I’d like to be able to say Simon Dupree & The Big Sound ended on a euphoric high note. It did and it didn’t. In the final days of the band, we were booked to play a week of dates at the Stockton Fiesta, a cabaret club. We were still very popular, and I was trying to make a graceful exit, despite hating every second of it. We never wanted to be a house band, so when we played a venue like that, we’d book three days at the most. The week before our first gig, Joe Cocker was playing the first of five nights. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand up without hugging the mic stand. Crowd members were booing and pelting him with objects. After being hit with one too many beverage cups, he staggered off the stage and the show was over. The club’s management canceled the rest of his shows and told him to get the fuck out and not to come back.
They contacted us and asked if we would play Cocker’s remaining shows in addition to the three for which we were already booked. None of us wanted to play the gigs, but the money was good, so we accepted. We played everything the crowd wanted to hear, but we were just coloring by numbers. But at least we wouldn’t be competing with any hot-shit opening bands, since the venue had booked a hypnotist named Chick Mick.
It wasn’t unusual for cabaret clubs to book a variety of acts—magicians, ventriloquists, comedians, and, yes, hypnotists—and, during his show, Mick joked with the crowd and hypnotized various volunteers. We figured they were plants and paid little attention to his act. Then, on the last night we were booked to play with Chick Mick, our drummer Martin Smith and bassist Gary Kenworthy asked him how it worked.
‘Well, you want me to show you?’ the hypnotist asked.
‘Yeah,’ we told him.
‘Go ahead, give it a try. Hypnotize us,’ Phil said.
Chick Mick started his routine. ‘Okay, watch my hand and listen to my voice. You’re getting sleepy.’ Us bigshot Shulman brothers looked at one another with leering skepticism.
‘What the fuck?’ said Phil. ‘We’re not getting sleepy.’ For sure, the three of us were not, but I’ll be damned if that hypnotist didn’t put Gary and Martin right to sleep. Within minutes, he had them waddling around, quacking like ducks and squawking like chickens. Then he snapped his fingers and they went back to normal but had no idea what had happened to them.
‘So, when are you gonna hypnotize us?’ Martin said. Maybe hypnotism only works on weak minds—and rhythm sections. It was the funniest thing, and as a final memorable backstage experience for Simon Dupree, it helped end the band on more of an up note than I had expected.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
MIND IF I
TUNE UP?
With Gerry Bron’s financial backing, we were able to disband Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and take the next nine months off to write a batch of experimental songs for our new band and recruit and hire new members who were skilled enough to co-write and play the material.
‘Derek, I believe in you and your brothers,’ Gerry said. ‘I’ll support you because I know you can do this.’
Phil and his wife, who had bought a large house in Portsmouth, were renting rooms to students studying at nearby schools. One of them was a music fan who knew Phil, Ray, and I were starting a new band. One morning, he knocked on Phil’s door before heading to class.
‘A good friend of mine is a musician in Germany, and he wants to get back to England,’ he began. ‘His name is Kerry Minnear, and he was in a band called Rust when they broke up. Now he’s stuck there, but he’s a great musician. He went to the Royal Academy Of Music and studied composition and theory. I just thought you might want to talk to him, since you’re doing this new thing.’
Phil thanked the student and then told us about Kerry. By the time we tracked him down, he had returned to England and was living with his parents in the West Country. Fortunately, there weren’t too many Minnears in the phone book, so we gave him a call.
‘Your friend says you’re really good,’ Phil began. ‘If we pay for your train fare to Portsmouth, would you want to try out for us? We’re not doing stuff like Simon Dupree anymore. We want to do something really different. So, are you interested?’
‘Yeah, I’d love to,’ he said. ‘I need a gig, and I think I can get in with what you want to do.’
Kerry was a classically trained musician who had a gift for playing angular, off-kilter passages on keyboards, but he also enjoyed and was more than capable of playing a good melody. He was a fantastic person—upbeat and friendly—and consumed with creating chords, patterns, and licks that served the songs instead of his ego. He had only been semi-professional with Rust and had never done any major tour, but he was eager to learn and contribute to something new.
Kerry stayed at Phil’s house in Portsmouth, and we met him soon after he had settled in. He played some songs for us that he had composed, and we were amazed. The melodies and progressions he played had only existed in our heads until that moment. It was clear we were on the same page. From that point, Gentle Giant was not just a fetus. With the arrival of Kerry, it was born. Between Kerry’s composing knowledge and Ray’s classical background, there was an immediate bond, and once they started writing, they couldn’t stop. Once again, the stars had aligned. Not only was Kerry the catalyst for what we became, but he was kind, patient, and even-keeled, and he had the right disposition to cope with the pressure of being in a touring band. He could also be charmingly naïve, which was sort of sweet.
About five years after Kerry joined Gentle Giant, we were playing a big headline show in London to support our album The Power And The Glory. Backstage after the show, a pretty, petite young woman the rest of us instantly recognized walked over to Kerry. They started speaking, and though Kerry couldn’t identify her, he recognized she wasn’t from the UK.
‘Oh, you sound American. Where are you from?’ he asked.
‘I’m living in California now, but I’m originally from Connecticut,’ the woman said, then changed the subject. ‘I really like your music. I think it’s great.’
After about thirty minutes of chit-chat, Kerry asked the most amazing thing: ‘Do you do anything in the music business?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she said.
‘So, are you a singer, or do you work for a label or something?’
‘Well, I’m in a group called The Carpenters,’ she said humbly, after a brief pause.
Kerry was chatting up Karen Carpenter and he didn’t have any idea who she was! He had never seen her picture. He didn’t know her music. It was unbelievable. She was sweet and not at all insulted. Maybe she enjoyed not being instantly recognized, but hearing him ask her if she does anything in the music business was hilarious. And her answer—‘Well, I’m in a group called The Carpenters’—was priceless. Ray and I were nudging one another, snickering. Kery didn’t say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.’ He was completely nonplussed, and they dated for a couple of weeks.