Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3220336 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Synopsis
Even by the standards of the day, progressive-rock group Gentle Giant cooked up their music from a heady range of ingredients. This book tells the story of a band who broke up before they achieved major success, but who still attract a cult following. The band evolved from the ashes of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, best known for the hit single "Kites", and as was often the case in the late 60s, after the initial chart success, the band decided to change ther name and decamp to the country to rethink their sound. The result was a string of successful LPs with a mixture of rock, classical and mediaeval influences. Based around the Shulman brothers, the band quickly acquired a cult following around the world. Concert tours in Europe and America became ever more grandiose and elaborate - and then along came punk. As with many of the bands that were seemingly killed off by the new wave revolution of 1976/77, Gentle Giant's music has retained a loyal fanbase and even found its appeal for new generations.

Customer Reviews

hack sociologist misses the point.
Yes, well, the other reviewers were right. Great band, great subject, but annoyingly wordy, wanders off into irrelevant sociological tangents at every conceivable opportunity, which is annoying. I ended up thinking 'Enough of this crap, get back to the subject!'
As well as the lazy way the author seems to have cherry picked existing sources, there are a number of errors. Kerry is stated at having been at the Royal College of Music, then the Royal Academy (it was the latter) and the author's ears aren't up to much in describing which instrument is playing what on some tracks (on Plain Truth it's Ray's wahwah violin, not 'phased guitar' as any fule kno). Most disturbing is his damning with faint praise of the music, to the point where I don't know if he ACTUALLY likes this at all. It seems gratuitously critical of the band and the music; perhaps the lack of genuine contact with the band is some indication.
So: the author's written many books on music. Fine. But 'an authority on the English Progressive Rock Scene?' No. For that you'ld have to be Chris Welch.
Gentle Giant urgently need the definitive history. This doesn't happen to be it, though.

the long wait continues
Gentle Giant fans have waited many years for a book about their favourite band whose reputation continues to grow and become better established as many 'lesser bands' fade from memory. Therefore I was eager to read this, the first book to be published. I have to say it is a disappointment with very little new to learn that isn't already available from the excellent web site. There seems to be very little contact with the original band members to gain new insights and no other recording of recollections from others involved with the band at the time. The writing seems to me to illustrate the worst of popular journalism with over-complicated sentences and unecessary words such as concretise and historiography, making the book a hard read. The saving grace is the last few pages given over to an essay by Geir Hasnes which gives an insight into the musical structure of GG music. I shall still look foward to a definative Gentle Giant book.

Major disappointment
Just my own stronger opinions to add to the above comments really. Having bought this with great anticipation, i ended up only able to actually read about two thirds of the text !! The other third should be binned. Why use 20 words in a sentence when 10 will do ? If you manage to get to the end of some of the sentences, you'll have forgotten what the point of it was in the first place. Basically, i found it totally unreadable !! It really makes me wonder who proof read it.......IF IT WAS. As said before, the last chapter by Geir Hasnes is OK. But why no chapter listing at the front ? Why no UK catalogue numbers after Three Friends in the discography listing at the back of the book, and to compound that, the 4 English Chrysalis singles are omitted completely !!
Very poorly done in my opinion.
So, we're still waiting for the definitive story of Gentle Giant