Fans who were ready to progress with the Shulman brothers were thankfully blown away. Predictably, those who wanted us to play run-of-the-mill psychedelic pop and simple R&B were a bit confused. As I saw the looks of bewilderment and awe on their faces, I thought, Just wait ’til you hear the album!
CHAPTER
EIGHT
A TALL
TALE
Gerry Bron introduced us to Tony Visconti, a transplanted American producer who was developing a solid reputation. He heard the first Gentle Giant demos we made and said, ‘Yes, please!’
Tony was the ideal producer for us. It was 1970, and he had worked with T. Rex, Badfinger, Strawbs, and David Bowie. We were lucky he made the time to fit us into his schedule. Right after he finished a T. Rex album, we met him at Trident Studios in London and then recorded a series of three-hour sessions. He slid us in between other sessions with David Bowie and T. Rex. We had to be productive in the hours we had, but we never felt like he was rushing us or was thinking about other projects while we were with him.
Being with Tony was incredible. There was electricity in the air. We were making history. We had worked with great producers like George Martin and Dave Paramor, but Tony was far better for us at this stage in our career. As a gifted musician as well as producer, he was a great mentor. He was knowledgeable about classical, jazz, folk, rock, classical, and pop—all the elements we applied to our songs—and he understood our objectives, even when we weren’t entirely sure what we were doing. That led us on our path to sonic freedom. We weren’t at the end of the road, by any means, but Tony helped us realize that our only limitations were self-imposed and that we had the talent and creativity to break barriers.
We did a bit of preproduction with Tony first, but we were so excited about the songs and had spent so much time rehearsing them that they were mostly good to go. We put everything we had into that album—all of our technical skills, off-the-wall arrangements, and vocal techniques. In that respect, it was the opposite of Simon Dupree & The Big Sound. More specifically, it was nothing anyone had heard before. It was strange, but deliberately so. There was no lack of compositional skill in those songs, and if we occasionally missed the mark, it wasn’t because we were shooting in the dark. Kerry and Ray wrote their parts on sheet music. Nothing was jammed out or thrown together. At the same time, in the beginning, we were stumbling around and finding our footing. We were still in our gestation period, compared to what we would do together over the decade. But it was a great start.
We worked hard with Tony, and we loved it. We also enjoyed the downtime, during which we became good friends with the guys in Bowie’s band, including guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Mick Woodmansey, who were working on Bowie’s album The Man Who Sold The World. Tony joined us in the pub after their sessions and made sure we all felt comfortable with one another. He was all about creating camaraderie between his friends, so he initiated conversations that helped break the ice.
Bowie dropped in several times to say hi, but he’d disappear soon after like a spaceman beaming back to his ship. He didn’t have a big ego and wasn’t aloof or standoffish; he was shy back then and seemed uncomfortable in social situations. When he was around us, we exchanged niceties, but he didn’t say much. I think he put all of his personal expression into his music, for now lacking a lot of the communication skills that he’d so capably master down the road.
When we were in the final stages of recording Gentle Giant, Tony took some time off to work with T. Rex. All we had left to do was overdubs, so Tony suggested we drop in and watch T. Rex record in the studio. In a way, it was more like a freak show than a learning experience—or maybe we learned what we didn’t want to do when we went back into the studio. Marc Bolan was finishing his guitar overdubs, and we hung behind the studio glass and watched. As the tape rolled and the gritty, glammy music blared from the speakers, Marc made agonized faces as he played double stops on his Les Paul. One second he was on his feet, the next he’d dropped to his back, kicking the air like he was trying to ward off wild animals, all the while continuing to manhandle a barbed blues lead from his guitar. There was no audience there, but Marc was determined to go wherever the music took him.
After Marc left and we headed back into the studio, I spoke to Tony.
‘What the hell was that about?’ I asked. ‘What was going on with Marc?’
‘That’s just what he does,’ Tony replied. ‘It works for him. If something works, remember what you did, and don’t be afraid to do it again.’
It was good advice, but what Marc was doing looked a bit iffy to me, like he was trying to impress whoever was watching. ‘That guy’s full of shit,’ Phil said. But, of course, he wasn’t. We toured with T. Rex later, and Marc was as uninhibited onstage as he had been in the studio, kicking up dirt and rolling around, and though his playing was a bit primitive for my tastes, there was no question he was rocking up a cyclone.
Tony had the musical knowledge and engineering skills to enhance the songs of any of the artists he worked with, whether they were basic bar bands or sonic extremists. He enjoyed putting his touch on a recording without altering the core essence of the music, and that’s what made him such a great producer. In our case, he enjoyed helping us fine-tune our songs. With our blessings, he turned a knob here and tweaked a fader there to bring out the best in our performances. His passion for the project was contagious, and as a kicker, he wrote the liner notes for the album. As it turned out, he was also a damn good creative writer:
A TALL TALE
BY TONY VISCONTI
Giant took notice of the long shadows and decided to quit for the day in the apple orchard. He stretched, took forty steps and covered the quarter mile to the mouth of his cave. He sat down and pulled a sweet smelling cork out of a two hundred gallon jug. Scrumpy is what he poured into a mug having the same capacity as a bathtub.
As he quaffed he perceived that something strange was in the air, stirring the serenity of the Somerset countryside. He slowly rose to his full height and whispered, ‘Ar, there be a good sound floatin’ in the east wind. I think I’ll investigate.’
You must understand that the giant doesn’t go out much, except when he sees his girlfriend in France now and then (she’s the daughter of Gargantua)—and twice a century at that! Now he had another good excuse to break the routine of his work at the orchard.
He travelled swiftly through the night, carefully avoiding populated areas. When he came to the Salisbury Plain he decided to see if his stone ring was still standing. He made it as a boy, just for fun. As he approached, two long-haired youths sitting against a slab looked up. One said, ‘Man, this stuff is pretty good gear. I’ve just hallucinated a great big far-out lookin’ giant over there.’
The other said, ‘Far out man, I see him too.’
They sat motionless for a few moments, then the giant turned and continued his quest towards the south. When he was out of their sight the first one whispered wide-eyed, ‘Too much man, us having the same hallucination.’ The other youth had fainted.
Sure enough, the sound was coming from Portsmouth way. To the giant’s delight it came from a cottage out in the countryside, far from the centre of town. Inside, six dedicated musicians were tearing off a rendition of ‘Why Not?’ at a thousand watts; that’s enough to rip the top of anybody’s head. All except the giant’s. He just laid on his stomach, rested his head on his folded arms and listened with an ear to each open window for good stereo.