STEVE HACKETT

It’s a time of reflection for Steve Hackett. With his autobiography, A Genesis In My Bed, on the bookshelves and a new live album retelling his old band Genesis’s most powerful prog statement with a version of Selling England By The Pound, the time seems right to look back and trace his musical journey to its starting point…

- David Mead

In The Beginning

“The mouth organ was a big deal for me, so from the age of about two my parents started buying me harmonicas because it was my favourite toy. My mum says I was playing tunes at two, but that can’t be possible. She said, ‘You used to play the same little tune over and over again…’ I do remember what was going on and it was trying to learn to isolate the notes so that I could move them around. So I think I spent forever just playing the lowest two notes – suck, blow and move around – and then for some reason one day I realised I could play a bunch of tunes. I don’t know if I was three or four, but certainly no older than that. I could play Scotland The Brave, Oh! Susanna and God Save The Queen. Suddenly I could play three tunes. ‘Look, mum!’”

Into The Shadows

“Guitar started to become important around the late 1950s. Maybe I’ve got the chronology wrong here, but I seem to remember the first single I bought was The Shadows’ Man Of Mystery and I thought it had an intriguing sound. I still think the melody is good – that descending sequence. I started buying just about every Shadows record I could, and many years later I met Hank Marvin and told him that was the first record I ever bought. He was very modest about it and very gentlemanly. It was refreshing to meet him. He was self-effacing and it was really quite extraordinary to meet my hero. The guitar sounded like that at that stage; guitars hadn’t learned to scream and sustain and rip and do all those slash and burn things until a little bit later.”

Wild Blues Yonder