[1] The band stated that their aim was to "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular",[2] although this stance was to alter significantly with time.

[3] 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 from philosophy and the works of François Rabelais and R. D. Laing.

By 1966, the Shulmans' band – initially called the Howling Wolves, then the Road Runners – had taken on the name of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound and were pursuing more of a soul/pop direction.

(Both Ray and Phil also played trumpet and sang backing vocals for the group which, during its lifetime, briefly featured the future Elton John as pianist as well as recording a single with Dudley Moore as guest).

Success only served to frustrate the Shulman brothers, who considered themselves to be blue-eyed soul singers and felt that their change of style was insincere and insubstantial.

This compounded their identity crisis as the single was subsequently caught up in a rumour that the Moles were, in fact, the Beatles recording under a different name and with Ringo Starr as lead singer.

The rumour was eventually debunked by Pink Floyd leader Syd Barrett, who outed Simon Dupree and the Big Sound as the band behind the record.

[citation needed] In 1969, the Shulman brothers finally dissolved the group in order to escape the pop music environment that had frustrated them.

[5] Combining the collective band members' influences of rock, blues, classical, and 1960s British soul, it was an immediately challenging effort, although it has sometimes been criticised for having a slightly disappointing recording quality.

It also showed the band expanding their already impressive instrumental palette (although many years later Derek Shulman would admit "we recorded [Acquiring the Taste] without any idea of what it would be like before we got into the studio.

)"[6] The band's sense of challenge was made evident in the liner notes to Acquiring the Taste, which contained a particularly lofty statement of intent even by progressive rock standards.

Producer Tony Visconti has claimed authorship of this liner note as well as the "giant" story accompanying the first album[10] After Acquiring the Taste, Martin Smith left the band, apparently because of disagreements with both Ray and Phil Shulman.

[13] To fulfil tour obligations in April, Gentle Giant hired John "Pugwash" Weathers (born 7 February 1947)[5] (ex-Grease Band/Wild Turkey/Graham Bond's Magic).

[5] Weathers was a harder-hitting player who also sang and played melodic percussion and guitar, further expanding Gentle Giant's instrumental performance options.

We were sort of vindicated later on, as we thought we were never going to play Los Angeles again after the cherry bomb incident, but later on the Octopus tour we were able to sell out consistently there, so something clicked with the fans.

It maintained Gentle Giant's distinctively broad and challengingly integrated style, one of the highlights being the intricate madrigal-styled vocal workout "Knots" (whose lyrics are taken from various verses of poetry from R. D. Laing's book of the same title).

[7] Following the tour, Gentle Giant underwent their most significant line-up change when a burnt-out and discouraged Phil Shulman left the band following disagreements with his brothers.

[18] Over thirty years later, Phil Shulman expanded on his reasons for departure in a 2008 podcast interview conducted by his son Damon and grandson Elliot.

Although the band were still writing and performing some of the most complex rock music of the period, it was at this point that they began to polish and slightly simplify their songs for accessibility, in order to reach a wider audience (in particular an American one).

Derek Shulman eventually remembered it as being "real contrived"[16] while Kerry Minnear would confess to having felt unsure as to whether he had anything to contribute to the album (although he did make an attempt to write a commercial single, "It's Only Goodbye").

Gary Green (having settled in America, near Chicago) went on to play with various Illinois bands (including Blind Dates, the Elvis Brothers, Big Hello, and Mother Tongue) and guest on recordings and at concerts by Eddie Jobson and Divae.

The first was a collaboration between four former Gentle Giant members – Kerry Minnear, John Weathers, Gary Green, and Phil Shulman (who only participated as a lyricist).

This group recorded three new songs based on old Kerry Minnear demos for the 2004 Scraping the Barrel box set ("Home Again", "Moog Fugue", and "Move Over").

They recruited three noted jazz-fusion musicians to complete the band, with Roger Carey on bass and vocals, Andy Williams on guitar, and John Donaldson on piano and keyboards.

In due course, by 2011, Carey, Williams and Donaldson had left the band, to be replaced by Lee Pomeroy on bass and Gary Sanctuary on keyboards.

[30] There has been renewed interest in Gentle Giant since 1990, with new fan clubs, new releases of live concerts and previously unreleased material, and several tribute albums.

For example, the title track on Acquiring the Taste begins with an obvious defect, possibly from a damaged master tape, on all current CD and vinyl releases.

Conflicting evidence sometimes reports that this defect exists on the original 1971 vinyl release of the album, with the opening note bending up as the tape comes up to speed – probably an engineering error.

In 2005, to celebrate the band's 35th anniversary, a series of digitally remastered and specially packaged CDs of their later albums were released by Derek Shulman's company, DRT Entertainment.