Maybe we never had a chance at having a Genesis-style breakthrough. The name Gentle Giant provoked a negative knee-jerk reaction from radio programmers. They wouldn’t even give our records a spin because they had already decided they would be too far out of step with the music of the moment. We toured like usual, but it wasn’t the same. Our fans loved the shows, but many of them sat down when we played the new songs. We were now a specialty band with a devoted crowd. At least they were devoted, which enabled us to sell enough tickets to fill the seats—and which was a godsend, since the rest of the world was still revolving around punk rock and the energy, rebellion, and imagery that abounded in that era. Everything now was about attitude, and attitude is something that’s blithely marketed, not painstakingly composed.
We started the Missing Piece tour with headline shows in Europe. During that cycle, the hanging neon Gentle Giant head had gotten beaten up, and the circuitry broke. Fortunately, our team was able to fix the electrical problems and bang out the dents so that the Giant again glowed high above the stage. We also convinced a roadie to wear a rubber Giant mask and stagger around the stage carrying a liquor jug. The shows were fun to play, but the ones in England were more sparsely attended than our previous shows. Some of that was due to the punk explosion, yet it felt personal, and it reminded us, yet again, that even though we were from Portsmouth, we received a better reception from the rest of Europe than we did from our home country. Those dates would end up being the last UK shows we ever did.
For the US leg of the tour, we invited Dr. Feelgood along, hoping they would help endear us to some of the mainstream punk crowd. That backfired, and when our fans heard Dr. Feelgood’s primitive, sloppy rhythm and atonal vocals, they booed them as viciously as Black Sabbath’s fans had jeered us. So, Dr. Feelgood dropped off the bill, and now we had to contend with some of their disgruntled fans, who heckled us onstage. You expect that as an opener, not as a headliner. It never feels good.
We had hoped that US radio would pick up on our latest single, ‘Two Weeks In Spain,’ while we were on tour. Adventurous American rock bands including Styx and Kansas were ripping off our songs left and right (violins and all), and they were all over the radio and on the verge of commercial breakthroughs. That was both frustrating and motivational. Naively, perhaps, we figured that if they could break the mold, so could we. It wasn’t to be.
Our lack of breakout success didn’t brighten my mood, and neither did the new wrinkles that complicated our traveling protocol when we toured The Missing Piece. I had grown close to Sharon, Ray was in love with Barbara, and we both wanted them on the road with us. We knew full well that, for rock bands, bringing wives or girlfriends on tour is frowned upon almost as strongly as taking a shit on the bus (which you never do). It almost always creates friction. We already had a rule that it was okay for wives and girlfriends to come out on the road for a few days at a time, but extended stretches were a problem because they inevitably became a distraction. Everybody in the band has a job that requires being on tour. That’s hard for wives and girlfriends, but touring is a major part of the job, and it’s not their job to be there as well, let alone to inject themselves into the creative process. Ever since the days of Simon Dupree, I’d seen it happen so many times, but I figured we weren’t like other bands, so it wouldn’t be a problem.
It wasn’t long before Barbara started whispering to Ray. She was a big fan of Bowie and T. Rex, and she thought we could take a fashion tip or two from them. I loved Ray and was thrilled he’d met someone he cared about. At the same time, Ray and I had always been a team. We confided in one another before anyone else, and now that paradigm had shifted for us both.
I wasn’t exactly jealous, but I was mildly annoyed that my little brother’s new girlfriend thought we had an image problem. I guess I was also a little taken aback that we were no longer Team Shulman 24/7. As much as I loved Sharon, we were more independent than Ray and Barbara. Sharon had a job in New York, so she was only on the road with me for short stints since she had priorities of her own. Barbara was a hairdresser with a flexible schedule, so she could take two or three weeks off at a time to go on the road, and that altered the balance of how Ray and I had functioned for almost twenty years. Ray was so enamored with Barbara that she became instrumental in influencing his taste and lifestyle, and she was even credited as the sleeve designer for Giant For A Day!
At the same time, I have to give Barbara credit for introducing Ray and me to the Granati Brothers, friends of hers from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where she grew up. They were a Hall & Oates-style R&B band made up of four brothers and a cousin. Barbara made plans to see them with Ray in Pittsburgh, and he cajoled me into coming along. I loved them. They sounded great and looked amazing. With my new manager/businessman/industry advisor hat on, I approached them after the show and said, ‘I bet I can get you guys a deal.’
‘Really?’ said one of the brothers. ‘That would be incredible. We’ve been wanting to put a record out for a long time. But we don’t know that many people.’
I talked to an A&R man I knew at A&M named John Anthony, and he liked the Granatis as well. They looked punky but played power pop, so they could fit in well with Joe Jackson or Elvis Costello. A&M signed them to a very good deal. I produced their album with Ray and got them a management deal with Premier Talent agents Barbara Skydel and Frank Barsalona. We were able to get them on tour with Van Halen—you can’t do better than that for a new band.
This was a real wake-up call for me. Even if I wasn’t in a band, I could still be involved in music.
With the glow of the Granatis experience still in my rear-view mirror, Sharon and I decided to get married in grand style. June 18, 1978, is a day the Dallas Jewish community will never forget. We had almost four hundred guests at the wedding, many of whom were recent Russian immigrants Leo and his wife Shirley had helped find jobs for—much the way Morris had helped Leo years before. I didn’t have a clue who was attending. Sharon’s parents took a cue from their daughter and got involved with the Russian Jewish community as well. Ray was my best man, and he came with Barbara, our mother, and my sister, Eve. Aunt Rose, my mother’s sister from San Francisco, flew in for the festivities, as did Aunt Frieda, my father’s half-sister from Glasgow. I thought the Granati Brothers might get a kick out of attending a conservative Jewish wedding, so I invited them as well, and they were happy to be there. For me, there were no panic attacks or second-guessing this time, since I knew I had found my lifelong partner. I was delighted to have my family there alongside all the guests I didn’t even know, but as long as Sharon was there to hold me, smile with me, and celebrate our marriage, everything was right with the world.
During the ceremony, I looked out at the gathering and felt kind of like I was at a gig, which isn’t far from what it turned into. The music began after the wedding when we all danced the Hora, and then the band we hired started playing traditional Klezmer/Jewish songs and the crowd started dancing. That’s when Ray came up to me and said, ‘Let’s take over.’ Brilliant idea! The Granati Brothers were fine instrumentalists, so I walked up to the leader of the Klezmer band and asked if we could play a song or two. It turned into a full-scale show.