Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant was a British ^{United Kingdom} progressive rock band ^{band (music)} active between 1970 and 1980. The band was notable for the particular complexity and sophistication of its musical material and for the diverse musical skills of its members (all of whom, bar the first two drummers, were accomplished multi-instrumentalists). Although they were not successful, they were able to "rock the roof" and had many die-hard fans. The most famous was a girl named Venessa, who asked to marry one of the members (and was bluntly turned down).

The band's onetime stated aim was to "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular," although this stance was to alter significantly with time. While never achieving the commercial heights of progressive rock contemporaries such as Genesis ^{Genesis (band)} , Yes ^{Yes (band)} or Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Gentle Giant was considered to be one of the most experimental bands in the genre (as well as one of the most experimental rock bands of the 1970s).

Gentle Giant's music was considered complex even by progressive rock standards, drawing on a broad swathe of music including folk, soul, jazz and classical music. Unlike many of their progressive rock contemporaries, their "classical" influences ranged beyond the Romantic ^{Romantic music} and incorporated mediaeval, baroque, and modernist chamber music elements. The band also had a taste for broad themes for their lyrics, drawing inspiration not only from personal events but from philosophy and the works of both François Rabelais and R. D. Laing.

333Prehistory (including Simon Dupree and the Big Sound)333
The core of what was to become Gentle Giant were the three Shulman brothers: Phil (born 1937), Derek (born 1947) and Ray (born 1949). The brothers were originally of Scottish-Jewish extraction (the Shulman family's original hometown was Glasgow, Scotland, where both Phil and Derek were born in the notorious Gorbals slum) but were mostly brought up in Portsmouth, England. Their father was an army musician turned jazz trumpeter who continued his musical work down in Portsmouth and encouraged his sons to learn various instruments during their childhood. Ray Shulman recalls "(a) house full of musicians and instruments... I started learning trumpet when I was five just because it was there and then took up violin when I was seven. We were made to practice for an hour a day at least, when we really wanted to go out and play. I suppose it was a good thing we were really, and eventually I wanted to do it anyway... I wasn't formally taught at all." All three boys consequently became multi-instrumentalists.

During the early 1960s, Derek and Ray became interested in playing rhythm-and-blues ^{Rhythm and blues} and formed a band in order to do so. Phil — originally acting as a manager figure in order to look after his much younger brothers — gradually became a band member himself. By 1966, the Shulmans' band — initially called The Howling Wolves, then The Road Runners — had taken on the name of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound and was pursuing more of a soul ^{soul music} /pop ^{pop music} direction. As lead singer and frontman, Derek Shulman took on the "Simon Dupree" pseudonym while Phil played saxophone and trumpet, and youngest brother Ray played guitar and violin. (Both Ray and Phil also played trumpet and sang backing vocals for the group which, during its lifetime, briefly featured the future Elton John as pianist as well as recording a single with Dudley Moore as guest).

Signing to EMI, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound produced several non-charting singles before being pushed by their management and label in the direction of psychedelia. This resulted in the Top 10 UK hit 'Kites' in the autumn of 1967 (and the release of the Without Reservation album later in the year). Success only served to frustrate the Shulman brothers, who considered themselves to be blue-eyed soul singers and felt that their change of style was insincere and insubstantial. Derek Shulman was later to describe 'Kites' as "utter shit."

333Early lineups and first three albums333
The band's first album was the self-titled Gentle Giant ^{Gentle Giant (album)} in 1970. Combining the collective band members' influences of rock, blues, classical and 1960s British soul, it was an immediately challenging effort, though sometimes criticised for a slightly disappointing recording quality.

Gentle Giant ^{Gentle Giant (album)} was followed in 1971 by Acquiring the Taste. This second album showcased a band who were developing rapidly. Far more experimental and dissonant than its predecessor, it was shaped primarily by Kerry Minnear's broad classical and contemporary classical music training and also showed the band diversifying in their already impressive instrumentation (although many years later Derek Shulman would admit "we recorded (Acquiring The Taste) without any idea of what it would be like before we got into the studio. It was a very experimental album and we still didn't have an ultimate direction." He was replaced as drummer by Malcolm Mortimore, with whom the band recorded Three Friends (1972). This was the band's first concept album, and was based around the theme of three boys who are "inevitably separated by chance, skill and fate" as they become men. Over the course of the album, the three friends travel on from being childhood schoolfriends to become, respectively, a road digger, an artist and a white-collar worker. In the process, they lose their ability to relate to each other or understand each other's lifestyles. The development and fate of each character is musically represented by separate yet integrated styles from hard rhythm-and-blues-edged rock to symphonic classical stylings.

