The Musical Box performance
The band appear on Belgian TV performing The Musical Box from the album Nursery Cryme.
Fountain of Salmacis performance
The band appear on Belgian TV performing The Fountain of Salmacis from the album Nursery Cryme.
Nursery Cryme
The band release their third studio album, Nursery Cryme. The album includes The Musical Box, The Fountain of Salmacis, and Return of The Giant Hogweed. This is the first album with Collins and Hackett. Gabriel sings all songs except For Absent Friends, which is written by Hackett, and sung by Collins. The album is produced by John Anthony and engineered by David Hentschel. The sleeve is designed by Anthony Whitehead, based on the characters in the songs. Banks:
Nursery Cryme was the album that incorporated Phil and Steve into the band, so we became, for that reason, a better playing unit than we’d benn in the past. And we’d also by this time, played quite a liot on stage, so the development from Trespass was quite a big one. And we had the Mellotron was a new instrument, and a certain quality of the early-Genesis sound was started with this album.
Hackett:
I was thrilled with it. The rough edges at that time I refused to hear. I just wanted to bask in the glory. I’d done an album with what was destined to become a great band, and occasionally the sound was wonderful.
Collins:
It was a real great five-piece working uni. We all got together for the meetings for the cover, we were there all the time for the mixing. Pretty much we were all involved in the writing, apart from the lyrics. Certain songs would have pairs going off to write lyrics. I have very fond memories of the period.
Gabriel:
A step into the shade, if you like. There’s more sunshining in Trespass, more folky feels, and outside stuff. And we’d gone indoors in Nursery Cryme.
Rutherford:
It’s a good example of how we were moving on…I like the cover Quite a strong image of the girl and the croquet lawn., and the head. We were starting to create an atmosphere about the band. Slightly quirky. I felt we were starting to become something that was a little bit unique in the music business.
Hackett joins Genesis
Hackett places a classified in Melody Maker seeking work with musicians who were “determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms”. Gabriel sees the ad and both he and Banks travel to Churchill Gardens, Pimlico, London, where they audition him. Hackett’s brother John accompanies him on the flute. Hackett joins the band a few weeks later.
I remember [Phil] saying on the very first day that I met him and we were going to be working together he said we’re bound to influence each other. I thought it really hadn’t occurred to me because I’d never worked in a band context before. It was a very different proposition working with a band that is often very competitive with each other. But we managed to cooperate sufficiently to come up with a great bunch of songs between us all… When I first joined the band it was on the premises that if you wrote a guitar part you were already part of the writing team, so I joined as a full writer from the word ‘go’ and I think it was a very healthy way to run a band. You keep everyone happy and everyone is going to end up being on an economic equilibrium. That struck me as a very good way to keep a band together and get the best out of everybody. If you just feel like you’re a hired gun you’re not necessarily going to give the best of yourself.