Steve Hackett

Between 1971 and 1977 Steve Hackett held the role of lead guitarist in Genesis, guiding the ensemble through its shift from progressive rock outsiders to mainstream commercial achievers. Beyond that affiliation he has pursued wide-ranging work across pop, blues, jazz fusion, world, and classical idioms. His entry into Genesis in 1971, stepping in for Anthony Phillips, supplied the final element required for the band to reach chart prominence. While still active with the group he delivered his first solo project, Voyage of the Acolyte, in 1975. The subsequent solo albums Spectral Mornings (1979) and Defector (1980), issued back to back and widely praised, reinforced his standing as an inventive and exploratory guitarist. Late in the decade he explored world-music textures on Til We Have Faces (1984) and, in 1986, joined Yes guitarist Steve Howe to create the short-lived yet successful AOR outfit GTR. The 1990s found him embracing hard rock and blues on Guitar Noir and Blues with a Feeling, after which he issued the initial entry in his recurring Genesis Revisited series in 1996.

Entering the new century he launched several ventures, among them the Squackett collaboration with Yes bassist Chris Squire; issued well-received solo recordings such as Beyond the Shrouded Horizon (2011), The Night Siren (2017), and Under a Mediterranean Sky (2021); produced four additional Genesis Revisited live collections; and, since 2012, has maintained an extensive partnership with the Hungarian jazz-fusion ensemble Djabe, yielding multiple albums including Live in Blue (2016) and Back to Sardinia (2019).

Hackett’s earliest professional engagements occurred with Canterbury Glass and Sarabande, ensembles that blended mainstream rock with progressive and psychedelic elements. He distinguished himself first as a session player, contributing to the 1970 Quiet World recordings. That group secured a contract with Pye Records and released the album The Road on the label’s progressive imprint Dawn Records. Late in 1970 Hackett encountered Genesis after placing an advertisement seeking kindred progressive musicians; Peter Gabriel replied. With original guitarist Anthony Phillips having exited, the band required a replacement. Hackett attended a concert featuring a temporary guitarist, then contacted the members about joining. He entered the lineup in January 1971 and rapidly became central to their sonic identity, although early live performances were hampered by his limited stage experience and resulting anxiety. He soon emerged not only as a vital sonic contributor but also as a visual signature; his bespectacled, seated posture bent over the instrument in focused concentration differentiated the group from more flamboyant progressive acts of the period.

His technical command and broad stylistic range expanded the band’s palette throughout its progressive phase; together with Phil Collins’s drumming, Genesis formed a genuine virtuoso collective, documented on the albums Foxtrot, Genesis Live, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, all counted among the era’s finest progressive statements. After Peter Gabriel’s departure and Phil Collins’s assumption of lead vocals, followed by the band’s pivot toward a more commercial direction, Hackett adapted with equal facility; the chief distinction lay in album sales climbing from hundreds of thousands to millions and in his own markedly increased public visibility.

His debut solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, appeared in 1975 and in several respects resembled an unreleased Genesis record, featuring both Phil Collins and Michael Rutherford. Released shortly after Gabriel’s exit, the project created tension within the group despite the participation of its members, yet Hackett remained through the Wind & Wuthering tour and made his final appearance with Genesis on the live album Seconds Out, ironically just as the band ascended to the upper tier of concert draws and recording artists. His first post-Genesis solo effort, Please Don’t Touch!, deliberately diverged from the progressive language of his former band and from Voyage of the Acolyte alike. He assembled an initial touring unit that included vocalist Pete Hicks, drummer John Shearer, and brother John Hackett on flute and keyboards; the latter collaboration yielded the Spectral Mornings album.

Throughout the 1980s Hackett’s sound evolved swiftly, evident on Defector, a work blending musical and political fantasy, and the pop-leaning Cured. Concert activity kept him occupied across Europe, and the rising renown of his former band drew fresh listeners to the ex-Genesis guitarist whose playing and presence had been so prominent on those early classic recordings. He rejoined Peter Gabriel and Michael Rutherford, then reunited with all former bandmates for two 1982 charity concerts. The following year he scored a substantial European hit with “Cell 151” from the Highly Strung album, boosting that release to chart success. Mid-decade he incorporated diverse world-music elements into his studio work and began favoring smaller, more intimate venues that showcased his guitar technique.

