Gentle Giant: Британдық прогрессив рок тобының тарихы

British progressive rock band

Gentle Giant was a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. The band was known for the complexity and sophistication of its music and for the varied musical skills of its members. All of the band members were multi instrumentalists. Although not commercially successful, the band did achieve a cult following. The band stated that its 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. 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 and incorporated medieval, baroque, and modernist chamber music elements. The band also had a taste for broad themes for their lyrics, drawing inspiration not only from personal experiences but from philosophy and the works of François Rabelais and R. D. Laing. In 2015 they were recognised with the lifetime achievement award at the Progressive Music Awards.

The band's first album was the self titled Gentle Giant in 1970, produced by Tony Visconti. After Acquiring the Taste, Martin Smith left the band, apparently because of disagreements with both Ray and Phil Shulman. He was replaced by Malcolm Mortimore. Gentle Giant's next recording was 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 becoming, 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 John "Pugwash" Weathers (born 7 February 1947) the band opted to formally replace him with Weathers at the end of the 1972 April tour.

Despite having seen many of their progressive rock contemporaries reunite for tours, Gentle Giant are notable for having consistently refused to reunite as a full band. In 1997, the Gentle Giant fanbase unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the members to perform a reunion concert. Reasons cited by members for their rejection 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 order to play Gentle Giant material. This band featured former members guitarist Gary Green and drummer Malcolm Mortimore. They recruited three noted jazz fusion musicians to complete the band, with Roger Carey on bass and vocals, Andy Williams on guitar, and John Donaldson on piano and keyboards. Green contributed lead vocals to some of the songs. In March 2009, Green and Mortimore were joined by a third Gentle Giant member in the form of Kerry Minnear and Rentle Giant consequently changed its name to Three Friends. Also at this time, the band recruited vocalist Mick Wilson as dedicated lead singer. After a short tour, it was announced that Minnear was leaving the band for personal reasons, and that Three Friends planned to continue as a six piece. In due course, by 2011, Carey, Williams and Donaldson had left the band, to be replaced by Lee Pomeroy on bass and Gary Sanctuary on keyboards. Charlotte Glasson joined in 2012, adding violin, baritone sax, alto sax and recorder, enabling the band to create a live sound closer to the original recordings. This line up toured Italy, Canada and the United States in 2012. In 2015, the band consisted of Green, Mortimore, Glasson, Neil Angilley and Jonathan Noyce. They have not performed live since then. A fan video of "Proclamation" was posted on YouTube on 15 July 2020. The video featured appearances from Gentle Giant members Gary Green, Kerry Minnear, Derek Shulman, Ray Shulman (his last band related appearance before his death), Phil Shulman, John Weathers and Malcolm Mortimore. Additional musicians included Jakko Jakszyk, Billy Sherwood, Yes/Steve Hackett bassist Lee Pomeroy, Rachel Flowers, Dan Reed (Dan Reed Network), Richard Hilton (Chic) and Mikey Heppner (Priestess) among others. The video was directed and edited by Noah Shulman and mixed by his uncle Ray.

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. 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 from 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. Before 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, the live album Playing the Fool, and Giant for a Day. A reissue series on CD and, with bonus tracks, as digital downloads was begun in 2009/2010. In a 2009 interview Derek Shulman also indicated that plans were in the works to put out an animated film based on The Power and the Glory (this has yet to come to fruition). In 2011 the original mastertapes for Three Friends and Octopus were located and Alucard Music reissued each album with a bonus live performance of material from each respective album. Each album was remastered by Ray Shulman and Francis Kervorkian (both of whom worked on the 2009 remasters). Free Hand and Interview both get re issued in 2012 on CD/DVD & Vinyl. The CD/DVD features a previously unreleased lost quadraphonic mix. The special 4.1 Surround Sound mix (audiophiles note it's DTS 96/24 and Dolby Digital 48 kHz/24bit) has been adapted from the original Quad mixes. The band members have written new sleevenotes for both albums. 2012's I Lost My Head The Chrysalis Years is a 4 CD set rounding up all of Gentle Giant's Chrysalis albums with bonus tracks including John Peel sessions, 7" mixes, live tracks & 'b' sides etc. In 2014, The Power and the Glory was re released as a CD/DVD set with new mixes by Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree) from the multitrack masters. The DVD contains new 48 kHz/24 bit Stereo LPCM, DTS 96 kHz/24 bit 5.1, and Dolby AC3 5.1 mixes, as well as a 96 kHz/24 bit LPCM transfer of the original 1974 studio mix. In 2017, Three Piece Suite was released, and focused on tracks from their first three albums (Gentle Giant, Acquiring the Taste, and Three Friends). These tracks were re mixed by Steven Wilson from the available multi track tapes. Some songs from the first three albums were not included in the set as the multi tracks for those specific songs have been lost. The set was available as a CD of the re mixed songs and a Blu Ray disk. The Blu ray disk had 96/24 Stereo LPCM and DTS HD 5.1 Surround Sound versions of the re mixed tracks, additional bonus tracks, instrumental versions of some tracks, and Original Album Mixes from Flat Transfers of Mint Condition Original LPs. There were also new video animations included on the 5.1 Surround tracks. This release came packaged as a single Digipack with the two disks, a 16 page booklet, new artwork and was approved by the band for release. Their final album, Civilian, was scheduled to be reissued on CD and available to stream on 20 May 2022.

Alucard Music is a British music label that releases CDs and DVDs of Gentle Giant. It was founded by Kerry and Lesley Minnear.