Artist: Gentle Giant
Genre(s):
Rock
Other
Discography:
In a Glass House
Year: 2004
Tracks: 8
Last Steps (Dlx)
Year: 2002
Tracks: 15
Playing the Fool: The Official Live
Year: 1996
Tracks: 11
Gentle Giant
Year: 1990
Tracks: 7
Civilian
Year: 1980
Tracks: 9
Giant For A Day
Year: 1978
Tracks: 10
The Missing Piece
Year: 1977
Tracks: 9
Playing The Fool
Year: 1977
Tracks: 8
Interview
Year: 1976
Tracks: 7
In'terview
Year: 1976
Tracks: 7
Free Hand
Year: 1975
Tracks: 7
The Power And The Glory
Year: 1974
Tracks: 9
Octopus
Year: 1973
Tracks: 8
In a Glass House (Live)
Year: 1973
Tracks: 6
Three Friends
Year: 1972
Tracks: 6
Three Friends
Year:
Tracks: 6
Acquiring The Taste
Year:
Tracks: 8
Formed at the forenoon of the progressive rock geological earned run average in 1969, Gentle Giant seemed self-collected for a clip in the mid-'70s to settle apart out of its cult-band status, just in some manner ne'er made the jump. Somewhat closer in spirit to Yes and King Crimson than to Emerson, Lake & Palmer or the Nice, their unique level-headed melded hard joust and grecian music, with an virtually mediaeval sailing slope to singing.
Docile Giant was born out of the ruins of Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, an R&B-based getup lED by brothers Derek, Ray, and Phil Shulman. After switching to psychedelia in 1967 and grading their only major impinge on that year with "Kites," as Gentle Giant the radical abandoned both the R&B and psychedelic orientations of the former banding; Derek sang and played guitar and basso, Ray sang and played bass and fiddle, and Phil handled the saxophone, augmented by Kerry Minnear on keyboards, and Gary Green on guitar. Their original lineup as well featured Martin Smith on drums, but they went through several percussionists in the first three long time of their cosmos.
In 1970, Gentle Giant signed to the Vertigo mark, and their self-titled commencement album -- a shockingly daring work intermixture hard rock and full electric playing with classical elements -- came out later that twelvemonth. Their bit exploit, 1971's Getting the Taste, was slightly more than approachable and their third gear, Three Friends, featuring Malcolm Mortimore on drums, was their low gear record to make released in the U.S. (on Columbia). Their fourth record album, 1973's Devilfish, looked poised for a breakthrough; it seemed as though they had establish the mix in of hard rock and classical sounds that the critics and the world could admit, and they in the end had a permanent drummer in the person of John Weathers, an ex-member of the Graham Bond Organisation.
In 1974, however, Gentle Giant began advent apart. Phil Shulman distinct to give up music after the Devilfish turn, and became a teacher. Then the group recorded the album In a Glass House, their hardest-rocking record still, which Columbia's U.S. sleeve spurned as as well uncommercial. The biennial crack in their American going schedule injure their momentum, and they weren't heard from over again until the Capitol going of The Power and the Glory in 1975.
Docile Giant released Free Hand, their virtually commercial-grade album, in 1976, but then followed it up with the jarringly experimental Question. After the 1978 double-album Playacting the Fool, the group went through a seeming change of spirit and issued a series of albums aimed at mainstream audiences, regular approaching disco, merely by the end of the 1970s their popularity was in free fall. Minnear, world Health Organization had been playing an evermore primal role since the mid-'70s, had already left the grouping when Gentle Giant called it quits in 1980. Ray Shulman later became a producer and had considerable success in England working with bands like the Sundays and the Sugarcubes, spell Derek Shulman became a New York-based record company executive director.
