Steve Hackett - Genesis Was Just A Beginning

Genesis Was Just A Beginning

Toronto Globe and Mail - November 2, 1981
By Alan Niester

Many performers, generally to their dismay, find themselves burdened with very definite images in the mind of the public. Who can picture CarmEn Miranda without that jaunty headgear decorated with bananas and pineapples, or Peter Falk without that wrinkled overcoat he sported as television's Columbo ? Nor is rock music immune to such type-casting. Mention Steve Hackett's name to any self-respecting fan, and the immediate association will be with Genesis.

Hackett played lead guitar for Genesis from 1970 to 1977 and, although he's been on the road as a solo performer ever since, he's still mentioned in the same breath as that top-selling British group. He bears no malice toward the trio, but the situation sits uneasily with him.

"I'll really know I've arrived as a solo performer", Hackett said during a telephone interview from New Haven, Connecticut, the first stop of a tour that brings him to O'Keefe Centre tonight, "when I arrive in a new town, and nobody, but nobody, mentions the name Genesis to me.

"Everywhere I go, I still get some idiot asking me if I have Peter Gabriel's home phone number, or something like that. Honestly, it all gets a little tiring. Rest assured that any question you can possibly dream up to ask me about Genesis, I've already ben asked a thousand times."

Hackett's pique is really quite understandable. Since leaving Genesis, he has recorded five albums under his own name, including the recently released Cured. He also has toured extensively in an attempt to become better known as a solo performer. At this point, he has a strong cult following in both England and Europe, where he constantly tops consumer polls in the guitar-player category. Here, his audience is small, but it seems to be growing.

Hackett's work with Genesis commenced with Nursery Crime, an album released in 1971, and unfortunately ended just before the band's retooling into an internationally successful and somewhat more commercial act. However, he insists that he has no second thoughts about leaving the group, even though his former associates have gone on to become millionaires.

"Actually,"

"I now wish I'd left them years sooner. There is a great deal to be said for being your own boss, and I'm much happier now, much more fulfilled , now that I can do what I want to do with my music. Let's face it, my music is me diverse than theirs. In my albums, I think I've covered just about every musical mode except country-western.

Indeed, Hackett is a diverse and eclectic performer. In concert, he and his group play for almost two hours without the benefit of an opening act ("They just get in the way"). The music they perform is hard-core, progressive rock , presented in a tantalizing variety of styles.

This time around, however, his Toronto audience can expect something quite different from Hackett. For the first time, he will actually sing his own songs. At the mention of his new-found vocal prowess, Hackett eagerly solicited an opinion. "Go on now, no bull ... Do you think they really work? Are they all right?"

"I've always just hired someone to do the vocals in the past, but I finally decided it was about time I had a go at it myself. It's really just another step in my learning all I can about the craft of making music, and I'm very excited about it. I may be making a fool of myself up there, but rest assured, I'm having a real lark."

Even if Hackett were to sound like the Elmer Fudd of rock (he doesn't , of course. His singing is genteel and sounds quite posh), there's no doubt that he could save himself from total failure with his guitar alone. He may be a novice vocalist, but his guitar work ranks him among the finest in the field. Now, if only North America would begin to realize that fact.