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INSANE: Gentle giant | Rare Historical Photos

“I got three whacks with the cane for lying and skipping school. So I blame The Beatles for me being in the music business. I also blame them for getting a whacking!” Derek Shulman’s path to Gentle Giant

Singer and future A&R icon recalls what the Fab Four meant to him, why Hendrix made him break up his first big band, and the truck stop where he met Syd Barrett, Eric Clapton and others

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“He’s full of warmth for those they befriended on their rise, and full of ire for those who crossed them”: Derek Shulman takes aim at Syd Barrett, the Beach Boys, the Eagles and others in his not-very-gentle memoir Giant Steps

Former Gentle Giant vocalist who became an A&R bigwig provides an refreshingly undiplomatic account of his career on stage and off it

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“I have a history of reacting badly to music initially and developing a love later!” The singer who didn’t want to sing, and the change of approach that gave his band a second lease of life

Formed in the musical turmoil of the late 80s, the American group made music based on a theory of melody. But with the help of Rush collaborators they’ve tweaked their approach for the third album of their next generation

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“If it gets a bit tense we chill out with a joke. He’s good at that. Most of our messages are in a West Country dialect!” Thom Yorke isn’t the very serious character you may have thought, says one collaborator

Electronic artist reveals Radiohead vocalist is more likely to say “Wasson there, bey?” than “What’s your problem, eh?” – and their new album might just contain a pinch of King Crimson and Gentle Giant

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“We put full-sized speakers at the back of the hall for quadraphonic sound. Someone walked off with one! I’ve no idea how – it’s not like they put it in a pocket”: The story of Gentle Giant’s only live album, Playing The Fool

Presenting their concert experience on record was a steep challenge in 1976. Now they’ve reconstructed the tapes to make it feel like you’re there, complete with heckling

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Black Sabbath had no idea they were being "ripped off" in the 1970s until prog legends Gentle Giant exposed the truth

Gentle Giant frontman Derek Shulman recalls the fraught 1972 meeting that ended with Ozzy Osbourne throwing a bottle at management

Metal Hammer

“He was bedrock to the Yes sound; an incredibly creative player who has inspired so many. It’s unlikely that we’ll see his like again”: Chris Squire’s greatest musical moments, by bandmates, friends and fans

Members of Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and later-generation musicians are among 30 artists who choose their favourite performances to mark a decade since the bass powerhouse’s death

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Gentle Giant's Derek Shulman to publish career-spanning memoir, Giant Steps, in October

Giant Steps traces Derek Shulman's career from Simon Dupree & The Big Sound through Gentle Giant to record executive working with Bon Jovi, Dream Theater, AC/DC and more...

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“I don’t worry about labels and I’ve ended up in the premier prog band of all time. If I’d listened to haters I’d have stopped after my first record”: Billy Sherwood’s journey to Yes started with the wayward World Trade

By the time he reunited his 80s group for third album Unify, he’d replaced Chris Squire and started fronting Asia. None of it would have happened without Toto and Gentle Giant

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“I was a budding arsonist – I tried to recreate the cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here by setting fire to my mate’s back”: The prog world of Nightwish’s Troy Donockley

Multi-instrumentalist on the musician he’d most like to work with, his leading inspiration, his guilty musical pleasure and his passion for baking bread

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“It was one of the most vibrant and exciting live albums of its day. The new version raises the bar”: Gentle Giant’s Playing The Fool – The Complete Live Experience is an exceptional work

The real-life running order is reinstated, audience sound is returned and Derek Shulman’s song introductions are heard in souped-up version of 1977 classic

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Gentle Giant share brand new live video for Free Hand

Gentle Giant will release the reimagined, remastered and remixed Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience in May

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Gentle Giant's Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience will be released in May

Gentle Giant's classic 1977 live album has been reimagined, remixed and remastered

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“It shouldn’t work but it comes out brilliant… You can spend hours studying what they did and still not fully get it”: Nik Kershaw’s passion for Gentle Giant

One of the 80s hitmaker’s early bands covered two of their songs – but it took him years to realise their genius, and he still doesn’t truly understand it

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Gentle Giant announce reimagined, remixed and remastered version of 1977 live album Playing The Fool

Gentle Giant will release Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience in the Spring

Louder

“I lie to them and change the goalposts… you build up techniques of throwing the curveball of discomfort. If it gets comfortable I change it”: David Thomas calls Pere Ubu “avant-garage” – but how prog are they?

They’re unmistakably American, but their lead visionary names Henry Cow, Soft Machine, Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator among his motivators, and explains why his band is definitely not punk

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“We were torn between trying to make it big and making our music more crossover, but failing… that happened because we became conscious of what we were doing”: The Power And The Glory signalled the beginning of the end for Gentle Giant

They’d reasserted themselves after a line-up change and enjoyed the results – but the surprisingly polarised response to their sixth album led them to start second-guessing their own work.

Louder

“Tchaikovsky was a sort of mentor; if it was good, ABBA or whatever, we didn’t shut anything out”: When Gentle Giant revisited seventh album Free Hand

The reissue, complete with Steven Wilson remixes, was the band’s chance to look back on what the band had liked about 1975 release, and what they hadn’t

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“I had a great substitute teacher who lent me albums by King Crimson, Gentle Giant and Genesis. He had a prog band called Butt-Crack”: Rikard Sjöblom’s musical world

Big Big Train, Gungfly and Beardfish man once wrote a term paper about the Hammond organ and went on to teach piano in a school

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Gentle Giant share brand new video for Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It

The new Steven Wilson remix of Gentle Giant's 1977 album The Missing Piece was released earlier this year

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“The cape-wielding progressive rock behemoth was not in vogue… there was an effort to make it simpler, but our musical identity was still at stake”: Gentle Giant take a fresh look at The Missing Piece

Underrated gem or confused mess? Gary Green, John Weathers and Kerry Minnear discuss their 1977 album in the light of Steven WIlson’s remix

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How Jethro Tull broke America is the cover of the new issue of Prog, on sale now!

Plus Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, Devin Townsend, Rick Wakeman, Big Big Train

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New "platform fighter roguelike" dubbed 'Hades meets Smash Bros' hits full release, immediately tops Steam trends chart

Spiritfall is a hit

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Gentle Giant share new video for Memories Of Old Days

The new Steven Wilson remix of Gentle Giant's 1977 album The Missing Piece will be released in March

Louder

Gentle Giant share new video for Steven Wilson remix of Two Weeks In Spain

The new Steven Wilson remix of Gentle Giant's 1977 album The Missing Piece will be released in February

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