Peter Gabriel

His great-great-great-uncle, Sir Thomas Gabriel, 1st Baronet, was Lord Mayor of London from 1866 to 1877.

Gabriel attended Cable House, a private primary school in Woking, Surrey, followed by St Andrews Preparatory School for Boys in Horsell, Surrey.

During his time at the latter, his teachers noticed his singing talent, but he opted for piano lessons from his mother and developed an interest in drumming.

At age 10, he purchased a floor tom-tom.

Gabriel remarked of his early influences, "Hymns played quite a large part. They were the closest I came to soul music before I discovered soul music. There are certain hymns that you can scream your lungs out on, and I used to love that. It was great when you used to get the old shivers down the back."

At age 12, Gabriel wrote his first song, "Sammy the Slug".

Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, and human rights activist.

He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis.

Peter Brian Gabriel was born on 13 February 1950 in Chobham, Surrey, England, son of Ralph Parton Gabriel (1912–2012) and Edith Irene (1921–2016), daughter of Colonel Edward Allen, chairman of the Civil Service Department Store on the Strand, London.

Gabriel's father was an electrical engineer and dairy farm-owner from a long-established family of London timber importers and merchants, and his mother was from a musical family.

Gabriel was raised at Deep Pool Farm, Coxhill, a Victorian manor just outside Chobham.

He was made a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his "influence on generations of music makers".

Around this time, an aunt gave him money for professional singing lessons, but he used it to buy the Beatles' debut studio album Please Please Me (1963).

In September 1963, he started at Charterhouse, a public school in Godalming, Surrey.

There, he was a drummer and vocalist for his first band: the trad jazz outfit the Milords (or M'Lords).

This was followed by a holiday band called the Spoken Word.

In 1965, Gabriel formed Garden Wall with school friends Tony Banks on piano and Chris Stewart on drums.

Banks had started at Charterhouse at the same time as Gabriel; the two were uninterested in school activities but bonded over music and started to write songs.

At a final concert before they broke up, Gabriel, dressed in a kaftan and beads, showered the audience with petals he had picked from neighbouring gardens.

In 1967, after Garden Wall had disbanded, Gabriel, Banks, and Stewart were invited by fellow pupils Anthony Phillips and Mike Rutherford to work on a demo tape of songs.

Gabriel and Banks contributed "She Is Beautiful", the first song they wrote together.

The tape was sent to former Charterhouse pupil turned musician Jonathan King, who was immediately enthusiastic largely due to Gabriel's vocals.

He signed the group and suggested a band name of Gabriel's Angels, but it was unpopular with the other members.

They settled on King's other suggestion, Genesis.

After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched a successful solo career with "Solsbury Hill" as his first single.

In 1980, he released the anti-apartheid single "Biko".

He co-founded the WOMAD festival in 1982.

He has continued to focus on producing and promoting world music through his Real World Records label.

He has pioneered digital distribution methods for music, co-founding OD2, one of the first online music download services.

Gabriel has also been involved in numerous humanitarian efforts.

His fifth studio album, So (1986), is his best-selling release and is certified triple platinum in the UK and five times platinum in the US.

The album's most successful single, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and, according to a report in 2011, it was MTV's most played music video of all time.

Gabriel has been a champion of world music for much of his career.

Gabriel has won three Brit Awards – winning Best British Male in 1987, six Grammy Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, the first Pioneer Award at the BT Digital Music Awards, the Q magazine Lifetime Achievement, the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Polar Music Prize.

He has participated in several human-rights benefit concerts, including Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour in 1988, and co-founded the Witness human rights organisation in 1992.

In recognition of his many years of human rights activism, he received the Man of Peace award from the Nobel Peace Prize laureates in 2006, and Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

AllMusic described Gabriel as "one of rock's most ambitious, innovative musicians, as well as one of its most political".

Gabriel developed The Elders with Richard Branson, which was launched by Nelson Mandela in 2007.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010, and as a solo artist in 2014.

In March 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of South Australia in recognition of his achievements in music.