Originally Posted by
Todd Brendan Fahey
By 1976, roadie friends for Genesis and Little Feat began popping in and out of the band's communal home in Reston, VA, to listen to the newest licks and spoke to Happy The Man in whispers of great things in the offing, if only they'd stick around. It was about this time that Whitaker would step up and, in a collegial way, begin competing with Kit Watkins and woodwinds-man Frank Wyatt for songwriting credit. And is also when Peter Gabriel discovered Happy The Man.
Recalls Whitaker: "Peter came to the Happy the Man rehearsal warehouse in, I believe, the Arlington area (on the Virginia side of Washington D.C.) on June 26th, 1976. I remember distinctly because it was Amerika's bi-centennial and the day before my birthday. I had met him at a couple of Genesis concerts previously and I remember him once saying to me after some question on spiritual beliefs, "I'm a warbler...", which he said was a British warlock...okay...needless to say he is a bit of a foreboding character, one of my favorite singers/artists/performers of all time and I'm sure we were all just a wee bit nervous about meeting him and playing with him. (Especially with him walking out on the previous bands shortly after arriving...)
"He spent over seven hours with us. We had very natural chemistry with him. He seemed a little 'spacey' when he would sit at the piano to play us one of his new songs. He would stop singing in mid sentence while holding the piano chord down... and then 'out of nowhere' he'd seemingly come back into his body and continue singing right where he left off! I remember looking at each other and nudging each other like "what the fuck...is he doing!" Talking about it now, I realize the songs were so new and fresh to him (first post-Genesis stuff ever) that he didn't really know exactly where they were going without a band's input...and would pause to 'channel' in a little more; or, shit, maybe he just forgot the words!
"We mostly concentrated on two songs: "Slowburn" and "Down the Dolce Vita" [from Gabriel's first solo LP, 1977]. We had them both sounding pretty tight as a band and you could tell Peter was digging it. He was starting to loosen up a bit and actually smile. He wanted to leave with a tape of those two songs w/o vocals (probably so he could tighten up the vocals and lyrics) which we gladly gave him. Shit, we were 21-22 years old, we were close to being signed to Arista Records, and we were playing with Peter-fucking-Gabriel! Life was good..."
.... though Peter Gabriel would remain interested in Happy The Man, an appreciation that would come to a crescendo in mid-77, ebb, and reemerge in 1979.
Recalls Stan Whitaker: "He would call (HTM manager) Bob Steinem's house, where we were staying, and talk to me at length about how Kit and I had especially blown him away. He offered up some other member suggestions but we were adamant about it being the whole band or none. He admitted he had no problem with that, because he liked the chemistry of our band. (Probably reminded him of early Genesis days.) He wanted the whole band alright, but he wanted it exclusively!
"My/our rap was that, `man, Peter, we'd LOVE to be your band, but we've worked six long hard years for a major record deal and have one 'on the table' with Arista... how can we give that up? We can't... but we CAN give your project priority and work the HTM stuff around your schedule.' We even joked about HTM being his opening act as well as his back-up band and we'd wear bags on our head during the HTM set...
"He spent a good 1 1/2-to-2 weeks calling us and talking with our and his manager to try to get us to go exclusively with him, but ultimately decided he didn't want to share us; and we, as a band, had to follow our hearts and do what we had worked so hard for. Thank god we did, since two very timeless, precious works of art (to us anyway) were created with Arista (even tho' they didn't know what to do with 'em or with us for that matter).
"On a very personal note," recalls Whitaker, "when HTM broke up in 1979 (culminating with Kit leaving for Camel), I had an opportunity to join Peter again, as he was just beginning to write for his third album. I somewhat regrettably turned him down to continue to follow my own musical path. (I was just beginning to 'find my own voice' and was just starting to enjoy singing.)"
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