English guitarist and
bass player most noted for his work as a founding member of the bands
Genesis and
Mike & the Mechanics.
Michael Rutherford was born October 2, 1950, in Guildford, Surrey, England. His father was a captain in the British Royal Navy, and so he spent his early years in Portsmouth. He entered Charterhouse School in 1964, where he, along with friend Anthony Phillips, formed a band called "The Anon." This band would, in 1967, merge with another band, "The Garden Wall" (whose members were Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel) to form what was briefly called "The New Anon" before their manager of the time, Jonathan King, renamed them "Genesis."
Rutherford continued to play with Genesis throughout its thirty-plus-year history, one of only two original band members (the other being Tony Banks) to do so. Like the other band members, he branched out into solo projects in the early '80's, recording two albums under his own name (the concept album Smallcreep's Day in 1980 and Acting Very Strange in 1982) before joining up with vocalists Paul Carrack (formerly of Squeeze) and Paul Young to form
Mike & The Mechanics. Their first, self-titled album, in 1985, yielded the hit songs "Silent Running" and "All I Need Is a Miracle"; they followed this three years later with Living Years, the title track of which was a big hit.
As of 2000, with the untimely death of Paul Young and Genesis losing its newest lead singer, Ray Wilson, Rutherford's career faces an uncertain future.
Sources: Mike Rutherford's bio page on http://www.genesis-web.co.uk; additional snippets from an interview recorded at http://www.progressiveworld.net/mike_mechinterv.html