Happy Birthday, Mike Rutherford!

Michael John Cleote Crawford Rutherford was born the son of Annette and
Crawford Rutherford on October 02, 1950 at 7.30p.m. in Surrey, in the
south of England.

Mike Rutherford
began his career as a musician as well as his grown-up life at Charterhouse-School, where also his fellows Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel lived and learned. But without a doubt, his closest friend at the time was Anthony Phillips, with whom he first formed the band The Anon. At the latest with the association of The Garden Wall and The Anon into Genesis, Rutherford’s destiny was sealed. He turned out to be a stylish forerunner and did not avoid any risk when it came to hairstyle options neither. He musically stood out as an excellent rhythm guitarist and the bass-loops of the early Genesis material still make fans happy around the world. While his band gained musical reputation after Steve Hackett and Phil Collins joined Genesis, Rutherford concentrated on songwriting and soon he created a songwriter-duo with Tony Banks. Peter Gabriel’s departure pushed the influence of that duo forward even more, while at the same time it caused another departure – Steve Hackett decided to leave shortly afterwards.
Rutherford was now faced with the problem to play lead guitar again. So he bought in world-class guitarist Daryl Stuermer, who immediately started to explain Rutherford & co, how to play their own songs and what they actually have composed in earlier days of the band.

But for Rutherford, it was never enough to have Stuermer explain his own guitar world to him, so, after two relatively unsuccessful solo-albums, he formed another band – Mike + The Mechanics. With the two Pauls, Young und Carrack, as leadsingers he managed to have a couple of hit-singles and a considerable successful solo project. He even managed to match up with Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins – all of them had a US No.-1-Hit-Single.

Rutherford was never afraid of changes. The line-up of the Mechancis changed regularly, and even the sudden death of Paul Young could not stop the band. Even for Genesis, where members came and went, he was one of a few constant features.

Whenever he found the time, he took it to play Polo. One of his special abilities is also to balance a full coffee-cup on the knee of the one leg he has layn over the other. This was proved during the it-Interview in 2007 (see photo).

But without a doubt, Rutherford became most popular for his come-to-bed eyes, his shark fin nose and the quattro-neck guitar – these characteristics have been taped for music history on the
Genesis-Video for Land Of Confusion.

Today, on 2nd October 2010 – just one day before the 20th anniversary of the German unification and exactly 28 years after the temporary unification of the famous “Genesis-5”, Rutherfords birthday is celebrated for the 60th time. We wish him all the best, health and a lot of musical inspiration and creativity for the years to come.

Happy Birthday, Mike – congratulate in our forum

Happy Birthday, Mike – post congrats on Facebook