As I was listening to Gentle Giant (one of my all time favorite bands), it occured to me, that their music, besides being totally amazing, complex, beautiful, inspiring, and incredibly well written, can at times be extremely funky....I mean just pure unadulterated FUNK. And I think to myself, where did this influence come from.....because to be quite honest...funk isn't thought of to be a prog element, infact I dare say that most people would think anything with a beat that you can grove your head to, wouldn't be prog....I think most people think that that's an attempt to be commercial, which I totally disagree with. I find myself dancing and groving to their beats....HAHAHA, and I dont think that there is anything wrong with that....The strange thing is, I can not think of another progressive rock band that conjures up this heavy grove. Gentle Giant is the only prog band that I can think of that is downright...well as stated before...FUNKY.....(of course besides the fusion bands, but once again there is a uniqueness with Gentle Giant, and how they accomplish this funk)...oddly enough it would seem that they use classical composition technique to do it. .......actually some of the music from the band Focus is funky too.

There is no doubt in my mind that these guys loved and listened to TONS of black music. Along with the classical elements, we can also hear jazz as well...those two ingredients are a given somewhat.....but other than jazz, Gentle Giant draws on other genres of quote on quote black music. This is not surprising considering these guys are a British band.....I mean after all that was what the whole British invasion was about, British bands rehashing black music that America condemned in the 1950s.....British bands simply did not have a probem with the race issue.

Of course the funkiness of Gentle Giant is engulfed in complex, sophistocated, intertwining, polyphonic lines. Not your run of the mill beats...LOL

Also we know that popular prog bands from britian such as YES, in their early stages started out performing doo-wop and R&B and MOTown songs. So I was just wondering what you guys thought about this...do you agree or disagree....or perhaps feel that it is a little deeper than this. Let me know what you think.