Forty years in assorted images... - TWR looks back at the solo careers of the various members of Genesis. Memorabilia: TWR Archive.

In keeping with the celebratory tone of this edition, and also to compliment the feature elsewhere celebrating the fifty years of Genesis, I thought it would be equally interesting to celebrate the forty or so years of solo success by the band’s individual members with the help of a few selected images…

	1. To open the proceedings, here is an iconic shot of Steve taken at the reading Festival in 1979 by Roger Salem. By the time this photograph had been taken, Steve had not only left the restrictions of Genesis but was well on the way to becoming a highly successful artist in his own right. The album he released in 1979, Spectral Mornings, remains the yardstick by which all his subsequent work has been measured.
	2. Phil’s decision to finally get a solo career under way in 1980 took many fans by surprise and started yet another round of rumours of the impending demise of Genesis to boot! Mr Collins was fully occupied with said band throughout 1980-82 however, but by the end of that year, he was finally ready to go out on the road in his own right and for any of you who were lucky enough to see that first tour, you will know how remarkable those shows were. Here we have Phil in a rare “costume” wearing shot from his first UK gig at Hammersmith Odeon on 28th November 1982 taken by TWR founding father Ted Sayers.
	3 - 4. The 1980’s were to be an incredibly busy and successful period for Peter Gabriel with no less than three chart topping albums and numerous singles achieving notable success too. For many fans his tour in 1982-83 in support of his fourth solo album was his creative apogee and here we have two iconic images from the 1982-83 tour which sum up the magic and atmosphere of these performances. The first of these is from the legendary first night of the WOMAD Festival at Shepton Mallet on 16th July 1982 where we see Peter on stage with the fabulous drummers of Burundi, Ekome. The second is an equally iconic photo from Peter’s last UK gig at the Liverpool Empire Theatre on 18th September 1983. Once again, both images were captured by Ted Sayers.
	5. 1986 was to be the most successful year for Genesis and also for several of its ex members. The band themselves released their enormously successful Invisible Touch album and both Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel had equal success with their GTR and So albums and here we see Steve in action with GTR from the band’s gig at Manchester captured by regular TWR contributor, Richard Nagy.
	6. The last thirty years have seen some important moments for TWR as well as the band, and here is photo of one such, our chat with Tony and Mike on 3rd December 2004 at their recording studio, The Farm. This one was taken by one of the lucky attendees at said interview, Stuart Barnes.
	7. Back in 2009 something that no Genesis fans ever imagined would happen, did and Steve Hackett worked on a project with his predecessor in Genesis, Anthony Phillips. Ant guested on two tracks on Steve’s album of that year, Out Of The tunnel’s mouth and since then the pair of them have become very good friends. Here they are caught together at an informal dinner with your editor and other friends last year.
	8. Phil extended his talents towards film and TV work initially as an actor first of all in Miami Vice and subsequently in the film Buster before he turned his hand to film soundtrack composition for Disney. Here he is seen with Tina Turner during the recording sessions for the Brother bear soundtrack in 2002. Sadly, the photographer who took this wonderful image is unknown to us!
	9. Back to another important moment both for TWR and Genesis. In the summer of 1995 whilst on a visit to Anthony Phillips’ home a tape was discovered which was subsequently to be used on the band’s Archive 1967 - 75 box set. Here we have Anthony captured at the moment of discovery as photographed by Jonathan Dann.
	10. Casting our minds slightly further back, here we have an image from the promotional sessions done for Tony Banks’ first solo album, 1979’s A Curious Feeling which has been rightly hailed as one of the best solo albums from any member of the band. Sadly, the photographer for this one is uncredited.
	11. Remaining in the same time period, here is a great photo from the period of Mike’s first solo album, 1980’s Smallcreep’s Day which, like Tony’s album mentioned above, is also hailed as one of the great solo albums from the band’s catalogue. Another uncredited image.
	12. The final incarnation of Genesis as a recording band saw Ray Wilson taking over the vocal duties from Phil for 1997’s Calling All Stations album. Since the demise of that lineup at the end of the 1998 tour, Ray has gone on to pursue a successful solo career with a string of excellent albums under his belt and an incessant tour schedule and here he is captured during one such gig by TWR contributor Ina Schneider.
	13 - 14 . Genesis on record eventually devolved to the trio of Tony, Phil and Mike but live from 1977 onwards they were augmented by two Americans, Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Stuermer on guitar and here we have to excellent images of them both. The first is of Daryl taken for the promotional activities surrounding his Go album and the latter including him and Chester and the rest of the 2007 Genesis lineup photographed by Stephanie Pistel.
	15. Here is another iconic moment from the TWR story. Here we see Phil perusing your editor’s latest book during the recent interview we conducted with him last year. Quaking hands just in shot are mine whilst the photographer is Stuart Barnes.
