The love of such songs as "Who's Makin' Love" by Johnnie Taylor, "Hold On I'm Coming" and "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave, "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" and "Try A Little Tenderness" by Otis Redding and "B-A-B-Y" by Carla Thomas was what drove Peter Gabriel to what would be his first and only chart-topping song.
Not any love for pounding things.
Those aforementioned songs were the basis of the sound of the mega-successful Stax Records of Memphis, Tenn., during the mid-to-late 1960s. And like a lot of young Brits at that time, Gabriel was inspired by the American soul music scene. In his case, it was the sound of the soaring vocals, the booming bass and the pageantry of the horns that were played from the Stax Records collection.
When Gabriel set out to make his fifrth solo album in late 1985 called "So," which by the way was the first Gabriel album not named "Peter Gabriel," that sound of '60s Stax soul was in his mind as he sat down to compose "Sledgehammer." After composing it, he took the song to his producer, Daniel Lanois, to see how he wanted to proceed with it.
By the end of the recording session, it came out to be a very complex record: The song starts with the sound of a flute. It's very distinctive, but in reality, it isn't an ordinary flute. It's actually a synthesized shakuhachi, a Japanese-made open-end flute with four holes on the top and a fifth on the bottom, a flute which first came into existence in the 6th century as a counterpart to the Chinese flute the Japanese first laid eyes on. This shakuhachi, though, was put through an E-mu Emulator -- first manufactured in 1981. After the shakuhachi has its moment, the sound of powerful horns come next. Those were horns that Gabriel envisioned on the song, the same ones he heard on those old Stax Records recordings. So who came in to provide the horns? The trombone was provided by Don Mikkelsen. The tenor saxophone came from Mark Rivera, better known for his work with Billy Joel on a number songs, most notably the No. 1 song "Tell Her About It." And the trumpet? Well that was none other than Wayne Jackson, one of the members of the renowned Memphis Horns of -- you guessed it! -- Stax Records.
If Gabriel was going for authenticity, he sure was getting it. All the keyboards on this song were provided by Gabriel himself, whose all-too-familiar vocals going back to the days as the lead singer of Genesis put the exclamation mark on this masterpiece.
Well, not exactly. The coup d'état turned out to be the music video for the song, arguably the greatest piece of film any song ever received to promote it. The work on the music video seemed to be more painful than the composition and recording of the song -- Gabriel spent 16 straight hours lying on the floor with a heavy sheet of glass on top of him as director Stephen Johnson and producer Adam Whittaker filmed him one exhausting frame at a time. Meanwhile, the pair continued to experiment with their work as they made two cooked chicken roasters "dance" and made magic with the stop-frame film throughout the music video. They also called on Aardman Animations and the Brothers Quay to provide the claymation, pixilation and stop motion animation that also made the video famous.
The song itself was filled with enough sexual innuendo to burst out at the seems: "Show me 'round your fruit cage, 'cause I will be your honey bee. Open up your fruit cage, where the fruit is as sweet as can be" and "You can have a big dipper, going up and down, all around the bends. You can have a bumper car buuuuump-ing. This amusement never ends."
Known for his theatrical-powered, art-rock songs over the years such as Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and his own "Games Without Frontiers," "Solsbury Hill" and "Biko," "Sledgehammer" was a very different record for Gabriel. Downright irresistible, actually, though some were thinking that Gabriel was "selling out" from what made him famous. But it really wasn't the case -- great artists have the ability to leave what they're used to doing regularly and experiment.
Gabriel debuted on the Top 40 chart on May 31, 1986, at No. 39, with "Sledgehammer," his second Top 40 hit after 1983's "Shock The Monkey" and the debut hit from his "So" album. By the next week, all five original members of Genesis were in the Top 40 as "Sledgehammer" moved up from No. 39 to No. 32, Steve Hackett played guitar in the band GTR on "When The Heart Rules The Mind," which jumped from No. 40 to No. 35, current Genesis lead singer Phil Collins dropped from No. 18 to No. 26 with "Take Me Home" and Collins, keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist Mike Rutherford were debuting the new Genesis single, the title track from the new album "Invisible Touch," at at No. 37.
Two weeks later on June 21, 1986, "Sledgehammer" was up to No. 15. A week later, "Sledgehammer" moved into the Top 10 at No. 10. But the push to No. 1 was about to get challenged when "Invisible Touch" by his old band zoomed up nine places from No. 17 to No. 8. Uh-oooooh!
"Sledgehammer" continued to move forward. It moved up to No. 9 the next week, then to No. 6 on July 12. On July 19, "Sledgehammer" made a pounding jump from No. 6 to No. 2 as "Invisible Touch" hit the top. Would Phil, Tony and Mike keep their former mate from also visiting the summit of the Hot 100?
The answer was a resounding "nooooooooo." On the week of July 26, 1986, "Sledgehammer" finished its assault up the chart, moving into the top spot as Genesis dropped to No. 3 and Kenny Loggins slid into No. 2 with "Danger Zone" from the movie Top Gun. And the stay at the top would also be seven days for Gabriel, but it was another movie song that knocked him out of the top spot -- "Glory Of Love" by Peter Cetera of Chicago fame from the film Karate Kid II.
"Sledgehammer" would be the first of three Top 40 hits from the album "So," which by now was being sold as a compact disc as was the single. "In Your Eyes" would peak at No. 26 and in early 1987, "Big Time" would also find the Top 10, peaking at No. 8.
In 1989, thanks to the movie Say Anything, "In Your Eyes" got a second life on the chart, but peaked at No. 41, just missing out on the Top 40 again. Gabriel would have one more Top 40 hit in the 1990s as "Steam" would peak at No. 32 in late 1992.
In 2010, Gabriel was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis, the band he played with until leaving in 1975 (though he had one brief reunion with his mates for a song in the late '90s). Then four years later, Gabriel was inducted again, this time as a solo artist.
Gabriel never has been known as a "singles" artist and his humanitarian work, including in the 1980s for Amnesty International, defines the man more than the artist. And he is a huge believer in bringing world music to the masses. In other words, Peter Gabriel isn't afraid to try things and bring attention to things that incite his passions.
That was obvious on the only No. 1 hit of his career when he brought back that good ol' Stax soul music of the '60s for that hit.
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