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Voice that shone through
Paicey remembers Gary Brooker, who passed away on February 19, 2022, at the age of 76.
Procol Harum performing A Whiter Shade of Pale with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and choir at Ledreborg Castle, Denmark, in August 2006:
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Whiter Shade Of Pale – one of the best songs ever written. Thanks so much for the music. RIP.
February 26th, 2022 at 16:12“A Whiter Shade of Pale”….My first dance with a woman. RIP Gary Brooker
February 26th, 2022 at 17:01Procol Harum were an interesting band, very good musicians indeed & ahead of many groups at that early ‘progressive’ rock period in the late 60’s. Excepting a few songs here & there, I didn’t get into them & of course they are well known for the proverbial hit WSOP with it’s Bach influenced theme. Conquistador was a good song also. I should go back & have another listen to some of their earlier music, there may be a few other gems there. I also wonder whether Supertramp were influenced by them, with that piano & keyboard setup with some occasional lead guitar & dramatic music & melodies. I hear similarities in those two bands.
February 26th, 2022 at 23:16Vale Gary Brooker.
Saw Procol Harum way back in 1993 open for Jethro Tull, at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia. Other than a Whiter Shade of Pale, didn’t care for them too much. I don’t think I even have a single album by them.
February 27th, 2022 at 09:17Some musicians just dream of having a world wide hit single to make them immortal and WSOP just sits at the top of the greatest of them all.
February 27th, 2022 at 11:15Yes it’s a song that could be played in 100 years from now and still sends shivers down your spine.
RIP Mr Brooker no one will escape the end but you left us in style having raised so much for charity. I like to believe in heaven as you will make it even more heavenly.
Peace and love 👍
The last EP by Procol Harum contains the songs “Missing Persons (Alive forever” & “War is not healthy”. How appropriate! R.I.P. Gary.
February 27th, 2022 at 12:19That rendition of Whiter Shade Of Pale just brought me to tears on this early Sunday morning. RIP,Mr. Brooker.
February 27th, 2022 at 13:36I was blessed to see them for the first, and unfortunately last time, at The City Winery in NYC just a few years before the Wuhan nightmare sprung. Fantastic gig. WSOP and Conquistador have been American radio staples since they were recorded and straight on through today. That is, only on a few select stations in the sorry state of American FM radio. :
Peace,
February 27th, 2022 at 15:09Ted
@#3 : Hi, of course, PH has other gens to provide. Not a few but a lot ! Please, listent for example Grand Hôtel : it is sumptuous, gorgeous, fluid and lyric but, if you don’t like it, you can also find, on the same LP, a song like “A souvenir of London”, very cynical and humorous about the venereal diseases and a guy who tries to hide that fromvhis wife. I dont speak about “Song of a dreamer” from “Broken Barricades”… PH is a world in its own right !
February 27th, 2022 at 21:25@3 MacGregor – suggest listening to “Grand Hotel” and “Procols Ninth” as well as his solo albums “No fear of flying” and “Lead me to water”. He was a great singer in a similar style to Rick Davies (Supertramp) and our own Brian Cadd. It’s beginning to get crowded in heaven.
February 28th, 2022 at 04:29Mark @ 10 – thanks for the recommendations. I have been listening to 2 albums from the beginning of their career & enjoy some songs off the Shine Brightly album, A Salty Dog has a few also. Being a Robin Trower aficionado & also a follower of that era of rock music, surprisingly I haven’t really heard a lot of their albums. Cheers.
February 28th, 2022 at 21:46Aubic @ 9 – thank you & I will have a listen to those songs. Always good to get a few suggestions from others who know the bands music more than I do. Cheers.
February 28th, 2022 at 21:51I will always remember Procal Harum as that one 60s band who had a great hard rock/blues guitarist without knowing until he formed his own power trio.
March 1st, 2022 at 04:45MacGregor @ 10 – I saw Robin Trower at the Horden (Sydney) in 77. Still got the program and a number of photos that I took with my 400mm zoom lens SLR camera – you could do that back then.
March 1st, 2022 at 10:10I forgot to mention that in my opinion Gary Brooker stole the show when he toured as part of the Ultimate Rock Symphony (in 2000 I think) doing A Salty Dog and WSOP.
Another guy that had a similar voice was Tony Ashton – give Malice in Wonderland another spin.
Mark @ 14 – Trower in Australia, that would be rare I would think. I remember a friend from the 80’s telling me he went to the Horden gig in Sydney & I am sure he has a recording of it as he used to tape every gig he went to back in those days. I was introduced to Trower in the late 70’s & I don’t recall him ever touring in my time of listening to him. James Dewar’s vocal, classic blues rock, love it. I have been watching Procol Harum live on the tube, early 70’s post Trower but a fine guitarist with them performing wonderful songs. Brooker has the chops on the piano & yes his vocal is very good indeed. It may be a different Hammond player also, it could be the Grand Hotel era. Superb drummer is BJ Wilson, great musicians in that band. Cheers.
March 1st, 2022 at 20:15