	16 - 17 . The mid 1980’s saw both Tony and Mike realise that perhaps their talents were best served when they were part of a group and so, both of them explored the possibilities of this by utilising other singers and musicians. The results were startlingly different. In Mike’s case, the result was the foundation of Mike & The Mechanics a band which was to go on to achieve astonishing success both at home and abroad whilst in Tony’s case the results were equally as satisfying artistically if not commercially. Here we see both artists and their “bands”. the former a promotional shot from the 1989 Mechanics album, Living years, and the latter a promotional shot for Tony’s 1991 album, Still. Sadly, in both cases the photographers were unaccredited.
	18 - 19. TWR’s involvement with Anthony Phillips like the magazine itself stretches back thirty years ever since he agreed to be our very first interview subject back in 1987 and here we see two classic shots of Mr Phillips with two of his favourite guitars. Photographers are respectively Ted Sayers and Jonathan Dann.
	20. As I mentioned earlier, Phil’s career extended into film work in the mid 1980’s with him giving the thespian in him an outing with the 1988 film Buster. A film that achieved some notoriety at the time, and which was deemed to be glorifying the criminality of its central character. That controversy aside, Phil turned in a memorable performance as the film’s central character, Buster Edwards as well as memorable contributions to the film’s soundtrack, and here we see a promotional photo with Phil in his role. The photographer here is Jon Gardey.
	21. Here we see ray Wilson and the resurrected Stiltskin with whom he has alternated between the other various facets of his solo career since 2006. Once again, this is an unaccredited promotional photograph from the period.
	22 - 23. Here we have two photographs that capture Mr Collins in full flow at different moments in his career. The first of these was taken during the tour for what was without doubt, Phil’s most successful album, 1989’s But Seriously. Here he is during the subsequent tour captured by Guido Truffer. Our second photo shows Phil during what a was to have been his swansong tour in 2004, the First Final Farewell tour and was taken by Ulrich Klemt.
	24 - 25. Back to Mr Gabriel for our next two images. Twenty four years separate these two with the first being a promotional photograph for Peter’s second solo album, 1978’s Peter Gabriel, whilst the second is another promotional shot this time for 2002’s Up album. The photographer for the first image is unaccredited but the second is by Arnold Newman.
	26. Another moment in TWR history, Mr and Mrs Hackett’s first social visit to my home town in 2010 saw Steve making the acquaintance with one of Liverpool’s finest as this photo shows. Photographer… err that would be me, of course!
	27 - 40. Our final selection of images shows the various members of the band caught in either studio or live activity over the last couple of years with a couple of special TWR -related moments thrown in to boot! First of these is another lovely shot of Tony Banks at the studio piano at The Farm during our chat with him back in 1995 about the Strictly Inc project taken by Richard Nagy.
	Next up are a couple of great images from the Genesis Revisited recording sessions at MAP Studios. In these you can see Steve with Roger King, Nad Sylvan and also Marillion’s Steve Rothery. These images were taken by Steve’s wife Jo.
	Here is another classic shot of Peter performing San Jacinto at the New Blood shows in London. Once again, TWR founder, Ted Sayers is the photographer for this one.
	More recently still, here is a shot of Phil taken at the photo shoot outside the Royal Albert Hall in London announcing the Not Dead Yet shows. Photographer for this one is Stuart Barnes.
	Back to Mr Banks for a pair of lovely photographs the first of which was taken during the recording sessions in Prague for the Six album and is here courtesy of Tadlow Music. The latter, is an example of shameless product placement by your editor and features Tony with my latest tome taken by Stuart Barnes during our chat with him back in 2015.
	Mike reconvened the Mechanics after a lengthy lay off in 2010 and since then the band have gone from strength to strength featuring two new vocalists, Tim Howar and Andrew Roachford and have so far released two albums with this line up, 2011’s The Road and this year’s Let Me Fly. Here we see the new lineup in a promotional image from The Road sessions and another example of product placement during our chat with Mike during the 2015 tour at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall. Sadly, the photographer for the former image is not know but the latter was taken by Mr Stuart Barnes.
	Back to Mr Phillips next for a lovely promotional shot taken on Clapham Common for the Esoteric Records Harvest Of The Heart box set back in 2014 sadly no photographer is credited for this one.
	Here are a couple more fine images of Ray Wilson in his natural element - the concert stage. Once again these wonderful images were taken by Ina Schneider.
	And to round off this feature it would be unthinkable not to feature a couple of images that feature the band “together” again all too briefly at the premiere of the “Together And Apart “ documentary back in 2015. Whether we shall see them together again remains to be seen but these iconic images of that historic moment were captured by Steve Hackett’s wife, Jo.

And there you have it folks, forty odd years of solo activity by the various band members and thirty years of TWR activity documenting it. It has been an amazing period both for the guys in the band and for us and once again, our thanks to them and to YOU for supporting our (and their efforts) so loyally during this time. We hope you had as much fun as we have done! Now, I am off for a well -earned pint!