In 1986 Hackett formed GTR with Yes guitarist Steve Howe; the progressive unit enjoyed MTV and rock-press favor, producing the American hit single “When the Heart Rules the Mind” and a platinum-certified Arista album before embarking on an international tour. He resumed his solo career in 1987, yet the momentum from GTR brought audiences numbering in the tens of thousands to hear his classical-style acoustic performances, positioning him as an arena-rock counterpart to Christopher Parkening or guitarist John Williams. The next major release, Time Lapse, offered a live overview spanning several decades of his output.

In 1994 Hackett surprised many followers by returning to his origins with Blues with a Feeling, an album centered on blues guitar and harmonica sounds that evoked his youth. This move underscored one of the paradoxes of his career: although many assumed classical training because of his Genesis tenure, his music actually drew from an eclectic array of influences he has consistently absorbed; thus, despite beginning as a rock guitarist with blues foundations, he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and composed instrumental classical works inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for EMI’s Angel Records label.

Even as his compositional activities expanded during the 1990s, he increased his concert schedule and revisited his progressive roots by performing Genesis’s classic material. Collaborating with a ensemble that included former King Crimson members Ian McDonald and John Wetton, Genesis drummer Chester Thompson, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, he released the live album Genesis Revisited, exactly as titled. Throughout the decade he fronted Steve Hackett & Friends, featuring former King Crimson personnel, reviving the classic progressive repertoire in fresh concert arrangements preserved on CD and video.

Hackett has sustained a steady recording pace into the twenty-first century; solo albums include To Watch the Storms, Metamorpheus, and Wild Orchids. Live Rails appeared in 2011 and was followed later that year by the moderately successful studio album Beyond the Shrouded Horizon. In 2012 he collaborated with Yes bassist Chris Squire under the Squackett name; their album A Life Within a Day featured seasoned session drummer Jeremy Stacey, recently active with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. That same year Hackett issued Genesis Revisited II, another set of reworked early Genesis material that became his most commercially successful solo album to date.

He returned in 2015 with his twenty-sixth solo album, Wolflight, then embarked on the Acolyte to Wolflight with Genesis Revisited Tour to promote the record and mark the fortieth anniversary of his first solo release. A live recording from the Liverpool concert was released in 2016. Hackett also rejoined wife Jo and co-producer Roger King to develop and record the proper successor to Wolflight, while releasing Live in Blue with the Hungarian jazz and world-music fusion group Djabe. Embracing a stronger world-music orientation, the 2017 album The Night Siren introduced new dimensions to his sound, incorporating vocals from Kobi Farhi and Mira Awad together with an array of global instruments. Djabe and Hackett spent several days on Sardinia in 2016, constructing a temporary studio inside the priest’s house near Nostra Signore di Tergu cathedral. A three-day, fully improvised session was later shaped by Tamás Barabás into the album Life Is a Journey: The Sardinia Tapes, which surfaced several months after The Night Siren. In 2018 Hackett released the live album Wuthering Nights: Live in Birmingham, followed by Life Is a Journey: The Budapest Live Tapes with Djabe.

He continued exploring the intersection of progressive rock and world music on his twenty-fifth studio album, 2019’s At the Edge of Light. That year he also issued Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live at the Royal Festival Hall, captured on October 5, 2018, at London’s Royal Festival Hall during the Genesis Revisited Tour, realizing a long-standing ambition. The concert featured Hackett’s regular touring band with Nad Sylvan on vocals and Jonas Reingold of the Flower Kings on bass, plus guests John Hackett and Amanda Lehmann, augmented by the forty-one-piece Heart of England Orchestra. He also appeared on recordings by John and Lo Musico (On the Wings of the Wind) and Andrea Padova Plays Lo Muscio, and in December released Back to Sardinia with Djabe. A follow-up to their 2017 improvised collaboration, the project proceeded without Hackett’s presence at the Sardinian sessions because of touring commitments; he overdubbed guitar parts in Budapest. Upon hearing the additions, Barabás observed that they had extended the musical language established two years earlier. In 2020 another Genesis-related live set appeared, Selling England by the Pound & Spectral Mornings Live at Hammersmith, documenting Hackett’s complete performance of the classic Genesis album alongside celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of his Spectral Mornings LP. The all-acoustic, instrumental Under a Mediterranean Sky, his twenty-sixth studio album, arrived in 2021, as did the full-band rock album Surrender of Silence. The concert album Genesis Revisited Live: Seconds Out & More followed in 2022.