From the top of the world of percussion: Phil Collins — the man who wrote the brilliant Sussudio and In the Air Tonight, then lost all the accumulated public goodwill when a story circulated that he’d divorced his wife by fax — is giving up drumming!Phil has a condition that means he can’t play any more: his vertebrae is crushing his spinal cord because of the position he drums in, and he can’t even hold the sticks without pain. What a poignant reminder of the bone-crumbling on-set of time.
A colourful character with a string of marriages and divorces, Collins has often been surrounded by equally colourful stories. But just like the claim that In The Air Tonight was about him witnessing a murder, so the claim of Collins filing for divorce by fax is also an urban myth. He's debunked both rumours in numerous interviews but as he's said: "you can't unwrite what (others have) written, and I've just got to live with it."
Finally, to splash one more urban myth, the Cadbury gorilla TVC did not catapult In the Air Tonight back into No.1 in the UK. It did hit No.1 in New Zealand in July 2008 but the previous year in the UK, when the ad was played, it only reached No.14.
So, for those who dreamed of a Genesis reunion, thank goodness Cadbury trained up that gorilla, huh?
2 comments:
If I was Mr Collins, I'd be gutted I can't drum anymore. To rub in the salt, perhaps his most well known drumming highlight has been reduced to an imitation by a man in a gorilla suit. Poor bastard.
Don't forget his drum bridge linking 'Home By The Sea' Parts 1 and 2. Sounded almost tribal.
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