.

On 1 December 1991, the album was certified double Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipment of 600,000 copies. A year later, sales grew to reach quadruple platinum, signifying 1.2 million copies sold. The album reached quintuple platinum status in March 1997, for 1.5 million copies sold. In the United States, We Can’t Dance shipped 1 million copies by 27 December 1991. Five years later, the album was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for four million copies sold.

Rolling Stone chiefly commented on the album’s lyrics. They criticised “Tell Me Why” and “Way of the World” for being soulless and impersonal social commentaries, but regarded most of the songs as outstanding, and summarised “Although We Can’t Dance doesn’t quite achieve the vulnerable grace of Duke or the exuberance of Abacab, Genesis has nevertheless delivered an elegantly spare – and even adventurous – album.”

AllMusic similarly criticised the lyrics of “Tell Me Why” and “Way of the World”, calling them “paeans for world understanding that sound miles away from any immediacy”. However, they praised the album for returning to a less pop-oriented direction, and especially complimented the grittiness of “No Son of Mine”, “Jesus He Knows Me”, and “I Can’t Dance” (which received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals in 1993).

David Browne of Entertainment Weekly gave a lacklustre review, stating: “At a time when everything is uncertain … you almost have to admire a record like We Can’t Dance. … You know there will be a couple of fleeting moments when the band breaks out of its torpor – for instance, on the very polite primal stomp of ‘I Can’t Dance’ – and that such moments will just as quickly be subsumed by the rest of the musical quicksand.”

Stevie Chick of The Guardian has dismissed the album as “blandness”.

The album garnered Genesis an American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group and two further nominations for Favorite Adult Contemporary Album and Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist. At the Brit Awards in 1993, the album was nominated for Best British Album while Phil Collins was nominated as Best Male British Artist for his contribution to the album. (by wikipedia)

The singles from this album

Personnel
Tony Banks (keyboards)
Phil Collins (drums, percussion, vocals, drum machines)
Mike Rutherford (guitar, bass)

 

Tracklist:
01. No Son of Mine 6.39
02. Jesus He Knows Me 4.16
03. Driving The Last Spike 10.08
04. I Can’t Dance 4.01
05. Never A Time 3.50
06. Dreaming While You Sleep 7.16
07. Tell Me Why 4.58
08. Living Forever 5.41
09. Hold On My Heart 4.37
10. Way Of The World 5.38
11. Since I Lost You 4.09
12. Fading Lights 10.16

All songs written by Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford.

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