Book Phil Collins

Long before any of that happened, however, Collins was a child actor/singer who appeared as the Artful Dodger in the London production of Oliver! in 1964. (He also has a cameo in A Hard Day’s Night, among other films.) He got his first break in music at the end of his teens, when he was chosen to be a replacement drummer in the British art rock band Genesis in 1970. (Collins maintained a separate jazz career with the band Brand X as well.) Genesis was fronted by singer Peter Gabriel. They had achieved a moderate level of success in the U.K. and the U.S., with elaborate concept albums, before Gabriel abruptly left in 1974. Genesis auditioned 400 singers without success, then decided to let Collins have a go.

The result was a gradual simplifying of Genesis’ sound and an increasing focus on Collins’ expressive, throaty voice. And Then There Were Three… went gold in 1978, and Duke was even more successful. Collins made his debut solo album, Face Value, in 1981, which turned out to be a bigger hit than any Genesis album. It concentrated on Collins’ voice, often in stark, haunting contexts such as the piano-and-drum dirge ‘In the Air Tonight,’ which sounded like something from John Lennon’s debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

During the ’80s, Collins was enormously successful in balancing his continuing solo work with his membership in Genesis. In 1992, Genesis released We Can’t Dance and began an extensive tour. Upon its completion Collins released Both Sides in 1993, and the record became his first album not to produce a major hit single or go multi-platinum. In 1995, he announced that he was leaving Genesis permanently.. The Hits collection followed in 1998, and a year later Collins made his first big-band record, Hot Night in Paris. The song cycle Testify arrived in 2002, and his next studio-recorded solo release was 2010’s Going Back, which saw Collins revisiting the Motown hits that so influenced him.