The Intro

You Can’t Hurry Love was one of The Supremes’ biggest hits in 1966. But it was Phil Collins who took it to number 1 in the UK, with a faithful rendition of the Motown smash. Collins had left Genesis and begun a solo career, and went on to become one of the world’s bestselling singers of all time. Seriously.

Before

Philip David Charles Collins was born 30 January 1951 at Putney Hospital in Wandsworth, South London. The youngest of three children, Collins and co moved twice before he had reached three, and they settled in Brentford and Chiswick, Middlesex. At the age of five, Collins received a toy drumkit for Christmas. He would play along to music on the television and radio, and developed a keen ear. Aged seven, he interrupted his own talent show performance of The Ballad of Davy Crockett to tell the accompanying orchestra they were in the wrong key. In his formative years, Collins loved The Beatles and the soul music of Motown and Stax Records. Although he received basic music tuition when he was 12, he never learned to read or write music notation.

Collins moved from Nelson Primary School in Twickenham, Middlesex to Chiswick County Grammar School in 1962. He formed his first band, The Real Thing (not the group that scored a number 1 with You to Me Are Everything in 1976), which featured his future wife Andrea Bertorelli on backing vocals.

In his mid-teens, Collins quit school to enrol at Barbara Speake Stage School. He was uncredited in his role as an audience member in The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and later that year he had his first starring role as The Artful Dodger in Oliver!. Although he had two West End runs, his days in the role were numbered when his voice broke. Collins also nearly starred in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), but his role was cut.

While trying to make it big as an actor, Collins continued to love music, and frequented the Marquee Club so often that the management asked him to help out there. Eventually he decided to concentrate on music, and he auditioned unsuccessfully for Vinegar Joe and Manfred Mann Chapter Three. But The Cliff Charles Blues Band enlisted him, and he then jumped ship to a backing band known as The Gladiators. Incredibly, he had the chance to audition for Yes after he spoke to singer Jon Anderson, but he failed to turn up.

In 1969, Collins was part of John Walker’s (of The Walker Brothers) backing band during a live tour. When that ended, the band became Hickory, before settling on Flaming Youth. They recorded the concept album Ark 2. A year later, his path crossed the Fab Four’s once more, when he recorded a conga part for George Harrison’s Art of Dying.

The rock band Genesis, who had formed in 1967, signed to Charisma Records in 1970 and released their second LP, Trespass. Genesis were in a period of upheaval, having lost their guitarist, Anthony Phillips, and fired their third drummer, John Mayhew. Singer Peter Gabriel, a former drummer himself, was impressed by Collins, and he got the gig.

For the next five years, Collins played drums and percussion and sang backing vocals with Genesis. Over time, the band noticed the strength and synergy of Gabriel and Collins’ voices when put together. Then, in 1975, Gabriel decided to leaPve Genesis, and although Collins sang backing vocals for would-be applicants, they decided he would become their new lead singer for the album A Trick of the Tail. The decision was vindicated when the album became a hit in the UK and US.

In 1977, Genesis became a trio after the departure of guitarist Steve Hackett. The 1978 LP that followed – …And Then There Were Three… – was also a smash, and contained their first UK top 10 hit in Follow You, Follow Me. But Collins’ marriage was in trouble, and following their December tour, Genesis went on hiatus.

Collins failed to save his marriage and so returned to music, resuming his role in jazz fusion group Brand X, who he had helped since 1975. No stranger to cameos elsewhere, having collaborated with Brian Eno previously, he also helped out John Martyn. Genesis resumed in 1980 with their 10th album, Duke. Collins was becoming more involved as a songwriter, and it paid off, becoming their first UK number 1 album.

Soon after, Collins was working on demos for songs he considered too simple for Genesis. They also had a personal nature, often concerning his impending divorce. In January 1981 came his debut solo single, the haunting In the Air Tonight. Featuring one of the most famous drum breaks in pop, the song went to two in the charts. Quite the introduction to a solo career, but nothing else from that album, Face Value, matched it, with I Missed Again and If Leaving Me Is Easy reaching 14 and 17 respectively.

The early 80s were an extremely busy and successful time for Collins. In 1981, he also found time to be on Genesis’s next LP Abacab and produce Martyn’s album Glorious Fool. The following year, he produced and played on Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA’s LP Something’s Going On and drummed on Robert Plant’s first solo album Pictures at Eleven.

