Listen to Peter Gabriel on Batanga

Peter Gabriel founded Genesisin 1967 with fellow Charterhouse School pupils Tony Banks, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford, and drummer Chris Stewart. The name of the band was suggested by fellow Charterhouse alumnus, the pop music impresario Jonathan King, who produced their first album, From Genesisto Revelation.

A lover of soul music, Gabriel was influenced by many different sources in his way of singing – mainly Otis Redding and other soul singers. He also played the flute on Cat Stevens' Mona Bone Jakon album in 1970.

Genesisdrew some attention in England and eventually also in Italy, Belgium, Germany and other European countries, largely due to Gabriel's flamboyant stage presence, which involved numerous bizarre costume changes and comical, dreamlike stories told as the introduction to each song (originally Gabriel developed these stories solely to cover the time between songs that the rest of the band would take tuning their instruments). Among Gabriel's many famous costumes (which he developed to visualize the musical ideas of the band, and to get them press coverage) were "Batwings" (for the usual opening number, "Watcher of the Skies"), "The Flower" (worn for "Supper's Ready”), "Magog" (also worn for "Supper's Ready", from Foxtrot), "Britannia" (worn for "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”), "The Old Man" (worn for "The Musical Box”), "Rael" (the protagonist of the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), and "The Slipperman" (worn during "The Colony of Slippermen", also from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway).

Gabriel's departure from Genesis– which stunned fans of the group and left many commentators wondering if the band could survive – was the result of a number of factors. His stature as the lead singer of the band, and the added attention garnered by his flamboyant stage personae, led to tensions within the band. Although tensions were high, both Gabriel and the remaining members of Genesishave stated publicly that Gabriel left the band on good terms, supported by the fact that he officially left 8 months after telling the band it was time for him to move on.

Gabriel refused to title any of his first four solo albums, which were all labelled Peter Gabriel using the same typeface, but which featured different cover art. He wanted them to be considered similar to consecutive issues of a magazine instead of individual works. They are usually differentiated by number in order of release (I, II, III), or by sleeve design, with the first three solo albums often referred to as Car, Scratch and Melt respectively, in reference to their cover artwork. His fourth solo album, also called Peter Gabriel in the UK, was titled Security in the U.S. at the behest of Geffen Records.