Gentle giant
| Gentle giant | |
|---|---|
 Gentle Giant 1974 in Hamburg (from left to right Gary Green, Ray Shulman and Derek Shulman) |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Progressive rock , art rock , symphonic rock, experimental rock, hard rock |
| founding | 1970 |
| resolution | 1980 |
| Website |
www.blaze monger.com/GG |
| Founding members | |
| Derek Shulman | |
| Ray Shulman | |
Saxophone, trumpet, vocals, background vocals |
Phil Shulman |
Guitar, twelve-string guitar, recorder , vocals, percussion |
Gary Green |
| Kerry Minnear | |
Drums, percussion, xylophone
|
Martin Smith († 1997) |
| former members | |
Drums, vocals, background vocals, guitar, vibraphone
|
John Weathers |
Drums |
Malcolm Mortimore |
Gentle Giant was a British progressive rock band led by the brothers Phil , Derek and Ray Shulman . The group was active between 1970 and 1980 and known for the complexity of their music and the diverse musical abilities of its members. All but the first two drummers Martin Smith and Malcolm Mortimore were multi-instrumentalists .
Band history
In 1966, the Shulman brothers from Glasgow , Scotland , first founded the pop band Simon Dupree and the Big Sound . Reginald Dwight, who later became known as Elton John , was among the members at times . With kites , the group reached number 9 on the British charts in 1967. Further commercial success achieved Simon Dupree and the Big Sound not; In 1970 the band renamed themselves Gentle Giant and radically changed their style.
The band shaped its own direction within progressive rock, characterized by experimental sounds, complex rhythm structures and advanced compositional principles from classical music ( e.g. counterpoint ). Gentle Giant combined rock , classical , jazz and pop . The band played over thirty instruments in the studio and on stage and all five musicians also sang. In addition to the usual rock instruments guitar , bass , drums and keyboards , instruments such as violin , violoncello , recorder , trumpet , saxophone , vibraphone and glockenspiel were used; the compositions also contain passages with up to five-part choir singing.
Although the group simplified their style towards the end of the 1970s at the insistence of their record company Chrysalis and incorporated more elements of rock, they could no longer meet the musical zeitgeist of pop music, which was shaped by punk and new wave , but also by disco music . Despite their high musical competence, Gentle Giant never achieved a popularity comparable to that of other bands of the time and remained primarily of interest to a specialized audience. Nevertheless, it shaped a number of later bands that are assigned to the genre of neo-progressive rock, or neo-prog for short . The Canadian band Saga names Gentle Giant as an important influence.
The albums Three Friends (1972), Octopus (1972), In a Glass House (1973), The Power and the Glory (1974) and Free Hand (1975) are particularly popular with music critics and fans . In 1980 the band released Civilian, the last album on which they had completely broken away from the style of the early years.
Since 2008, Malcolm Mortimore and Gary Green appeared with a few other musicians as Rentle Giant ; this band was renamed with the entry of Kerry Minnear in Three Friends . Minnear got out again in October 2009. Musician and sound engineer Steven Wilson remixed several of the group's albums in the 2010s.
Discography
Studio albums
- 1970 - Gentle Giant
- 1971 - Acquiring the Taste
- 1972 - Three Friends: US # 197
- 1972 - Octopus: US # 170
- 1973 - In a Glass House
- 1974 - The Power and the Glory : US # 78
- 1975 - Free Hand: US # 48
- 1976 - Interview: US # 137, SE # 39, NO # 19
- 1977 - The Missing Piece: US # 81, SE # 50
- 1978 - Giant for a Day
- 1980 - Civilian
Live albums
- 1977 - Playing the Fool: US # 89
- 1994 - Gentle Giant in Concert
- 1996 - Out of the Woods: The BBC Sessions
- 1996 - The Last Steps
- 1998 - Live on the King Biscuit Flower Hour (Academy of Music, New York City, January 18th, 1975)
- 1998 - Out of the Fire: The BBC Concerts
- 2000 - Totally Out of the Woods - The BBC Sessions
- 2000 - Live Rome 1974
- 2002 - Endless Life
- 2009 - King Alfred's College (Winchester 1971) (the band's first live album)
Compilations
- 1975 - Giant Steps - The First Five Years
- 1977 - Pretentious - For the Sake of It
- 1996 - Champions of Rock
- 1996 - Edge of Twilight (Best-of-Album, 2 CD)
- 1997 - Under Construction (Box-Set)
- 2002 - Experience
- 2004 - Scraping the Barrel (Box-Set)
- 2012 - I Lost My Head (4-CD box set of the five studio albums on Chrysalis from Free Hand , plus Playing the Fool live)
- 2017 - Three Piece Suite (9 songs from their first three albums)
DVDs
- 2004 - Giant on the Box
- 2006 - GG at the GG
Web links
- Official band homepage (English)
- Gentle Giant Music (English)
- Gentle Giant on the baby blue pages
- Gentle Giant Tour History (English)
- Gentle Giant at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gentle Giant on the baby blue pages
- ↑ Information about Three Friends on the official Gentle Giant website
- ↑ Message on PROGROCK-DT.de ( memento of the original from October 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
