Mike Rutherford of Genesis
Mike Rutherford (full name Michael John Cleote Crawford Rutherford, born October 2, 1950) was one of the founding members of Genesis, and, other than Tony Banks, the only member to remain with the group throughout its history. While in my article on Tony Banks I argued that he was probably the single most important member of Genesis in that he more than anyone else was responsible for the group’s overall sound, Mike Rutherford played nearly as important a role over the years. At the time the group formed in 1967, his closest friend and chief collaborator was Anthony Phillips, just as Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel were friends and songwriting collaborators. In the very early years, Rutherford was perhaps somewhat less important in musical terms, as he was probably the least proficient on his instrument (the bass) and the other three did a slightly larger share of the songwriting, but he was vital to the group chemistry, and fairly soon he and Phillips developed a distinctive way of playing 12-string guitars in tandem that was a key element in the group’s sound. By the time Phillips left in 1970, Rutherford was able to step into his role as one of Genesis’s main songwriters along with Banks and Gabriel, and as a performer his bass and 12-string guitar was, along with Phil Collins’s drums, the backbone to the band’s sound in concert. Even in the Gabriel years, Rutherford, Banks and Collins in particular developed a good chemistry in the studio, writing sections of “Supper’s Ready” and “The Cinema Show” as a trio. On his own, Rutherford wrote a few pieces like the opening section of “The Cinema Show”. Rutherford also came up with guitar riffs that various songs were built on, a notable example being “Back in N.Y.C”, which was unusually hard and edgy for a Genesis song, almost proto-punk.
In the years immediately after Gabriel left, Banks and Rutherford were the band’s primary songwriters, though lead guitarist Steve Hackett also wrote some key tracks and Collins contributed to a lot of the group-written tracks (“Dance on a Volcano”, for instance, began with a jam by the Banks-Collins-Rutherford trio, with Rutherford writing the lyrics). While he wrote a little less than Banks, he was the main writer of tracks like “Ripples” (aside from the lyrics, it seems he also wrote all the music with the exception of the instrumental section written by Banks) and “Squonk” (for which he wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the music with Banks). He also wrote “Your Own Special Way”, the first Genesis song to chart in the US. After Hackett left, Rutherford took over all guitar duties in the studio in addition to his role as bassist, and he and Banks at first handled nearly all the songwriting, though Collins soon began to take on a more of a hand in the latter. While Rutherford never became a guitar virtuoso, he soon adapted to using the guitar in a way that combined very well with Banks’s keyboards and Collins’s drums and vocals. A number of songs he wrote entirely on his own appeared on the first three post-Hackett albums, And Then There Were Three, Duke, and Abacab (plus an EP from the same period), but even at this point some of his most important songwriting contributions were on group compositions, such as the hits “Follow You Follow Me” and “Turn It On Again”, both of which were based on riffs that Rutherford came up with and both which he wrote the lyrics for. After Genesis started writing all their songs as a group, there were still many songs that came more from Rutherford than the others (just as there were songs that were more Banks or more Collins), including heavier tracks like “Just a Job to Do”, “Land of Confusion”, and “Dreaming While You Sleep” and ballads like “Taking It All Too Hard” and “Throwing It All Away”, all of which were based mainly on Rutherford’s guitar as well as featuring his lyrics. He also made contributions that are less readily apparent from the instruments used: for instance, the drum machine riff that “Mama” was built on came from Rutherford, not Collins. After Collins finally left the group, it was apparently Rutherford who was most keen to try to keep the group going, though after the relative failure of Calling All Stations, he was also the one who didn’t want to make another attempt (the initially hesitant Banks was more willing to record another album with the new lineup).
Rutherford, like Banks, started his solo career after the release of And Then There Were Three in 1978, though previously he had also contributed heavily to Anthony Phillips’s first solo album (originally intended as a Phillips/Rutherford joint album, though Rutherford’s Genesis commitments scuttled that plan) and co-wrote a song on Steve Hackett's first solo album, released in 1977. On his first solo album, Smallcreep’s Day (1980), he worked with a guest vocalist, and on his second, Acting Very Strange (1982), he handled the vocals himself. He disliked the results and also concluded that he worked best in collaboration with other songwriters, so he formed the group Mike & the Mechanics featuring vocalists Paul Carrack and Paul Young and co-writers B.A. Robertson and Christopher Neil. This group unexpectedly achieved commercial success not far short of Genesis and Phil Collins as a solo artist, leaving Tony Banks, the central figure in Genesis, as the only member not have commercial success as a solo artist (though their manager once asserted that Genesis was Tony Banks’s solo career). Even with the seeming demise of Genesis (unless Collins decides to come back out of retirement and join forces again with Banks and Rutherford as he did in their 2007 reunion tour), Mike and the Mechanics remains active, Rutherford having reformed the group recently – the first incarnation split after the death of Paul Young, and a second incarnation with Paul Carrack in a more prominent role released one album in 2004.