He then set to work on his second solo album, Hello, I Must Be Going!. As with his last, much of the material focused on his divorce. However, the first single, Thru These Walls, didn’t bode well. A song about listening through walls to neighbours having sex, the song sounded like an inferior retread of In the Air Tonight. Released a month before the album, in October 1982, it didn’t even reach the top 40. Collins would have been better off releasing his cover of You Can’t Hurry Love first.

You Can’t Hurry Love had been one of The Supremes’ signature tunes. It was penned by prolific Motown hitmakers Lamont-Dozier-Holland and based on the gospel song You Can’t Hurry God by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes. The Supremes single was a pulsating, bright and breezy pop stomper with backing from the Funk Brothers, and it peaked at three in the UK in the late summer of 1966. Collins wanted to pay tribute to Motown (his latest album said ‘Motown, we salute you’ on the back) and worked with producer Hugh Padgham to attempt a remake, rather than interpretation, of the classic recording. He later admitted he didn’t succeed, dissing specifically the ‘naff strings’ on his version.

Nonetheless, Collins had recorded his vocal, drums and tambourine in May and June 1982, with help from Daryl Stuermer on guitar, John Giblin on bass and J Peter Robinson on piano, glockenspiel and vibraphone. Strings were provided by Martyn Ford and credited to The Mountain Fjord Orchestra.

Review

Collins’ standing in the music world is interesting. From drummer in one of the biggest prog rock bands of the 70s, to global superstar in the 80s. Capable of bangers like In the Air Tonight and Easy Lover, yet also guilty of the hypocritical Another Day in Paradise. A bland, uninteresting character, yet also blessed with an unassuming charisma. He was subject to ridicule for years, yet his stock has rightfully improved in recent years. He didn’t deserve such disdain, yet I can see why he was attacked.

Depending on my mood on the rare occasion I now hear it, his version of You Can’t Hurry Love is either unnecessary or not bad. It’s a serviceable attempt at covering a real classic, but why bother? If his aim really was to capture the 60s sound, while updating it a little for 80s audiences, he’s right that he didn’t really achieve it. Having said that, who could, especially in the early 80s, when production techniques were as far removed as Motown’s raw yet sugary pop could be?

The best part of this version is Collins’ voice. You’d never choose it over Diana Ross, Florence Ballard or Mary Wilson’s, but it does work surprisingly well here. Less surprising is that the other highlight is Collins’ drumming. It seems that unfortunately it may take his passing for people to realise he was an excellent drummer, not just an MOR pop star. You can feel his love for the sounds of his youth, and the enthusiasm somehow shines through this average but pleasant cover. There’s no wonder it became his first number 1, as it appealed to his many fans and the record buyers of the 60s, who by then will have loved this unthreatening new version of a tune from their teens.

They’ll have also enjoyed the novelty of the video, in which Collins performs the song under a spotlight, with two other versions of him on backing vocals – one wearing sunglasses. Collins as The Supremes. I will have been four when I first saw it, and I was fascinated to know how he was able to be in three places at once. Was he magic?

After

You Can’t Hurry Love became the first new number 1 of 1983, toppling the 1982 Christmas chart-topper Save Your Love. It also topped the charts in many countries and was a US hit. Collins was well on the way to becoming a global megastar.

The Outro

Lamont Dozier was impressed by Collins’ cover, and was happy to say yes when Collins asked him to co-write Two Hearts, a lovely Motown tribute that featured in his film Buster (1988).

The Info

Written by

Holland-Dozier-Holland

Producer

Phil Collins & Hugh Padgham

Weeks at number 1

2 (15-28 January)

Trivia

Births

21 January: Labour MP Wes Streeting
24 January: Scottish footballer Shaun Maloney
27 January: Scottish Conservative MP Douglas Ross

Deaths

18 January: Composer Cedric Thorpe Davie/Writer Colin Watson
22 January: Trade unionist Walter Citrine, 1st Baron Citrine
28 January: Singer-songwriter Billy Fury

Meanwhile…

17 January: Breakfast Time became the first British breakfast television programme when it launched on BBC One.

19 January: The two policemen who wounded the innocent Stephen Waldorf were charged with attempted murder and released on bail. They were suspended from duty pending further investigation.

23 January: The prohibition on non-British boats fishing in British waters was lifted when the European Economic Community’s Common Fisheries Policy came into effect. 

25 January: The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was launched, becoming the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths.

26 January: Red rain fell in the UK, caused by sand from the Sahara Desert within the droplets. 

28 January: Escaped prisoner David Martin (who Stephen Waldorf had been mistaken for) was rearrested.