Three Friends

Three Friends (1972) is the third album by British progressive rock band Gentle Giant. It was the band's first release to chart in America, peaking at #197 on the Billboard 200. It is the only album by Gentle Giant to feature drummer Malcolm Mortimore following the departure of Martin Smith.

For the 1913 film, see Three Friends (film).

Three Friends
Studio album by
Gentle Giant
Released14 April 1972
RecordedDecember 1971
StudioAdvision Studios; Command Studios, London
Genre
Length35:24
LabelVertigo (UK)
Columbia (US/Canada)
Malibu Record Productions, Inc.
ProducerGentle Giant
Gentle Giant chronology
Acquiring the Taste
(1971)		 Three Friends
(1972)		 Octopus
(1972)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Sea of Tranquility[2]
The Daily Vault(A)[3]

A concept album, Three Friends deals with three childhood friends whose lives take them very different places. However, each of the three friends are unsatisfied with their new lives. The closing song ends the story on a cliffhanger; whether or not the three friends ever reunite is never revealed. The album is predominantly instrumental, with most tracks having only brief vocal interludes.

Production

Three Friends was the band's first self-produced album. The two former albums were produced by David Bowie and T.Rex producer Tony Visconti.

Gary Green's guitar solo on "Peel the Paint" uses an echoplex belonging to Mike Ratledge that Green's brother Jeff, a roadie with Ratledge's band Soft Machine, had borrowed.

The song "Schooldays" starts off with the sounds of a schoolyard playground in England. Ray Shulman told Songfacts about the song: "We started off using the sound effects of the schoolyard so it would be very nostalgic, and that's a whole song about being at school together, and how these friends went their own different ways. One goes into manual labour, one goes into white-collar work, and one is an artist."[4]

Release

For the U.S. and Canadian edition, on Columbia Records, the album cover was changed to a modified version of the design from the self-titled UK debut Gentle Giant. The album title and band name were added over the forehead of the giant image and the colour tinting of the cover was changed.

The US edition on Columbia also has the marker for track 6 in the wrong place. On this version, track number 5 ends early at 3:23 instead of 5:51 while incorrectly extending the length of track six from 3:04 to 5:32. This mistake remained in place on US releases of the album for decades, being carried over to the CD releases and even to online digital music distributors such as iTunes and Spotify. It has since been corrected.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Kerry Minnear, Derek Shulman, Phil Shulman, and Ray Shulman

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Prologue"6:14
2."Schooldays"7:37
3."Working All Day"5:12
Side two
No.TitleLength
4."Peel the Paint"7:31
5."Mister Class and Quality?"5:51
6."Three Friends"3:04

Personnel

Gentle Giant

Additional personnel
  • Boy's voice on "Schooldays" – Calvin Shulman
  • Engineer – Martin Rushent
  • Sleeve Design – Rick Breach
  • Publisher – Excellency Music
  • Phonographic Copyright (p) – Malibu Record Productions, Inc.

Charts
Chart (1972) Peak
position
US Billboard 200[5] 197

References
  1. Eder, Bruce (2011). "Three Friends – Gentle Giant | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  2. Leimer, Kerry (2011). "Review: 'Gentle Giant: Three Friends' – Sea of Tranquility – The Web Destination for Progressive Music!". seaoftranquility.org. Retrieved 25 June 2011. Kerry Leimer
  3. Rusk, Bruce (2011). "The Daily Vault Music Reviews : Three Friends". dailyvault.com. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  4. "School Days". Songfacts.com. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  5. "Gentle Giant Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
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