In March 1972, Malcolm Mortimore injured himself in a motorcycle accident. To fulfil tour obligations in April, Gentle Giant hired ex-Grease Band/Wild Turkey/Graham Bond's Magic member John "Pugwash" Weathers, the man who was to become the band's third and final drummer. Weathers was a harder-hitting player who also sang and played melodic percussion and guitar, further expanding Gentle Giant's multi-instrumental performance options. Due to Mortimore's extended convalescence, the band opted to formally replace him with Weathers at the end of the 1972 April tour.

333Later lineups and Octopus333
The new line-up of the band delivered the Octopus ^{Octopus (Gentle Giant album)} album later in 1972, generally considered to represent the start of the band's peak period. The hardest and most "rocking" Gentle Giant album to date, Octopus ^{Octopus (Gentle Giant album)} was allegedly named by Phil Shulman's wife Roberta as a pun on "octo opus" (eight musical works, reflecting the album's eight tracks). In 2004, Ray Shulman commented '(Octopus) was probably our best album, with the exception, perhaps of Acquiring the Taste. We started with the idea of writing a song about each member of the band. Having a concept in mind was a good starting point for writing. I don't know why, but despite the impact of The Who's Tommy ^{Tommy (album)} and Quadrophenia, almost overnight concept albums were suddenly perceived as rather naff and pretentious." In 2005, Derek Shulman recalled:

"It was perhaps the most ridiculous pairing of groups ever in the history of show business. For the most part we got booed off the stage... At a show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, we went on stage and the Sabbath fans were shouting "get off, we want Sabbath" and we were just getting set to play 'Funny Ways'. We pulled out the cellos and violins, and the crowd starting heckling immediately, but we were gradually starting to get past it, when someone threw a cherry bomb on stage. (Phil Shulman) made sure we all stopped playing and said we needed to get off the stage. As we were leaving the stage, Phil grabbed the mic and said to the crowd "you guys are a bunch of *** cunts!", and the boo that went up after that was enormous! To this day I'll never forget it! We were sort of vindicated later on, as we thought we were never going to play Los Angeles again after the cherry bomb incident, but later on the Octopus tour we were able to sell out consistently there, so something clicked with the fans."

In August 2008, Phil Shulman expanded on his reasons for departure in a podcast interview conducted by his son Damon and grandson Elliot, posted on Damon Shulman's website and MySpace page. In the interview, he states that the main impetus was because he had realised that the lifestyle of a touring musician was damaging his family life.

"Growing up, family, two sons, lovely little daughter, a wife who was getting lonelier and lonelier… No decision really, it was a foregone conclusion. My brothers, in fact, quite frankly wouldn’t speak to me for years afterwards because I said "that’s it, I’m going. I’ve got to go back to my family and I’ve got to go back and be a normal man."... I’m not saying how important (or not important) I was to the group, or anything like that, but my brothers thought that that was the end of the band. And that’s absurd. When five-sixths of the band are still there, (and) I go - no trouble. And they did: they carried on for seven more years, folks, and that was touring the world and getting great acclaim as a very fine five-piece outfit. But for me it was the only thing to do. It obviously took something away because I wasn’t able to listen to music for a few years afterwards."

In 2003, Gary Green recalled "John (Weathers) and I really pushed for the band to continue at that point because it looked like we were going to fold. And that seemed just ludicrous – I mean we had Kerry at full strength and Ray writing great. We were really strong live and we were about to get stronger. I think we became a stronger band after Phil left. And that's nothing against Phil. We had just been just hitting our stride as players." In 2005, Derek Shulman reflected "Civilian was done with less passion than some of the other albums. As it turns out we as a band were just not good at being rock or pop stars. We would have loved to be as popular as a Genesis ^{Genesis (band)} or Rush ^{Rush (band)} or Yes ^{Yes (band)} . In hindsight, I sometimes think that Gentle Giant was wrongfully put into the progressive rock category. Much of what we did was very clever, but we certainly didn't do these long complex tunes like Yes ^{Yes (band)} or Genesis ^{Genesis (band)} did." Ray Shulman has commented "There was definitely the decision that the last tour would be the last tour. Once we knew that, we enjoyed ourselves. We decided to quit then rather than let it go on too long."

Ray Shulman moved into soundtrack work for television and advertising before becoming a record producer (working with, amongst others, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Sundays and The Sugarcubes). He has written soundtracks for computer games, as well as producing DVDs for artists such as Genesis and Queen.

John Weathers went on to drum for Man ^{Man (band)} (an association that lasted until 1996) and most recently was spotted playing drums for Wild Turkey again (2006).

Having settled in America (near Chicago), Gary Green went on to play with various Illinois bands including Blind Dates, The Elvis Brothers, Big Hello and Mother Tongue. (He has also guested on recordings and at concerts by Eddie Jobson and Divae.)

