Free Hand
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Free Hand
''Free Hand'' is the seventh album by British progressive rock band Gentle Giant. It was released in 1975. It was Gentle Giant's first album with their new label Chrysalis Records in the UK. It is noted for its high production values, and for a less dissonant, more accessible feel than their previous album ''The Power and the Glory''. It was their highest-charting album in the US and the only one to reach the Top 50 on the ''Billboard'' 200. In addition to the usual stereo version, the album was also mixed in 4-channel quadraphonic sound in 1976. The 4-channel mix was not used until 2012 when it finally appeared on DVD with encoding in multichannel LPCM, DTS and Dolby Digital surround sound formats. A 1990 CD re-issue in the US by One Way Records used an alternate stereo mix. This version revealed some different details in the musical and vocal parts. However, this edition may have actually been a reduction or variation of the 4-channel mix. Alucard Music/ EMI Records re ...
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Gentle Giant
Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. The band were known for the complexity and sophistication of their music and for the varied musical skills of their members. All of the band members were multi-instrumentalists. Although not commercially successful, they did achieve a cult following. The band stated that their aim was to "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular", although this stance was to alter significantly with time. Gentle Giant's music was considered complex even by progressive rock standards, drawing on a broad swathe of music including folk, soul, jazz, and classical music. Unlike many of their progressive rock contemporaries, their "classical" influences ranged beyond the Romantic and incorporated medieval, baroque, and modernist chamber music elements. The band also had a taste for broad themes for their lyrics, drawing inspiration not only from personal experiences but ...
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EMI Records
EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia and Parlophone record labels. The label was later launched worldwide. It has a branch in India called "EMI Records India", run by director Mohit Suri. In 2014, Universal Music Japan revived the label in Japan as the successor to EMI Records Japan. In June 2020, Universal revived the label as the successor to Virgin EMI, with Virgin Records now operating as an imprint of EMI Records. History An EMI Records Ltd. legal entity was created in 1956 as the record manufacturing and distribution arm of EMI in the UK. It oversaw EMI's various labels, including The Gramophone Co. Ltd., Columbia Graphophone Company, and Parlophone Co. Ltd. The global success that EMI enjoyed in the 1960s exposed the fact that the compan ...
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Gary Green (musician)
Gary William Green (20 November 1950 in Stroud Green, North London, England) is an English musician. During the 1970s, he was the guitarist for the progressive rock band Gentle Giant. Green was with the band from the debut album ''Gentle Giant'' all the way to the last album ''Civilian''. Green's style was different from most of his peers, being a more blues-based guitarist. Like his fellow band members, Green was also adept at other instruments, including mandolin and recorder. According to a 2008 interview, founding member Phil Shulman said that, despite Green's blues influences, he fit in well with the band's progressive style since Green was "quick on the up-take." Later on, he was a member of the band Mother Tongue, and also recorded on '' The Green Album (Eddie Jobson album), The Green Album'' with Eddie Jobson and Zinc, splitting guitar duties with Zinc guitarist Michael Cuneo on two tracks. Green has worked with Billy Sherwood on a number of projects, including ''B ...
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On Reflection
"On Reflection" is a song by the progressive rock band Gentle Giant. It was released on their 1975 album ''Free Hand''. Composition "On Reflection" is in the key of B-flat major. It features a fouror five part Polyphony of voices. Bruce Eder of AllMusic wrote that the song had " medieval-style a cappella vocals", while ''The Great Rock Bible'' described the song as a "folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers s ...er". Reception Robert Taylor of AllMusic wrote that "On Reflection" was revolutionary for its time, due to the band's vocal approach. Taylor also wrote that the song was one of prog-rock's defining moments. uDiscoverMusic also commented on the song positively, writing that the song's opening four-part fugue remains one of Gentle Giant's and the progressive ...
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Ray Shulman
Raymond Shulman (born 8 December 1949) is a Scottish musician, and the youngest of three brothers in progressive rock band Gentle Giant. Shulman was born in Portsmouth. His father was a trumpet player in a jazz band, and that was the first instrument he learned to play. He went on to learn violin and guitar and was primed for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, but his brother Derek convinced him to join his band Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, which later evolved into Gentle Giant. During Shulman's recording days in the band as a bass guitarist, his virtuosity often compared to popular players such as Yes's Chris Squire. Yet, like Genesis's Mike Rutherford, Shulman was quite adept at other instruments as well. Similar to the role of the rhythmist in the art-rock band Family, Shulman sometimes doubled on violin, recorder, trumpet, acoustic and electric guitars. Shulman and keyboardist-bandmate Kerry Minnear composed or co-wrote much of the music for Gentle Gian ...
