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Think back to 1967, and The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is surely the dominant musical force of that year. But Procol Harum can lay claim to making an astonishing impact.
Their debut single A Whiter Shade Of Pale had given them a UK number one in the summer of ’67. But a short time afterwards the band released their self-titled, debut album, a record that helped shape what would become progressive rock. “We never thought of ourselves in that way,” late lyricist Keith Reid admitted to Classic Rock in 2010. “We were into soul, rock’n’roll and country music. But then there was no such thing as prog in those days.”
Reid met vocalist/pianist Gary Brooker when the latter was still in his pre-Procol band The Paramounts. When that group split up, the pair decided to work together as songwriters.
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“We actually founded Procol Harum so that our songs would get recorded and heard,” said Reid. “Nothing we did had been taken up by artists. I think we’d written one song for Dusty Springfield, but I don’t know if she even heard it. That was the way things went.”
When A Whiter Shade Of Pale took off, the band were pressured into getting an album finished as fast as possible. “We’d spent ages writing the songs and rehearsing them, but the recording process was rushed. I wish we’d taken our time, but that’s what happens when you have a massive hit.”
So, Reid and Brooker – together with guitarist Robin Trower, organist Matthew Fisher, bassist Dave Knights and drummer BJ Wilson – went into the studio with producer Denny Cordell to record 10 songs for the album.
“The way Gary and I worked, I’d come up with the words, and then he’d add the music,” recalled Reid. “The only time on the debut album that we deviated from this was for Conquistador. I travelled down to Southend one day to see Gary, and he played me something he’d been working on. I thought the title Conquistador would fit, and then went into another room to write the lyrics.”
The studio experience was to be one that was far from smooth. “There were times when the tape operator forgot to press the ‘record’ button. And we also had takes wiped accidentally. We were incredibly tolerant in the studio, but back then everything was much looser. You never had anyone telling you to guard the tapes with your life.”
As a result of which, the original multi-track recordings have long since gone missing. “That’s the case, unfortunately. In the 60s this sort of thing happened regularly. We didn’t even record this in stereo. It was all mono, and then some trickery was used to get a stereo effect.”
In the modern era when every conceivable marketing ploy is used to sell an album, it seems amazing that A Whiter Shade… was missed off the album. “We were very idealistic back then.” Reid told Classic Rock. “We just felt that the single had been heard and bought, and we wanted people to get 10 new songs.”
Incredibly, given the huge success of that single, the album failed to make the Top 50 in the UK. But speaking in 2010,, Reid had a genuine fondness for it. “It was so badly recorded, because everything was too hurried. However the songs were great.”
Originally published in Classic Rock issue 150 (September 2010)
