Before they formed the legendary prog group Gentle Giant, the Shulman brothers were blue-eyed soul pioneers. Their outfit, Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, is barely remembered today, but the British sextet put out an album in 1967 that featured musical instruments owned by some very famous musicians who recorded at the same studio, namely the Beatles.
Dupree & the Big Sound were formed in the 1960s by Derek Shulman and his brothers, Phil and Ray. In 1967, the group scored a record deal with EMI’s Parlophone label that put them in very close proximity to their fellow label mates, the Beatles.
To secure their contract, they had to pass an audition, Derek Shulman writes in his autobiography, Giant Steps, which comes out October 7 from Jawbone Press. Present were Beatles producer George Martin, Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, engineer (and future Pink Floyd producer) Alan Parsons, Cliff Richards and the Shadows producer Norrie Paramor "and 12 other high-level producers and engineers at EMI.”
“They had us play a whole set, like a mini-concert, and most of them didn’t smile the whole time,” Shulman writes. “When it was over, they said goodbye, and we were sure they didn’t like us. Two weeks later, we got a record contract.”
Dupree and company released only album, 1967's Without Reservations, recorded at EMI's Abbey Road Studios at the same time the Beatles were present to make their psychedelic-rock classic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
With the Beatles in and out of the famed London studio at regular intervals, they’d often leave their instruments lying around. The Shulman brothers were all for taking advantage of the gear in their absence.
“We picked up these amazing guitars, like George Harrison’s 1957 Gretsch Duo Jet and John Lennon’s Rickenbacker 325,” he reveals. “We even borrowed the prized Mellotron they used on 'Strawberry Fields Forever' for a few of our songs.”
Harrison had bought the Gretsch off a sailor who'd returned from America with the electric guitar in tow. It was most famously used on early Beatles tracks like “Please Please Me,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout.” Lennon's Rickenbacker was also a key part of the band's early days and was played during the group's 1964 performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and in the studio on numerous tracks, including their U.S. breakthrough hit, "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Dupree & the Big Sound scored only one hit, 1967's "Kites," a psychedelic-rock tune created at the urging of their management and EMI, who thought the band needed to update their sound. Although they never made another album, they continued to record singles at Abbey Road and were there once again when the Beatles were making Abbey Road, their final recorded effort, named for the facility, in 1969.
Arriving for their day's work, the Shulmans were surprised to find a king-sized bed installed in the studio. In June of that year, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono had been involved in a car accident, and Ono, who was pregnant and had a history of miscarriages, was told to get plenty of bedrest. Not wanting to be away from her, Lennon had London's luxury department store Harrods deliver a bed to the studio so she could be present while the Beatles recorded.
The Shulmans knew none of this and began jumping on the bed as if it were a trampoline. Which is exactly when they were discovered by John and Yoko.
“We were having so much fun, jumping around like idiots, that at first we didn’t see them,” Shulman says. “Then John became quite agitated and said, ‘Jesus Christ, what kind of bullshit is this?’ And Yoko screamed, ‘Get the fuck off our bed!’
“I immediately blamed Phil, even though it was a [group] effort, but John and Yoko didn’t care who was at fault.
"I can only imagine how they would have reacted if they had seen us playing their guitars.”
In related Beatles news, an English guitarist unknowingly became the owner of a Fender amplifier that John Lennon used on the group's White Album. He purchased it for roughly $4,000 and now intends to sell it at auction, where it is expected to fetch a six-figure sum.
