About This Site
Site creator Dan Barrett (center)
with Ray Shulman (left) and Kerry Minnear,
Ray's flat, London, Summer 1998
The Gentle Giant Home Page was created by Dan Barrett on September 4, 1994. As of August 2006, the site has over 360 pages comprising over 1600 files.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed material!
The GG Connection
The Gentle Giant Home Page is known to all the members of Gentle Giant, who occasionally visit the site, give their support, and give permission to reproduce certain materials found on these pages. How this happened is an interesting story.
In 1995, a British music magazine called Q noticed the site and printed a picture of the main page. This was noticed by PolyGram Records in the UK, who asked Dan to help them compile a new Gentle Giant anthology, which became Edge of Twilight. While working on the track list, Dan approached Kerry Minnear about obtaining unreleased material for the anthology. Although no unreleased material was used, this did get Dan and Kerry talking.
Then in 1997, Dan and 41 other Internet musicians released Giant Tracks, a Gentle Giant tribute album (see Keyboard Magazine, January 1998, for the full story.). This album required more discussion between Dan and Gentle Giant concerning rights and royalties, and it also drew the band's attention to the possibility of releasing their own material on the Net. Dan then worked with Kerry and Ray Shulman and fan Dan Bornemark of Sweden to create Under Construction, a 2-CD collection of unreleased GG tracks, and market it on the Internet.
Dan has worked with the band on further Internet-related projects, including a Bon Jovi video site (remember, Derek signed them) and some GG-related ideas.
About Dan Barrett
Born in 1963, Dan has been a progressive rock fan for many years but, believe it or not, didn't hear of Gentle Giant until 1987, when a good friend introduced him to The Power and the Glory. And... he didn't like it! But somehow, those complex compositions ingrained themselves on his brain, and today that album is Dan's favorite in all of rock music.
Dan created the GG Home Page while earning his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today he works in the software industry and does private consulting. He has written columns and articles for Keyboard Magazine and is the author of several books about computing, including Linux Pocket Guide, Linux Security Cookbook, SSH, the Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, NetResearch: Finding Information Online and Bandits on the Information Superhighway, all published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.