Genesis: An era comes to an end

1974: Rutherford, Hackett, Collins, Banks, Gabriel

The cover of Genesis' fourth album, Foxtrot, gave Peter Gabriel an idea for spicing up the band's stage show (Genesis: The classic lineup settles in). A booking agent for Charisma Records suggested to Gabriel that the band should have someone in a red dress and fox's head in the street in front of their concert venues to draw attention. But Gabriel took it a step further. His wife had a red dress that looked like the one on the album cover, and he found a big furry fox head in a costume shop.

Genesis: The classic lineup settles in

1971: Collins, Rutherford, Tony Banks, Gabriel, Hackett

Genesis nearly disbanded in summer 1970. They had just finished recording their second album, Trespass, and were about to hit the road for another tour of their native England when guitarist Anthony Phillips quit. (Genesis: In the beginning)

The three other founders discussed calling it a day. But in the end, they decided to regroup and give this band thing another shot before going their own adult ways. They fired their third drummer, John Mayhew, and the group of 20-year-olds gathered at Peter Gabriel's parents' house to audition candidates. Gabriel says they knew 19-year-old Phil Collins was their guy the second he sat down at the drumkit. Collins came with the added benefits of being a burgeoning songwriter with a smooth singing voice that perfectly complemented Gabriel's raw delivery.

'It's only knock and know all, but I like it'

One day in the fall of 1974, co-worker and regular concert pal Marty Bauer told me we should go to the Ambassador Theater the Sunday before Thanksgiving to see Genesis. Marty and I had become fast friends working side-by-side in that machine shop in Ballwin, MO, where I was biding my time between high school and college. We spent most of our workdays sharing our growing musical knowledge, taking a break in our discussion every now and then to focus on fire-testing those freshly made acetylene-torch heads soon to be shipped out the factory door.