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Peter Gabriel Bio
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Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel is a musician famous as a one-time member of Genesis and as an advocate of World Music traditions. A singer, pianist and flautist, he has also composed music for bands and for films and has tried his hand at acting.
Peter Brian Gabriel was born on February 13th, 1950, 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 (who would go on to become a noted journalist and filmmaker), 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).
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.
Gabriel has contributed music to several popular films, including Martin Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, the Tom Cruise hit Vanilla Sky, and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. He has acted on German television and in the Breck Eisner feature film Recon.
In 2002 Gabriel married Meabh Flynn, with whom he has since had two children.
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Yuddy top celebrities
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