Peter Gabriel and a few well chosen friends shrink the musical world with their collaborative and amazing Big Blue Ball project

PETER GABRIEL GENERALLY has quite a number of balls in the air at any given moment, and now is no exception. +e renowned singer/songwriter is in the conceptual stages of a new album, he continues to explore the possibilities of his Real World Studios as artist and producer, he recently launched the Hub, a YouTube-like site focused on human rights, and he and his wife are poised to celebrate the arrival of a new child.

“I went to a Chinese doctor a while back who said I had thinking-of-too-many-things disease,” says Gabriel with a laugh. “Which I think I’m still suffering from.” One of the many balls that Gabriel has juggled lately is the release of Big Blue Ball, but anyone who tries to peg it as the new Peter Gabriel album is only going to be

- -.-% correct. Sporting .. tracks and released through Gabriel’s renowned Real World label, Big Blue Ball is indeed an album. But the album is rooted in sessions conducted over a decade and a half ago, so it’s hardly new, and with a star-studded cast that only intermittently includes Gabriel as a performer, it certainly doesn’t pass muster as a Gabriel album.

“A lot of people have been mistakenly quoting it as my latest album and I’ve taken pains to point out that a lot of artists have instigated it,” confirms Gabriel. “I’m not the creator. We were in charge of steering and writing some of it, but it’s much more a group effort than any individual’s effort.” So what exactly is Big Blue Ball? +e album was conceived during a series of weeklong recording sessions assembled in the early and mid ’/0s, hosted by Gabriel at his Real World Studios. +e actual (pardon the expression) genesis of the idea began nearly a decade earlier in ./12, when Gabriel was instrumental in establishing the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival, known to most simply as WOMAD.

!e festival brought together the talents of a number of disparate and yet creatively connected artists and the musicians’ natural tendency to congregate and collaborate inspired Gabriel to take it to the next level.

“We found that the musicians would start jamming whenever there was an opportunity,” acknowledges Gabriel. “We originally thought it would be really cool to get some of the musicians from the festival together, maybe with some songwriters, because jams are sometimes great for those involved and pretty boring for everybody else. So we thought maybe we could harness this with songwriting and put a lot of people from around the world together with some producers and songwriters and see what they could generate.” !e result of Gabriel’s initial WOMAD inspiration was a series of what he dubbed “Recording Weeks,” where the aforementioned wealth of performing, songwriting and production talent would collaborate on the creation and execution of fresh, original material. For a week at a time, in ’"# and ’"$ and again in ’"%, Gabriel and his co-curator and World Party frontman Karl Wallinger invited some of the world’s greatest musical figures to participate in their writing/ performing project. Gabriel kept his on-site studio cafe open around the clock to accommodate the schedules and muses of his international cast and the results of each week were dutifully recorded on Real World’s state of the art equipment.

“I’d always admired Karl’s songwriting, and in some ways he’s an English version of Prince; he can play most things and do it all himself,” notes Gabriel. “He seemed to be very interested in exploring stuff from around the world, so he was a great choice. He was a bit of a chain smoker at the time, which I didn’t enjoy, but his sense of humor was abundant and had us in hysterics in the wee hours when we were just trying to stay awake.” Although Gabriel recalls the three Recording Weeks as being the most fun and satisfying recording experiences of his career, the economic realities of flying in musicians from around the globe and housing and feeding them for a week ultimately became insurmountable.

!e last Recording Week took place #' years ago.

“!at’s unfortunately why we stopped doing it, because we couldn’t find a way to make it pay,” says Gabriel. “Just getting people to travel, hotels, accommodations when they’re there, the additional people we need on site—it was costing a fortune and not selling records as a result. If this record does well, we might have another opportunity.” Just as the cost of the Recording Weeks became unwieldy, the amount of material generated over the three weeklong sessions accumulated to a point where it was hard to wrestle them into a releasable form.