Returning to the UK and settling in Cornwall, Kerry Minnear spent many years working in gospel music He was briefly in a band with his son Damon Shulman and recorded several pieces with him. Several of these (under the collective title of Then) were spoken-word pieces in which he reminisced about his upbringing in the Glasgow slums. One of these pieces - Rats - appeared on Damon Shulman's solo album In Pieces and can be heard as an audio stream on Damon Shulman's homepage and MySpace page (made available in April 2008).

Original Gentle Giant drummer Martin Smith settled in Southampton and drummed with various bands there - he died on March 2, 1997.

Second Gentle Giant drummer Malcolm Mortimore has continued to work as a successful sessions drummer in the rock, jazz and theatre fields.

333Reunions333
Despite having seen many of their progressive rock contemporaries reunite for moneyspinning tours, Gentle Giant are notable for having consistently refused to reunite as a full band.

In 1997, the Gentle Giant fanbase attempted - unsuccessfully - to persuade the members to perform a reunion concert. Reasons cited by members for rejecting the reunion include busy schedules, health problems, lack of practice on instruments, and other personal reasons.

Asked about a possible reunion in 1995, Phil Shulman replied "we lead such disparate lives now and different lifestyles, different attitudes... I think it's impossible." In 1998, Ray Shulman asserted "For me and Derek, the disruption to our lives now, I can't see how it would be worth it. It would be very difficult. The whole process would take such a long time and you would have to give up what ever you are doing. We both have careers independent of GG."


There have, however, been two partial reunions, both featuring between two and four of the band members and with neither event being identified as a formal reunion of Gentle Giant. The first of these took place in 2004 and the second in 2008 (developing further in 2009).

The 2004 partial reunion featured four former Gentle Giant members - Kerry Minnear, John Weathers, Gary Green and Phil Shulman (who only participated as a lyricist). This quartet reunited as a studio-only project solely in order to record three new compositions for the Scraping The Barrel box set ("Home Again", "Moog Fugue", and "Move Over"). There was no live activity and the quartet disbanded immediately after the recordings.

The 2008 partial reunion featured two other former members of Gentle Giant - guitarist Gary Green and the band's second drummer Malcolm Mortimore - who formed a new band called Rentle Giant in order to play Gentle Giant material. To complete the band, they recruited three noted jazz-fusion musicians - Roger Carey (bass and vocals, from Liane Carroll's band), Andy Williams (guitar, collaborator with Carey in the trio) and (piano and keyboards). Green also contributed lead vocals to some of the songs.

In March 2009, Green and Mortimore were joined by a third Gentle Giant member - Kerry Minnear - and Rentle Giant consequently changed its name to Three Friends. At the same time, the band expanded to a seven-piece by adding current 10cc vocalist Mick Wilson as dedicated lead singer. About six months later, it was announced that Minnear was leaving the band for personal reasons, and that Three Friends plan to continue as a six-piece.

  There has been renewed interest in Gentle Giant since 1990, with new fan clubs, new releases of live concerts and previously unreleased material and several tribute albums.

Sadly for fans, the rights of the band's catalogue are scattered among many companies, not all of which are keen on re-releasing the albums properly. In particular, the first four albums have yet to receive definitive CD releases. For example, the title track on Acquiring the Taste begins with an obvious defect, possibly due to a damaged master tape, on all current CD and vinyl releases. The 1996 compilation Edge of Twilight includes a corrected version of the song. Conflicting evidence sometimes reports that this defect exists on the original 1971 vinyl release of the album, with the opening note bending up as the tape comes up to speed - probably an engineering error.

In July 2004, the first eponymous album was re-released by Repertoire; in December, 2005, they released Acquiring the Taste; in December, 2006, Octopus in a mini-sleeve with the original design of Roger Dean was released, and in December, 2007, German label Repertoire released Three Friends in a mini-sleeve with the original British release design. Although not widely distributed, these re-issues have been praised for their production quality and remastering. Prior to that all first four albums have been re-released on Universal Japan label.

In 2005, to celebrate the band's 35th anniversary, a series of digitally remastered and specially packaged CDs of their later albums were released by Derek Shulman's company, DRT Entertainment. They all featured unreleased live tracks (of varying quality) as bonuses. Many of these albums (most notably, In a Glass House) were previously difficult to purchase in North America without resorting to imports. The re-released albums are: In a Glass House, The Power And The Glory, Free Hand, Interview, The Missing Piece, Playing The Fool (live) and Giant For A Day.

