Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett have paid tribute to the former Genesis and Gabriel tour manager and “sixth-member” Richard Macphail, who has died, aged 73.
“Very upset to learn of Richard Macphail‘s death last night,” Gabriel wrote eon his Facebook page. “We had sixty years of history together, from when we were at school and he was the cool singer in the band called the Anon to when I spoke to him last week after he had had a nasty fall.
“Rich was the person who time after time bailed us out of difficult situations. When we couldn’t afford a rehearsal space he persuaded his parents to let us have their family’s country cottage in Abinger Hammer for a year and when we couldn’t afford a van he persuaded his father to let us have an old Hovis bread van that we drove around the country. When some of the band were having doubts about our future, he would inspire all of us and convince us to carry on.
“He went from friend and champion to became Genesis’s tour manager and then my own tour manager when i started working agin. His determination, good humour and enthusiasm got us all through so many difficult moments.
“Richard, I can’t believe you are no longer here. Ours wasn’t always an easy relationship but it was built on love respect and shared experience and there’s now a huge hole in my life. Going to miss you Rich.”
“I’m incredibly shocked and sad to hear about the passing of Richard Macphail,” Hackett posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He was one of the most special people I’ve ever known and he brought out the best in everyone. He was so kind to me in those early Genesis days and he remained a lifelong friend.”
Amand Lehmann, who works closely with Hackett also added, “I am so sad and shocked to hear about the passing of Richard Macphail. He was a truly lovely man, one of life’s absolute gems. He will be missed by so many and my thoughts are with Maggie and his family.”
A contemporary of Tony Banks, Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford and Chris Stewart at Charterhouse school, Macphail sang in the group Anon, which featured Phillips, and later Rutherford. Those two eventually hooked up with Gabriel, Banks and Stewart of the Garden Wall to form Genesis.
Macphail may have quit Anon, but he did not quit on his schoolmates, and after returning from a kibbutz, he instigated, thanks to his parents, the use of Christmas Cottage near Wotton in Surrey, rent-free for Genesis as they developed their sound above and beyond that of their From Genesis To Revelation album.
Having been otehr the band and Gabriel’s tour manager, he later ventured off for a career in ecological and environmental fields.
Macphail was well known to the prog community, not just for appearing on the Genesis album covers for Foxtrot and Live, the latter of which bore the inscription “This album is dedicated to Richard Macphail who left April 1973,”, but also for the release in 2018 of My Book Of Genesis, which looked at his time with the band. Prog attended the launch of his book on the band, attended by Banks, Gabriel, Hackett and Rutherford at Daunt Books on Holland Park Avenue.