“!ere were so many tracks recorded,” remembers Gabriel. “We had a lot of great musicians who would fire away furiously during the week. Normally you do some tidying up work every day after recording, and we didn’t because we were so desperate while everyone was there to grab their performances and not do the homework, if you like. People would look into it and think, ‘Ooh, let’s have a go at that,’ and then realize, ‘!is is a nightmare, it needs so much sorting.’ And [former Jules and the Polar Bears keyboardist and renowned producer] Stephen Hague was the man who was brave enough to take it on in the end.” Given the stellar array of talent that graces the credits of Big Blue Ball, it’s a pretty safe bet that the album will generate more than cultish sales figures. With contributions from former Crowded House/Split Enz sparkplug Tim Finn, jazz great Billy Cobham, Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, Irish chanteuse Sinead O’Connor, Prince protégé Wendy Melvoin, musical chameleon Jah Wobble, gospel/soul shouters the Holmes Brothers, Congolese Soukous giant Papa Wemba, well-traveled French drummer Manu Katche, singer/songwriters Joseph Arthur and Jules Shear, internationally beloved and inspired vocalist Natacha Atlas (not to mention co-producers and performers Gabriel, Wallinger and Hague) and a global who’s who of world music purveyors, it’s clear that Big Blue Ball will appeal to a broadly diverse cross section of music fans, likely spearheaded by Gabriel’s legion of faithful followers.

To narrow the focus slightly, Gabriel and his coproducers concentrated on one particular aspect of the Recording Weeks, namely the parts they were most directly involved in overseeing.

“!is particular record comes more from the stuff that we were doing in our room,” emphasizes Gabriel.

“Karl Wallinger and I were trying to steer the creative process that was happening. Poets were there, as well as musicians from all over and various sorts of percussionists, so there was a fantastic sort of palette of players and sounds.” !e spontaneity of the event extended into the actual guest list of those who were invited to take part in the Recording Weeks. Gabriel notes that there was little forethought given to the eventual sonic output of the assembled attendees, merely an attempt to attract as diverse a crowd as possible.

“Some of it was those that had spent a bit of time coming to the festival, some were just people we knew that we thought might be interested or sympathetic,” he says.

Gabriel also points out that the idea of assembling talent in this blind collaborative manner has been applied in various other disciplines. Miles Copeland has hosted several songwriting weeks that are very similar, and former Take !at vocalist/songwriter Gary Barlow organized a group of professional tunesmiths to come up with the score for a new British television program this fall.

“It’s that thing of having to work very fast and with what you’ve got available,” says Gabriel. “And with great musicians around, it’s a great vibe.” Big Blue Ball was obviously created in an atmosphere of independence—from label and commercial expectations, and even from the artists’ preconceived manner of crafting their own work—and Gabriel sees the new digital age reinforcing that kind of freedom. He envisions an altered economy of scale, where even very small artists can attract a substantial enough audience to sustain their creative efforts. By the same token, he feels as though indie record stores, while experiencing a serious slump at present, will bounce back with a similar focus on serving a smaller but equally passionate customer base.

“!ey are struggling for sure, at the moment,” says Gabriel of indie record outlets in his home country.

“However, those that are good at supplying added value, where someone can come in and get a good recommendation, I think have a much better chance of survival than a store that just hands over the record. I remember when I was growing up we used to go down to a store where they would know what I liked and offer suggestions. It was a really valuable service.” When the question of highlights arises, Gabriel has plenty of favorite moments from which to choose across the entire three-weeks-in-three-years project. By the time he’s gone through his hit list of top memories of the process, he’s namechecked just about the entirety of Big Blue Ball.

“!e track ‘Habibe,’ which was with Natacha Atlas, Hassam Ramzy and Neil Sparkes, I think that was one of my favorites,” recalls Gabriel. “!e Egyptian string players that she had on it were improvising, so there was a lead player who was composing on the spot, as it were, and the three other guys with their ears trying to copy him but a little behind, so it has this lovely slowing delay that’s built in, but it’s very much man-made and not an external effect. It’s a sort of serpent-like weaving of the strings and I loved that. Papa Wemba singing ‘Shadow;’ he and Juan Canizares, the flamenco player, did some beautiful work on that track. !e Deep Forest track [‘Altus Silva’] with Joseph Arthur singing.

And the Holmes Brothers singing on ‘Burn You Up, Burn You Down’; you can just hear the history in their voices, and Billy Cobham doing some tracks and Arona N’diaye doing some percussion. And Vernon Reid and [Hungarian vocalist] Marta Sebestyen [on ‘Rivers’], that was all improvising. And the ‘Big Blue Ball’ track, that’s much more Karl’s. Sinead’s ‘Everything Comes From You’ is another nice one. !ere were many, many good moments.” And what does the future portend for a Big Blue Ball !?

“Well, we’ve still got the festival going on, so we’re going from strength to strength,” says Gabriel. “!ere’s still a ready supply of musicians from around the world and I’m sure there are songwriters who’d be interested in having a go at it.”