Birth Name: Philip David Charles Collins
Born: January 30, 1951
Birth Place: London, England
Nationality: English
With a remarkable combination of
middle-of-the-road appeal and talent and vision
that has produced some of the better music of his
time, composer-singer-drummer-actor Phil Collins
has made an indelible impact on the entertainment
industry. Truly one of the hardest working men in
show business, he has written for and performed
with two legendary and vastly different bands, found
great success as a solo artist and nursed a budding
acting career, all at the same time. While considering
himself a drummer above all else, the musician has
written some of the most memorable songs in contemporary
pop music and has proven a powerful and universally
recognizable singer. Because of his unfaltering
dedication to his craft and his place in Genesis,
one of the most influential rock bands of the day,
Collins managed to win both popular success and
the respect of fellow musicians, hitting the top
of the pop charts while also being called upon to
perform with such modern legends as Eric Clapton,
Sting, Robert Plant and Quincy Jones. His musical
credibility and capability have served well many
a film that has procured his songwriting services.
After a short 1969 stint with the
band Flaming Youth, the London-born Collins auditioned
for Genesis,
then an up-and-coming progressive rock band fronted
by promising musical visionary Peter Gabriel. Hired
as the band's drummer in 1970, he debuted on their
1971 album "Nursery Cryme". The drummer
first sang lead with the moving ballad "More
Fool Me" from Genesis' 1973 concept album "Selling
England By the Pound". Despite the positive
reaction to the track and the reality that Collins'
voice was in many ways technically superior to Gabriel's,
when the front man left the art-rock outfit to embark
on his solo career, the remaining band members auditioned
hundreds of singers unsuccessfully before finally
giving Collins lead vocal duties in 1974. Genesis'
first album without Gabriel was not released until
two years after his departure, but Collins kept
busy as drummer of the fusion jazz project Brand
X, another experimental and influential combo. At
varying times throughout his career, the industrious
Collins managed to record with Genesis and Brand
X concurrently, even while undertaking huge world
tours with the former as well as working on solo
material.
Collins' work with Genesis began
to move away from the band's original epic laden
art-rock foundation and into a more radio-friendly
pop/R&B inflected sound. This change grew more
and more evident, and by 1981 Genesis had scored
a veritable pop hit with the brass-heavy "No
Reply at All" off their release "Abacab".
That same year, Collins made his solo debut with
the album "Face
Value", featuring the haunting
and timeless "In the Air Tonight". The
album was a hit, and the following year's follow
up "Hello,
I Must Be Going" was also a success.
A 1983 hit record for Genesis came next, and in
1984 Collins would pen the love theme to "Against
All Odds", a composition that became a hugely
successful single and garnered the songwriter an
Oscar nomination and Grammy award. Soon he would
release the hit album "No
Jacket Required" (1985) featuring
no less than four certified hit singles. That summer,
the now-superstar was the only artist to play on
Live Aid stages in both London and Philadelphia.
While all of this solo success
certainly kept Collins busy, it didn't keep him
from his original band - Genesis. 1986 saw Genesis
release the chart-topping album "Invisible
Touch", an unprecedented success for the band,
with five of the album's eight tracks becoming top
selling singles. In the five years between "Invisible
Touch" and Genesis' next release, 1991's "We
Can't Dance", Collins released his fourth solo
album, 1989's "...But
Seriously", and earnestly tried
his hand at an acting career. The 1991 Genesis release
and the two live albums chronicling the supporting
tour released that year would be Collins' swan song
with the band. His 1993 solo album "Both
Sides" didn't turn out hit singles
like his previous works had, but it was a notable
and truly solo effort: in addition to writing and
singing all of the songs, Collins also played every
instrument on the album. In 1996 Collins stunned
many fans by announcing his departure from Genesis
after 26 years. He decided that a solo career was
all he needed, plus the odd soundtrack, world tour
etc., and he released another album. The album,
titled "Dance
Into the Light" failed to radiate
much Top 40 heat, and Collins used this opportunity
to try something new; indulging his lifelong dream
of playing in a jazz band, he formed the Phil Collins
Big Band. The project, with Collins on drums, performed
standards and jazz instrumental versions of some
of his biggest hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did
a successful world tour in 1998, including two dates
at the prestigious Montreaux Jazz Festival. All
the while, Collins was working on songs for Disney's
"Tarzan" (1999), an animated project that
would help to firmly reinstate him on the top of
the charts.
An unquestionably gifted musician,
Collins first pursued an acting career, enrolling
in a stage school with which his talent agent mother
was affiliated. From here, he landed an uncredited
extra role as a screaming fan in The Beatles' "A
Hard Day's Night" (1964). He abandoned acting
for many years to focus on music, but those who
watched Collins' stage theatrics and hammy music
video performances were not surprised when he began
taking small guest acting parts, notably a featured
role in a 1985 episode of the impossibly hip "Miami
Vice" (NBC) that came hot on the heels of the
singer's chart-topping third solo effort and his
amazing transcontinental Live Aid performances.
In 1988, he took the lead role in the comedy caper
"Buster", starring as the title thief
who pulled off 1964's Great Train Robbery. Relatively
short in stature and balding, Collins proved a charming
and affable screen presence, with an open expressive
face easy with goofy expressions. In 1989, Collins
was featured in The Who's twentieth anniversary
performance of their rock opera "Tommy",
with an appropriately repulsive portrayal of wicked
Uncle Ernie. He followed up with a featured role
as a police inspector in 1991's "Hook"
and next tackled drama, sporting a greased up hairdo
and mustache, looking every inch the part for his
role as a sleazy owner of a San Francisco bathhouse
in 1993's exceptional HBO production "And the
Band Played On". That same year he played a
chillingly vacant-eyed insurance inspector in the
Australian black comedy "Frauds" and in
1995 took on a very different project, lending his
voice to a pair of polar bears in the animated children's
feature "Balto".
While Collins was a capable and
likable actor, he proved, from his hit love theme
for "Against All Odds" to his moving song
score for Disney's "Tarzan",
that his most notable work in film made the most
of his musical gifts. While he failed to score an
Academy Award (losing to Stevie Wonder's "I
Just Called to Say I Love You"), the track
has proven more enduring than the film itself. As
a vocalist, Collins dueted with Marilyn Martin with
the Stephen Bishop penned 1985 hit "Separate
Lives" from "White Nights". His next
project, 1988's "Buster" spawned two hit
songs, the original "Two Hearts" (which
netted him a second Oscar nod) and a cover of the
1960s syrupy "Groovy Kind of Love". He
was reportedly apprehensive about taking on the
song score of "Tarzan", faced with the
task of writing in a storytelling style. His lyrical
technique was always more free-associative than
intellectualized, the songwriter admitting that
even his oft-analyzed hit "In the Air Tonight"
was not really meant to be about anything at all.
Working closely for over two years alongside producers
and animators, the perfectionist did countless drafts
and rewrites, and ended up with five inspired compositions
for the Disney film. The use of music in "Tarzan"
went in a different direction than the studio's
past animated features, instead of the character's
singing the songs, Collins acted almost as a narrator,
with the songs as background accompaniment and the
lyrics serving to forward the story lines. The film's
touching lullaby "You'll Be In My Heart"
lived up to the Disney standard for memorable theme
songs, becoming a summer hit single and showing
certain potential to live on in popular consciousness.
Phil Collins went on to receive two Academy Awards
for Tarzan - Best Film Score and Most Original Song
for "You'll Be In My Heart". He then co-wrote
the Score for the next Disney Release - "Brother
Bear" as well as contributed 5
new songs to the Soundtrack.
