Bands who play progressive rock frequently draw inspiration from almost anything they can get their hands on. Regardless of how frequently they try to rework Bach or Beethoven, it’s not unheard of for them to incorporate jazz elements into an arrangement or to go through a song’s whole country-like portion before going back to the main subject. But when Peter Gabriel heard Otis Redding for the first time, he had a fair dose of soul in him, even for a group as cerebral as Genesis could be in the 1970s.
On the other hand, nobody would have suspected that the sounds of melancholic music had anything to do with the man who enjoyed dressing up as a flower on stage in his free time. Even while Earth, Wind, and Fire may have made their music seem more sophisticated, they had no intention of dressing up for their performance or dressing up as the embodiment of an STD to meet the crowd.
However, if you pay attention to what Gabriel was singing, you can hear a few vocal inflexions that revealed his identity. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is one of the best examples of him flinging every sound he can think of at the wall and seeing what sticks. Even in a work as complex as “Supper’s Ready,” there are still moments where he sounds like an old-school singer amid the pandemonium.
However, the origin of it all happened before Genesis was a band. He told Soin, “I don’t think there was a white face to be seen there, but mine, and it was the best gig of my life as a spectator,” after witnessing Redding in all his splendor while playing with his first band, Garden Wall. That following evening, as Otis Redding sang with Wayne Jackson on trumpet, I discovered my heroes. I made the decision to become a musician for the rest of my life while I stood in the center of the club, as close to the front as I could get without attracting attention to myself.
When Gabriel made the decision to leave Genesis following The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he was able to incorporate a lot more of his interests into his solo career, whereas the majority of Genesis songs were more focused on bringing literary characters to life. Redding was a long way from “Solsbury Hill,” but later songs like “Shock the Monkey” show that he is gradually becoming more and more in line with soulful music.
He just needed someone to support him the rest of the way. He transformed “Sledgehammer” into his own soul track when he collaborated with Daniel Lanois on the album. While he lacked Redding’s captivating stage persona, the horns above him were the closest thing he could have hoped for.
And even he could acknowledge that was a touch stupid, in spite of his pathetic attempts at being a soulful guy. From the claymation video to his outrageous dance routines live, he was at least aware of the irony of a younger prog-rock artist trying to use his “funk” to make everyone else move.
However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that “Sledgehammer” is a 1980s classic, nor should it diminish Redding. He assisted in bringing R&B over the seas, and when that realization hit Gabriel, he realized he had discovered his lifetime purpose.
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