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Derek Shulman
Derek Victor Shulman (born 11 February 1947) is a Scottish musician and singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record executive. From 1970 to 1980, he was lead vocalist for the band Gentle Giant. Career Born in the Gorbals, Glasgow, Scotland, Shulman began his recording career as the singer of British pop band Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, with Pete O'Flaherty, Eric Hine, Tony Ransley, and his brothers Phil Shulman and Ray Shulman. Recording in the late 1960s for Parlophone Records, the band struggled with creative difficulties after experiencing some commercial success with several top 40 hits, including the top 10 hit "Kites". The band finally dissolved in 1969. The three brothers went on to form progressive rock band Gentle Giant with guitarist Gary Green, keyboardist Kerry Minnear, and drummer Martin Smith (later replaced by Malcolm Mortimore, who was himself replaced by John Weathers). In Gentle Giant, Shulman became known as a dynamic frontman in the live environmen ...
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Kerry Minnear
Kerry Churchill Minnear (born 2 January 1948 in the town of Shaftesbury in Dorset, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician known primarily for his work with the progressive rock band Gentle Giant from 1970 to 1980. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London with a major in musical composition. As a member of Gentle Giant, he contributed to all 11 albums over the 10 year life of the band. Though he is adept at several instruments, he primarily played keyboards and provided back up and lead vocals. In addition to keyboard, he also played a multitude of other instruments such as the cello, tenor recorder, and classical percussion (including vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ... and snare drum). He also composed ...
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King Crimson
King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experimental music and new wave. They exerted a strong influence on the early 1970s progressive rock movement, including on contemporaries such as Yes and Genesis, and continue to inspire subsequent generations of artists across multiple genres. The band has earned a large cult following. Founded by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and lyricist Peter Sinfield, the band initially focused on a dramatic sound layered with Mellotron, McDonald's saxophone and flute, and Lake's powerful lead vocals. Their debut album, '' In the Court of the Crimson King'' (1969), remains their most commercially successful and influential release, with a potent mixture of jazz, classical and experimental music. Following the sudden simultaneous de ...
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Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band formed at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, in 1967. The band's most commercially successful line-up consisted of keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and drummer/singer Phil Collins. The 1970s line-up, featuring singer Peter Gabriel and guitarist Steve Hackett, was among the pioneers of progressive rock. The group were formed by five Charterhouse pupils, including Banks, Rutherford, Gabriel, and Anthony Phillips, and named by former Charterhouse pupil Jonathan King, who arranged for them to record several singles and their debut album '' From Genesis to Revelation'' in 1968. After splitting from King, the band began touring, signed with Charisma Records and became a progressive rock band on '' Trespass'' (1970). Following Phillips' departure, Genesis recruited Collins and Hackett and recorded ''Nursery Cryme'' (1971). Their live shows began to feature Gabriel's theatrical costumes and performances. '' Foxtro ...
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Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer (informally known as ELP) were an English progressive rock supergroup formed in London in 1970. The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards), Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitar, producer) and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion). With nine RIAA-certified gold record albums in the US, and an estimated 48 million records sold worldwide, they are one of the most popular and commercially successful progressive rock groups of the 1970s, with a musical sound including adaptations of classical music with jazz and symphonic rock elements, dominated by Emerson's flamboyant use of the Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer, and piano (although Lake wrote several acoustic songs for the group).Lake says almost dismissively, "It used to be a thing where as a balance to the record I would write an acoustic song." Lake's ballads, the least typical aspect of ELP's music, often garnered the band their greatest airplay and widest public exposure. The band came to prominence followin ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Gui ...
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Digipack
Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case A jewel CD case is a compact disc case that has been used since the compact disc was first released in 1982. It is a three-piece plastic case, measuring , a volume of , which usually contains a compact disc along with the liner notes and a back card. Two opposing transparent halves are hinged together to form the casing, the back half holding a media tray that grips the disc by its hole. All three parts are made of injection-moulded polystyrene. The front lid contains two, four, or six tabs to keep any liner notes in place. The liner notes typically will be a booklet, or a single leaf folded in half. In addition, there is usually a back card, , underneath the media tray and visible through the clear back, often listing the track names, ...
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