Looking at the hirsute Gentle Giant in their prime, it’s a little hard to believe they were ever teen idols. But they reinvented themselves more than once, evolving from R’n’B combo The Road Runners into the floral-shirted pop sensations Simon Dupree & The Big Sound; and then, in 1970, to an altogether more progressive incarnation as Gentle Giant.
Erstwhile frontman and co-founder Derek Shulman has worn a fair few hats – both literal and metaphorical – as this entertaining autobiography relates. After the band split in 1980 he moved into promotions, then A&R, overseeing the signing of Bon Jovi and Dream Theater among many others.
The first two parts of the three-part narrative will be of greatest interest to Gentle Giant fans, as he tells of high times, riotous audiences and bold creative leaps forward; often in the face of doubters, to whom he seems unable to resist saying, “I told you so!”
As the band’s star rises, it brings the unhappy side effect of estranging him from older brother Phil, who tires of touring and leaves in 1973 for the family life. Their success comes despite their management’s slightly surreal associations with the Kray-associated “British mafia” – and on one scary-sounding occasion in prog-mad Italy, their Sicilian equivalent.
While he’s unapologetic about the groupie scene, he foreswears other excesses, an approach reinforced by witnessing the likes of Black Sabbath fall prey to them.
There’s no doubt that Gentle Giant saw themselves as a cut above their less musically adventurous contemporaries – with good reason in many ways – but Shulman is as full of warmth for those they befriended on their rise as he is of ire for those who crossed them.
Jethro Tull and Yes are complimented, as is Reg Dwight (the future Elton John), who briefly opened for them in their pre-Gentle Giant incarnation. Schulman is unimpressed by Syd Barrett after the Floyd man exposed a promising incognito psych single, recorded as The Moles, as having come from “shitty” Simon Dupree & The Big Sound.
Neither The Beach Boys or the Eagles come out of it too well either – despite their “masterpieces,” the former were “miserable,” “mean” and “sounded like beginners’ live; while the latter were “arrogant and obnoxious.”
Refreshingly undiplomatic? Yes. Gentle? Not so much.
Giant Steps – My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights To Executive Heights, co-written with Jon Weiderhorn, is on sale now via Jawbone.
