Gentle Giant release rare Italian video clip from 1972

(Image credit: The Gentle Giant Archive)

Gentle Giant have released a new and rare vide clip of the band performing live and being interviewed on Italian television. The clip is from 1972 and features original founding member Phil Shulman with the band as they perform Peel The Paint from 1972's Three Friends. It is thought to be the clearest existing footage of the band performing with Phil Shulman.

"In 1972, The band had just signed with Pat Meehan Sr. at WorldWide Artists Management who hosted a private party at the Kings River Club in Lido di Jesolo, Italy," say the band. "This film features an (overdubbed) performance of Three Friends' Peel The Paint followed by a brief interview with Phil Shulman. This film was originally broadcasted on an Italian program called Permette Questo Ballo. It is believed that there are several different edits from this event that was broadcasted through the RAI archives in Italy."

In the clip, when asked what sort of music they play, Phil Shulman, who would leave the band a year later, says [although some of the real meaning might have been lost in the translation], "The music of Gentle Giant is all our own. The band are made of six instruments and we play different types of music. Some of us have played jazz, others are classical musicians, blues interpreters and we even have a musician of C. O. Jolly Heavy Funk. All this put together constitutes our music, which has no special characteristic. it is just ur music."

Although Gentle Giant haven't played live since they disbanded in 1980, the band have been highly visible recently. Their virtual reunion for the lockdown fan video of Proclamation won the Event Of The Year category in the Prog Magazine Readers' Poll for 2020.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.