GIANT STEPS
DEREK SHULMAN
WITH JON WIEDERHORN
MY IMPROBABLE JOURNEY
FROM STAGE LIGHTS
TO EXECUTIVE HEIGHTS
FOREWORD BY TONY VISCONTI
A Jawbone book
First edition 2025
Published in the UK and the USA by
Jawbone Press
7 Orlando Road
London SW4 0LE
England
www.jawbonepress.com
books@jawbonepress.com
ISBN 978-1-916829-25-1
Volume copyright © 2025 Outline Press Ltd. Text and images copyright © Derek Shulman, unless otherwise noted. Foreword © Tony Visconti. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY TONY VISCONTI
PROLOGUE THE TRAUMA
01 FINDING MY FEET
1 POOR BUT RICH
2 THE BIG BREAK
3 THE RAVERS
4 LETTERS OF GOLD
5 WE ARE THE MOLES
6 COLD FEET
7 MIND IF I TUNE UP?
8 A TALL TALE
9 SENSORY PLEASURE
10 COLLISION COURSE
02 UP AND RUNNING
11 FAIRY DUST
12 COMPLETE CONTROL
13 AND THEN THERE WERE FIVE
14 IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
15 UNLIKELY CONNECTIONS
16 THE END OF AN ERA
03 FINDING A NEW PATH
17 PLAYING THE GAME
18 DESIRE
19 POP GOES THE WORLD
20 BLACK-TOOTHED GRIN
21 STRAIGHT INTO COMPTON
22 MONSTERS OF MOSCOW
23 LEADER OF MEN
24 LEGEND HAS IT
EPILOGUE WALKING BACK TO HAPPINESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
FOREWORD
By TONY
VISCONTI
Wherever I go, I’m always surprised when someone will recognize me in the street, approach me, and say, ‘I love Gentle Giant.’
And really, I’m so pleased when that happens, because their self-titled debut was, on every level, one of the best albums I was ever involved with. There were several progressive rock bands emerging at the time, but my inspiration for doing what I do came from the most progressive rock group the world has known, The Beatles. Fully knowing I wouldn’t knock their producer George Martin off his throne, I said to myself that there must be more Beatles in the UK to discover. By 1970, I had found what I was looking for. They were Gentle Giant.
I needed to work with musicians of that caliber because I studied classical music, I trained hard, and this was very, very challenging. We were working with analog tape and they were doing things that, honestly, you would have required Pro Tools to pull off. And Pro Tools hadn’t been invented. So we did some tricks that were akin to what George Martin and The Beatles were doing with analogue tape, and made a fantastic work of art.
Here’s how it all happened. There was a meeting with the group in my flat in Putney, London. It was congenial, and plans were made to get into a studio ASAP. I can’t remember if we had actual rehearsals, but the group was super ‘ready to rock.’ Derek has told me that the group learned a lot from me, and I’m flattered. This wasn’t going to be the kind of session work the band members were used to from their former group, the easygoing Simon Dupree. This was going to be intense, and it was! All my musical training would be challenged.
With analogue tape you could fix a mistake by ‘dropping in’ in tight spaces. Because we were a group of perfectionists, we ‘dropped in’ all over the place. For one song, I had to drop in at the beginning of a 15/16 bar and drop out before erasing the music immediately afterward. I rehearsed it a few times by tapping my index finger in the space next to the record button, got the feel, and then it had to be done. As the band were all virtuosi, we got it right the very first time.
When we turned in the record, the label was quite disappointed because it was art rock. The album eventually did sell, but the initial sales were very disappointing, maybe only a few hundred. But when I believed in something, I thought, To hell with the sales, to hell with the A&R department, these just had to be done, because, culturally speaking, they were very important.
I love that album, and album two, Acquiring The Taste, which was in many ways better than the first one. But Gentle Giant, the first one, was my favorite because we broke so much fresh ground. It was so innovative. I was also working on David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World at that time, which I would say was the pop-rock version of Gentle Giant. These were pioneering days.
Despite the amount of time that passed since we recorded the albums, listening to the music, as most of us know, unlocks memories, and when it comes to Gentle Giant, mine are fond ones.
TONY VISCONTI, NEW YORK CITY, 2025
PROLOGUE
THE
TRAUMA
Every night, my father, Lewis Shulman, would come home in the wee hours from his jazz gigs. He was a bandleader, trumpet player, and an extremely hard worker. He also played hard. A heavy drinker, smoker, and gambler, my dad thought life should be a celebration, and when he was having a good time, he didn’t think about money. Fortunately, he was an excellent horn player who somehow (considering his vices) was never out of breath when he was onstage, and he was good enough at band business and self-promotion to support the family with a meager living wage even after his hedonistic indulgences.
Despite the long hours, which didn’t always end after the gig, my father always got up early in the morning to start the coal fire in the house, so even when the air was chilly, the house was warm. I often woke at 6am to the sound of my dad’s coughing—the result, I suppose, of drinking his poison of choice for decades and smoking up to sixty cigarettes a day. At age sixteen, I knew he had bad habits, but he was lively, exuberant, and funny. Everyone loved him, and I figured he would live to a ripe old age. I was never concerned about his morning cough; that’s just the way it was. I was just glad he set an alarm to make sure the fire was lit by the time my mom, my brothers Ray and Terry, and I woke up, so we were relatively comfortable in our drafty house in Portsmouth, England, where it was often raining and bitterly cold from fall to the late winter or early spring.
On the morning of May 14, 1965, I woke up with a start. My dad’s coughing was worse than ever—loud, wet, and raspy. I groggily thought he must have caught a nasty cold, and I hoped he wouldn’t pass it on to the rest of us. The more awake I became, the worse my dad sounded. This didn’t seem like a cold or the flu. He was wheezing, gasping. My mom abruptly opened the bedroom door, which startled me.
‘Dad’s not feeling well, so he’s gone back to bed,’ she said. Her voice sounded strained, which was unusual, so I got dressed and went downstairs. The raspy coughing continued. Then it got louder.
‘Derek, something’s really wrong!’ Mom said. ‘Go get Phil!’
My brother Phil, who is ten years older than I am, lived next door with his wife, Roberta, and their young son, Calvin. We didn’t have a phone, so I ran outside and jumped over the wall between our two houses. I didn’t want to lose time running around and opening the gate. I banged on the door and Phil opened it.