Rutherford’s songwriting tends to be slightly simpler than that of his longtime collaborator Tony Banks, as a comparison of their work both in and outside Genesis shows. In fact, a few fans of the earlier incarnations of Genesis “blame” Rutherford rather than Phil Collins, the usual target, for Genesis becoming more commercial, pointing to songs like “Your Own Special Way”, “Follow You Follow Me”, “Alone Tonight” and “Throwing It All Away” as evidence (of course this assumes that the later version of Genesis is inferior, a view I don’t agree with). While Rutherford’s songs are certainly more direct than those of Banks, there is more to his writing than these ballads, such as the harder-edged songs cited earlier, which give the music of Genesis much needed variety. Lyrically, he is perhaps a bit more consistent than Banks – though he occasionally wrote fairly banal lyrics, he also wrote exceptional ones like “Ripples” and “Land of Confusion”. In the interviews accompanying the remixes of Genesis's albums, he also showed that he is quite perceptive concerning flaws in the band's earlier work, such as their lyrics sometimes being overly "busy" or the music and lyrics clashing due to the way they worked at the time. Judging from his career as a whole, I would have to agree with his own assessment that he works best in collaboration with others. Though one or two songs that he wrote entirely or almost entirely on his own are classics, such as “Ripples”, the vast majority of his best work was co-written with others, even when he was the main writer. Most of the Genesis songs he wrote alone are decent, but on the whole they are not as strong as most of Banks’s solo compositions for the group. As for his solo albums, some parts of Smallcreep’s Day do sound very much like Genesis and much of the music is quite pleasant to listen to, but as a whole the album seems to be lacking something. The same holds true for Acting Very Strange, though I’ll admit I haven’t listened to either album many times and it’s possible that I would discover their virtues through repeated listening. While Mike and the Mechanics is certainly more MOR than his earlier work, and the group has plenty of songs that are simple mediocre (certainly Genesis albums are far more consistent), they also have some that are great, such as “Silent Running”. I generally find Banks’s solo efforts more interesting overall, but the best work of Mike and the Mechanics is quite good as well. In general, what I know of his non-Genesis work supports my impression that while Rutherford often has had great musical ideas, he usually – though not always – needs a collaborator (or two) to help him bring them to completion.
On the list below, for the Gabriel era, I have restricted myself to the few songs that Rutherford is known to have been chiefly responsible for. I have left out songs from the first two Genesis albums that he co-wrote with Phillips, as well as songs that there is no reliable information about (it’s quite possible, for instance, that he was the main composer of songs other than “Back in N.Y.C.” on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, but no interviews have confirmed this). For the albums where individual songwriting credits are given (from the first post-Gabriel album, A Trick of the Tail, to Abacab), I have generally excluded co-written songs, even where Rutherford wrote the lyrics (such as on “Dance on a Volcano” and “Eleventh Earl of Mar”), with the exception of particularly notable tracks like “Squonk”, “Follow You Follow Me” and “Turn It On Again” [Update: I recently came across an interview in which Rutherford said he wrote the lyrics for "Abacab", so that song probably should be added to those below, as it's one of the band's best tracks from the album of the same name]. For the later years, I have included important songs that Rutherford wrote the lyrics for and for which he seems to have been the driving force compositionally. While with slightly stricter criteria (such as excluding co-written songs like “Squonk” that are not known for certain to be composed mainly by Rutherford and including fewer of the later group compositions), some extra effort (such as editing out the last half of “The Cinema Show” and the instrumental section of “Ripples”, as these were mostly written by others) and dropping a few other less great tracks, it would be possible to make a single CD of Rutherford’s best work with Genesis, I decided to expand it to two CDs as I did with Banks, though in this case it was easy to fit everything with some room to spare. For his solo career, I picked a few highlights and representative tracks, but since I don’t have all of the albums he did (such as the last several Mike and the Mechanics CDs) and those I do have I’m not thoroughly familiar with, I no doubt missed a few worthwhile songs.
The Best of Mike Rutherford with Genesis
The Cinema Show (opening section) (Music: Rutherford[opening section], Banks/Rutherford/Collins[instrumental section]; Lyrics: Rutherford/Banks)
More Fool Me (Rutherford/Collins)
Back in N.Y.C. (Music: Rutherford[main riff]/Banks/Collins/Hackett)
Ripples (Music: Rutherford/Banks; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Squonk (Music: Rutherford/Banks; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Your Own Special Way (Rutherford)
Snowbound (Rutherford)
Deep in the Motherlode (Rutherford)
Say It’s Alright Joe (Rutherford)
Follow You Follow Me (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Turn It On Again (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Man of Our Times (Rutherford)
Alone Tonight (Rutherford)
Open Door (Rutherford)
Like It Or Not (Rutherford)
Taking It All Too Hard (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Just a Job to Do (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Land of Confusion (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Throwing It All Away (Music: Rutherford/Banks/Collins; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Dreaming While You Sleep (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Calling All Stations (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Rutherford)
The Dividing Line (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Mike Rutherford Solo and with Mike and the Mechanics
(Tracks 1 to 4 performed by Mike Rutherford; Tracks 5-11 performed by Mike and the Mechanics)
Moonshine (Rutherford)
At the End of the Day (Rutherford)
Halfway There (Palmer/Rutherford)
Hideaway (Rutherford)
Silent Running (Rutherford/Robertson)
All I Need Is a Miracle (Rutherford/Neil)
The Living Years (Rutherford/Robertson)
Word of Mouth (Rutherford/Neil)
Over My Shoulder (Rutherford/Carrack)
Another Cup of Coffee (Rutherford/Neil)
Now That You've Gone (Rutherford/Carrack)
Honorable Mentions: Time and Time Again, Acting Very Strange, Couldn't Get Arrested, Taken In, Beggar on a Beach of Gold
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