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.