Simon Dupree and the Big Sound
- Written by Geir Hasnes. Reorganized and supplemented by Dan Barrett.
Simon Dupree and the Big Sound was a pop band with the three brothers Shulman in the lead. Derek called himself Simon Dupree. They reached the British Top 10 with the single "Kites," a psychedelic single in the Beatles vein, and which was hated by the band! Most of the material is a mix of English 60's pop and soul. Suffice to say that the best things they did are listenable but not much more, and the worst things are really terrible, IMHO.
The band hated being a sort of cabaret band in the late 60's, when they even had to open for Beach Boys and at some time had a young piano player called Elton John with them. Derek hated more and more being marketed as Simon Dupree.
Martin Smith came in as drummer very late, and he joined them for the first two Gentle Giant albums.
I have worked with having Terrapin release a complete Dupree / Moles CD, but it was too expensive to buy rights and get good enough master tapes.