Gentle Giant's roots lie in the band Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, which was led by the three brothers Derek, Ray and Phil Shulman. With a psychedelic pop version of the song ‘Kites’, they landed a UK hit and were thus a pop band. However, this stood in the way of the Shulman brothers' enthusiasm of experimentation: “It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of being very unpopular”. The band was therefore disbanded. Re-formed and expanded with guitarist Gary Green, keyboarder Kerry Minnear and drummer Martin Smith, they signed as Gentle Giant to the progressive Vertigo label in 1970. Their eponymous debut album, produced by Tony Visconti and released in the same year, was astonishingly daring. With their symbiosis of dissonant 20th century classical chamber music, rock and jazz together with harmony vocals, presented with traditional and electronic instruments, they were way ahead of their time in the early 70s.
But this earned them a cult following that grew from album to album and continues to grow to this day. The stunning cover design by George Underwood also certainly contributes to the fact that UK Swirl originals are still in high demand worldwide today.
