It's sort of hard to believe that ten years ago I first heard of Ray Wilson.
When I got back from summer vacation – back when I was a senior – I met up with some of the cronies who had put in time over the summer at the radio station. I don't think there was ever anyone to work exclusively at the station, but there were always a few who liked to pull a few extra shifts closer to the start of the fall semester.
I stopped in to announce my return and visit with whomever I found, as well as to take a peek at the weekly preview discs that we had received over the summer months. One thing caught my eye: Genesis. I was keenly aware of the group, after hearing Invisible Touch-era music for years on the radio, and after playing the only non-scratched cut off their 1983 album during our classic rock programming (sigh - Illegal Alien). But this was something new – Congo – and should sound vastly different since Phil Collins was no longer part of the band, having been replaced by...and then there was who? Ah, the aforementioned Ray Wilson.
I remember someone made the comment that the album was doomed because it didn't have that "P-Sound." It took me a second for that to sink in (when did Genesis ever sound like George Clinton?) until I realized "Ray" didn't start with the letter "P" the way "Phil" and "Peter" did. Therefore the puzzle piqued my interest: who was Ray Wilson? Where did Mike and Tony find this guy?
Well, I suppose if I knew more about 90's rock in the UK, then I would have heard of Stiltskin and Wilson's association with that outfit. But I hadn't. And I don't think many people at the radio station were too eager to seek out Stiltskin's 1994 album, either. If anything, Ray made me want to seek out some of the Peter-era music and see what was going on before I was born. It also made me want to hear more of the Collins-era that I thought I knew something about (based solely on his last three studio albums). Calling All Stations – or as we quipped, "Calling Any Station" – apparently did not make the impact it thought it would.
But I think that's a bit unfair. As I said, it's hard to believe ten years have passed since I first heard Congo and in that time, the song's grown on me. So has the album, which I found secondhand a few years ago and have turned on more than a few times. Having heard the entire Genesis studio output from their...well...literal Genesis forward, I must confess to finding Wilson's album a welcome change. With no ill will to Collins, Calling All Stations is somewhat refreshing in places, without those flourishes that made later day Genesis albums and solo-Collins output indistinguishable. Many reviews have noted an attempted return to the band's progressive roots and those comments are not arguable. Pockets of uncertainty bubble up in places – a couple tracks sound like one extended lament for a better life somewhere else – but on the whole the album isn’t bad and could have been the third stage of the band - had the thoughts and gestures of the band’s remaining core not crawled off into obscurity.
The Genesis of today is out on tour and again fronted by Collins. Wilson has continued his musical endeavors, too, with the 1999 album Millionairhead and a second Stiltskin album in 2006.
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Congo
(Tony Banks/Mike Rutherford)
Genesis
From the album Calling All Stations
1997
You say that I put chains on you
But I don't think that's really true
But if you want to be free from me
You gotta lose me in another world
Send me to the Congo I'm free to leave
There's always somewhere anybody can lead
Send me to the Congo you have to believe
You can do it if you wanna just do what you please
Like a soldier ant
I will wait for the signal to act
To take a walk right through the door
If you don't want me here any more
Send me to the Congo I'm free to leave
There's always somewhere anybody can lead
Send me to the Congo you have to believe
You can do it if you wanna just do what you please
Into my heart you came
And gave a whole new meaning to my life
Into my world you brought a light
I thought it never would go out
Send me to the Congo I'm free to leave
There's always somewhere anybody can lead
Send me to the Congo you have to believe
You can do it if you wanna just do what you please
You can send me to the Congo I'm free to leave
There's always somewhere anybody can lead
Yes you can send me to the Congo, you have to believe
You can do it if you wanna just do what you please
I would never be the one to say you had no reason
To want me somewhere else far far away
But someday you may understand, someday you will see
That someone who would die for you is all I've ever been
Congo the Congo, if that's how it's got to be
Congo the Congo, if that's what you want from me
I would never be the one to say you had no reason
To want me somewhere else far far away
Someday you may understand someday you will see...
