is 73 years old and, like many ageing rock stars, works with an energy that suggests pop music has an uncanny power to keep its practitioners young. Otherwise, the British musician remains as different from his cohort as he always was. While most of his peers have become lucrative “” who entertain live audiences solely with material from their glory days, Mr Gabriel continues to break new ground.
, although neither he nor the group would attain superstar status until after his departure in 1975. Back then, he was already an outlier among his fellow musicians. His performance style, which involved storytelling, masks and costumes, was more redolent of avant-garde theatre than of prog-rock’s bombast and spectacle. His exit from Genesis, on what seemed the cusp of success, came as a shock to both his bandmates and fans.
Above all, he incorporated musical ideas from around the world seamlessly into his tracks. In his own work and beyond it, few have done more to promote what is known as “Festival and Real World Records, a label which champions diverse artists and musical styles. This is perhaps his single most significant contribution to music: he has placed global sounds on an equal footing with Western pop.