A reissue series which is only available via internet download was released in late 2009.
2010 will see the re-release of most of the Gentle Giant albums on CD; box sets are planned as well.Gentle Giant's music was mostly composed by Kerry Minnear and Ray Shulman, with additional musical ideas contributed by Derek Shulman (who was also known to contribute entire songs). Lyrics were written by Phil Shulman and Derek Shulman up until Phil's departure following the release of Octopus ^{Octopus (Gentle Giant album)} – all subsequent lyrics were written by Derek Shulman.

By the standards of progressive rock, Gentle Giant’s music is generally considered to be particularly complex and demanding. It shares several aspects with that of other progressive rock bands, including:

* multi-part vocal harmonies
* complex lyrics
* organisation into concept album form (on occasion)
* frequent changes in tempo
* frequent use of syncopation and non-standard time signatures, including polymeters ^{Meter (music)#Polymeter} (two or more time signatures played simultaneously)
* use of complex melodies, frequently contrasting harmonies ^harmony with dissonance ^{Consonance and dissonance}
* extensive use of instrumental and vocal counterpoint
* use of musical structures typically associated with classical music (for example, madrigal ^{madrigal (music)} form on "Knots", fugal ^fugue exposition in "On Reflection" and the consistent use of stated, exchanged and recapitulated musical themes exchanged between instruments)
* use of classical and medieval instrumentation not generally associated with rock music

However, it’s been noted that in spite of the comparatively complex initial sound Gentle Giant’s music is in fact fairly traditional in terms of harmony and features relatively few complex chords. In common with most 1970s progressive rock, Gentle Giant compositions are closer to early 20th century neoclassicism than to contemporary classical music. (Some Gentle Giant songs, such as "Proclamation" and "So Sincere", do utilise more complicated modernist harmonics.)

In general, the band relied on sudden and unexpected compositional twists and turns to stimulate their audience, including:

* polyphony
* hocketing
* unusual chord progressions
* breaking up and tonally re-voicing patterns of initially simple chords (with the chords subtly altering from repetition to repetition)
* accelerating and decelerating duration of musical themes
* rapid and frequent key changes (sometimes within a single bar)
* division of vocal lines between different singers (including staggered rhythms)
* clever handling of transitions between sections (such as a hard-rock guitar riff being immediately substituted by a medieval choral);Final line-up
*Derek Shulman - lead vocals, saxophone, recorder, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, Shulberry
*Ray Shulman - bass, trumpet, violin, vocals, viola, drums, percussion, recorder, guitar
*Kerry Minnear - keyboards, lead vocals (on recordings only), cello, vibraphone, xylophone, recorder, guitar, bass, drums
*Gary Green - guitar, mandolin, vocals, recorder, bass, drums, xylophone
*John "Pugwash" Weathers ^{John Weathers} - drums, percussion, vibraphone, xylophone, vocals, guitar

;Former members
*Phil Shulman - lead vocals, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, recorder, percussion (1970-72)
*Martin Smith ^{Martin Smith (musician)} - drums, percussion (1970-1971)
*Malcolm Mortimore - drums, percussion (1971-1972)A comprehensive discography is available on the official web site.


Studio albums

* Gentle Giant ^{Gentle Giant (album)} (1970)
* Acquiring the Taste (1971)
* Three Friends (1972) (#197 US)
* Octopus ^{Octopus (Gentle Giant album)} (1972) (#170 US)
* In a Glass House (1973)
* The Power and the Glory ^{The Power and the Glory (album)} (1974) (#78 US)
* Free Hand (1975) (#48 US)
* Interview ^{Interview (album)} (1976) (#137 US)
* The Missing Piece ^{The Missing Piece (Gentle Giant album)} (1977) (#81 US)
* Giant for a Day! (1978)
* Civilian ^{Civilian (Gentle Giant album)} (1980)


Live recordings

* Playing the Fool (1977) Recorded (au naturel) on European tour September to October 1976
* Gentle Giant in Concert (1994) Recorded 1978 at the Hippodrome, Golden Green
* Out of the Woods: The BBC Sessions (1996)
* The Last Steps (1996) Recorded USA 1980
* Out of the Fire: The BBC Concerts (1998)


Compilations

* Giant Steps - The First Five Years (1975)
* Pretentious - For The Sake Of It (1977)
* Champions Of Rock (1996)
* Edge of Twilight (1996)
* Under Construction ^{Under Construction (Gentle Giant album)} (1997)
* Scraping the Barrel (2004)* Giant on the Box, (DVD+CD) (2005)
* GG at the GG, (DVD) (2006)*The "Shulberry" instrument played by Derek Shulman was a homemade 3-string instrument resembling an electric ukelele and tuned to the marimba part on the song "Playing the Game" (in order to replace the marimba in live concerts). It was designed and constructed by Gentle Giant's sound engineer Dave Zammit.