Phil Collins became a superstar as he rise to fame as the drummer and singer of Genesis. During the 1980s, he grew into one of the most successful musicians in the world, releasing songs such as In The Air Tonight, and You Can’t Hurry Love.
Now, Collins has turned 71, and it looks like time has taken its toll on the legendary singer.
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Speaking with the BBC, Phil Collins gave an alarming health update, revealing that he barely can hold a drumstick.
Phil Collins has lived a full life in the service of music. As a young kid, he was introduced to several instruments, and once he became an adult music was all that mattered.
Phil Collins – musical mastermind
Collins has enjoyed success with several groups – including Genesis – and was equally fortunate as a solo artist. He’s released many hits, and received several awards for his work.
It’s simply impossible not to be impressed by the way he caan sing and play the drums at the same time. Talk about a natural born talent!
Put frankly, Collins has enjoyed huge success throughout his life. Sadly, though, his health is starting to decline. But how did he get here in the first place?
This is all you need to know about Phil Collins.
He was born on January 30, 1951 in London, England. His father worked as an insurance agent and his mother as a talent manager and agent for child actors.
As Phil grew up, his home was always full of creative ideas. His older brother, Clive, went on to work as a cartoonist, and his sister competed professionally as an ice skater.
But for Phil himself, doing cartoons or ice skating wasn’t quite what he enjoyed. When he was 3 years old, he was given a drum and at five, his uncle made him a drum kit that could fit into a suitcase. It was made of tambourines, triangles, cymbals and toy drums, Collins recalled.
“The old cliché is, ‘Well, at least it will keep him quiet’,” he told Interview Magazine.
Collins quickly took interest in the drums, playing more and more, and even began performing in shows at his parents’ boating club. At the same time, he was actually a great actor, and it was easy to tell that he loved life on stage.
“When I started playing seriously, the English beat thing was just happening, the Shadows and bands like that. It was the very early ’60s,” Collins recalled.
“I remember buying Please Please Me. I used to put the record player on very loud and set up my drums so I was facing the mirror, that way you don’t look at what you’re doing.
Joining Genesis
“Then when I was fourteen I went to a teacher to learn to read drum music. I figured when this rock-and-roll thing finished I would have to make a living playing in a dance band or in an orchestra pit. So I learned to read drum music, but I found that my capacity for reading was not anywhere near as good as actually playing by instinct.”
At 13 years of age, Phil was offered the chance to star in a London production of Oliver! At that point, he and his parents decided to leave the school he was enrolled at, and instead start studying at the Barbara Speake Stage School in London.Collins was actually an extra in The Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Days Night. He had talent that could’ve pushed him towards a career in acting, but it was music that was on his mind.
Alongside some fellow students at the Chiswick County School for Boys, Phil Collins founded his first band, Real Thing. Later, he joined the band Freehold, and it was at that point he wrote his first song, Lying Crying Dying.
In 1970 however, Phil Collins’ life would change forever. He saw an ad in the paper telling how a band called Genesis was looking for a drummer who could also serve as a backup vocalist. The band had been founded three years earlier, by lead singer Peter Gabriel, and they were desperately in need of a change in their music.Collins got the job – and things changed instantly. In the five years that followed, Genesis released five studio albums and toured the US. In 1975, Peter Gabriel decided to leave the group, and all of a sudden, they needed a new lead singer.
Impressive solo career
Genesis had started out as a prog rock band, but now Collins and the rest of the group members moved onto more pop rock. In 1978, they got their first major hit with Follow You Follow Me, which reached No. 7 in the UK and No. 23 on the US chart.Moving into the 1980s, more smash songs were released. Their 1980 album Duke became one of the band’s biggest commercial successes, reaching No. 1 in the UK.
But at the same time as Genesis was doing great, Phil Collins had started to move into other projects as well. He began his solo career, releasing his first album in 1981.
He both produced and wrote his own material, putting out songs as a solo artist such as the smash hit In The Air Tonight from his debut album, as well as You Can’t Hurry Love and I Don’t Care Anymore from his second solo album in 1982.
So why didn’t Genesis get those tunes?
“Well, Genesis got to the point where we’d all write together and then someone would go off and write the lyrics and kind of write the melody that would go over this thing that we’d written. And sometimes, there was a lack of air. It was all very claustrophobic,” Phil Collins explained.“And I kind of always yearned for the space of an R&B record, you know? So one of the things that I said to myself when I started learning how to record at home was whatever doodles I was writing, I would sing. And then anything else I did would have to work around the vocal.