Real world/Peter Gabriel....

Early 1990's I had just produced Manu Dibango's album Polysonic (one of my all time fav albums if any one can track it down) and 3 tracks for Baaba Maal's Lam Toro. I had heard rumours that Realworld were doing these week long open day recording sessions after Womad so I phoned up and blagged myself in as a producer and made a Realworld CD with the Morocan Gnawa artist Hassam Hakmoun called 'Trance'. Following year me and crew went back and created a recording space to do the Afro Celts. So that was: Me, Martin Russell (ex Enid and head engineer at Swanyard Studios), Jo Bruce (son of Jack Bruce), Ron Aslam from North London soul/break beat band Raw Stylus and Jamie Ried (punk/druid artists and visualiser). I had been back to Senegal with Ron and Jules from Raw Stylus and recorded Baaba Maal's album Firin in Fouta so I knew Baaba's band well and invited his Kora player and Talking Drum player to the 2nd recording week were they collaborated with the guest Celtic musicians, this group became the back bone of the Afro Celt Sound System Version 1 (Iarla, James McNally, Ronan Browne, Myrdhin, Kawding, Massamba etc). Peter was hugely supportive in all this but never intrusive. Many years later we were on to our 3rd album and were looking around for a big producer to give us that elusive cross over radio hit to catapult us into mega stardom world music global domination. Who should turn up in our crappy little Hackney basement studio than Rock God Producer Legend Bob Ezrin (google him). He came in and said:
"I know you guys, I love you guys, and I am going to do what i do best, take all your alternative art school ideas and distill them into one big monster radio hit. I did this with the Pink Floyd-Another Brick in the Wall, I did this with Alice Cooper-Schools Out, I did this with Peter G-Salsbury Hill, I did this with Kiss, Lou Reed, we're gonna go all the way to the top, you just have to give me total control over the whole production process and let me have the ultimate veto over all the creative decisions, and I'll give you my special discount producers rate of $100000000000 a track"
He then left.
After we picked our selves up of the floor we had 'a nice cup of tea and a biscuit' then got to thinking. Behind the hyperbole was a certain logic:
what if we could actually write a 3.30 minute radio hit in English?? James McNally got the ball rolling with some mandolin chords and a great hook, Iarla got stuck into the English lyrics, with all chipped in a bit and by the end of the day "When Your Falling" was done as a proto type/demo. We all decided it would be a great song for Peter to sing so after NFally had added his African chorus we sent it to him. Months later he phones to say he'll have a listen but don't be disappointed if he says no. A few months after that he phones to say he's done it, he's happy with it, sends it back to us, we have a listen and REEEEEEEEEEEESULT! Bob Ezrin, who's he? The album comes out, gets largely slagged off by the UK world music press (don't get me started on the UK world music press....oh we've already covered that issue haven't we). It becomes the number 1 Album in the USA Amazon sales chart, we do the David Letterman show with PG, 'When Your Falling' is released as a single, it becomes the number one Radio Hit on main time/day time American AOR Radio out performing The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton who both had singles out at the time. The video of the single is of a man falling through the sky, past a plane piloted by PG, past a tower block, through the ground, through the center of the earth and out the other side (it's up on UTube somewhere). The Video gets put on the MTV play list. It's about to go into 'heavy rotation play', we are 2 weeks away from doing a massive sell out USA tour having previously that year done a triumphant Womad show in the states with PG. OH YES! We had done it, we had made that illusive radio hit that was going to catapult us into mega stardom world music global domination. And most importantly we had done it on our own terms as a team effort keeping artistic controll over the whole process. Then 2 weeks before the tour starts....9/11 happens. The Video is taking off air and the single pulled with the agreement of the band and record company due it's unintentionally disturbing content. Tour cancelled....

"What's peter like?"
He's like the Art Teacher at school you always wanted but never had, the one the rest of the staff respect but find a bit 'odd': approachable, warm, shy, highly intelligent, maverick, nutty professor with the kind of integrity and vision that keeps you going when you feel like giving up.