Artist: Proconsul
Genre(s):
Folk: Moldavian and Romanian
Discography:
De la rusi
Year: 1999
Tracks: 1
Procol Harum is arguably the to the highest degree successful "accidental" group creation -- that is, a band in the first place assembled to charter vantage of the success of a platter created in the studio -- in the history of progressive rock. With "A Whiter Shade of Pale" a monster rack up right knocked out of the box, the dance orchestra evolved from a studio tout ensemble into a successful live act, their medicine reinforced about an eclecticist mix in of blues-based john Rock riffs and lordly classical themes. With singer/pianist Gary Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid providing the band's entire repertory, their music evolved in emphatically linear fashion, the only major surprises approach from the periodical lineup changes that added a new instrumental voice to the minutes. At their most accessible, as on "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and "Conquistador," they were one of the most popular of progressive john Rock bands, their singles outselling all rivals, and their to the highest degree ambitious album tracks still take a strong next.
Procol Harum's roots and origins ar as involved as its success -- specially 'tween 1967 and 1973 -- was pronounced. Pianist Gary Brooker (b. May 29, 1945, Southend, Essex, England) had formed a grouping at school called the Paramounts at age 14, with guitar player Robin Trower (b. Mar. 9, 1945, Southend, Essex) and bassist Chris Copping (b. Aug. 29, 1945 Southend, Essex), with isaac M. Singer Bob Scott and drummer Mick Brownlee. After achieving a certain degree of success at local young clubs and dances, covering accomplished john Rock & roll hits, Brooker took over the vocaliser berth from the at rest Scott, and the radical continued functional after its members gradational -- by 1962, they were doing unnerving (by British standards) covers of American R&B, and got a residence at the Shades Club in Southend.
Brownlee exited the band in early 1963 and was replaced by Barry J. (B.J.) Wilson (b. Mar. 18, 1947, Southend, Essex), world Health Organization auditioned after answering an ad in Melody Maker. Nine months by and by, in September of 1963, bassist Chris Copping opted out of the professional musicians' corps to attend Leicester University, and he was replaced by Diz Derrick. The following month, the Paramounts demonstration track record, consisting of covers of the Coasters' "Poison Ivy" and Bobby Bland's "Farther on up the Road," got them an hearing at EMI. This resulted in their beingness sign-language to the Parlophone label, with their producer, Ron Richards, the recording handler best-known for his many long time of work with the Hollies.
The Paramounts' first single, "Poison Ivy," released in January of 1964, reached telephone number 35 on the British charts. The radical too got an authoritative endorsement from the Rolling Stones, with whom they'd worked on the television show Thank Your Lucky Stars, world Health Organization called the Paramounts their ducky British R&B band. Unfortunately, none of the group's subsequent Parlophone singles over the following 18 months establish any chart success, and by mid-'66, the Paramounts had been decreased to service of process as a championship band for popsters Sandy Shaw and Chris Andrews. In September of 1966, the Paramounts went their severalize ways; Derrick out of the clientele, Trower and Wilson to gigs with other bands, and, most luckily, Gary Brooker decided to break his career as a songster.
This light-emitting diode Brooker into a partnership with lyricist Keith Reid (b. Oct. 19, 1945), whom he met through a reciprocal acquaintance, R&B impresario Guy Stevens. By the bounce of 1967, they had a considerable body of songs disposed and began looking for a band to play them. An advert in Melody Maker lED to the formation of a band initially called the Pinewoods, with Brooker as pianist/singer, Matthew Fisher (b. Mar. 7, 1946, Croydon, Surrey) on reed organ, Ray Royer (b. Oct. 8, 1945) on guitar, Dave Knights (b. June 28, 1945, London) on bass part, and Bobby Harrison (b. June 28, 1943, London) on drums. Their first recording, produced by Denny Cordell, was of a piece of dreamlike Reid poetry called "A Whiter Shade Of Pale," which Brooker set to music loosely derived from Johann Sebastian Bach's Air on a G String from the Suite No. 3 in D Major.
By the time this recording was ready for release, the Pinewoods had been rechristened Procol Harum, a name derived, as flip stories tell it, either from Stevens' cat's birth security, Procol Harun, or the Latin "procul" for "far from these things" (hey, it was the mid-'60s, and either is possible). In early May of 1967, the mathematical group performed "A Whiter Shade of Pale" at the Speakeasy Club in London, piece Cordell staged for a liberation of the undivided on English Decca (John Griffith Chaney Records in America), on the companies' Deram label. Ironically, Cordell's sometime clients the Moody Blues were around to wear out out of a long commercial spin on the very same label with a similar, classically-tinged pair of recordings, "Nights in White Satin" and "Years of Future Passed," and 'tween the deuce groups and their breakthrough hits, Deram Records would be for good characterized as a progressive sway imprint.
Cordell had as well sent a copy of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" to Radio London, one of England's legendary offshore sea robber tuner stations (they competed with the staid BBC, which had the official broadcast monopoly, and were infinitely more honey by the teenagers and most bands), which played the criminal record. Not only was Radio London deluged with listener requests for more plays, but Deram suddenly plant itself with orders for a record not scheduled for button for some other calendar month -- in front May was half all over, it was pushed up on the schedule and rush into shops.
Meanwhile, the prototypic Procol Harum made its concert debut in London opening for Jimi Hendrix at the Saville Theater on June 4, 1967. Four years by and by, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" reached the summit of the British charts for the first of a six-week operate in the top blot, making Procol Harum only the one-sixth recording act in the history of British popular music to turn over the number one and only spot on its number 1 vent (not regular the Beatles did that). The next month, the record reached number five-spot on the American charts, with sales in the United States uphill to all over a jillion copies (and six-spot million copies worldwide).
All of this seemed to foretell well for the band, leave out for the fact that it had only a single song in its repertory and no real stage act -- real one-hit wonders. The same calendar month that the record peaked in the United States, Royer and Harrison were ravaged and replaced by Brooker's former Paramounts bandmates Robin Trower and B.J. Wilson on guitar and drums, respectively.
The "real" Procol Harum band was now in place and a indorsement individual, "Felt hat," was duly recorded. Reminiscent of "Whiter Shade of Pale" in its quality of benighted magnificence, this single, released in October of 1967 on EMI's Regal Zonophone pronounce, got to number sixer on the British charts. The group's debut album, entitled Procol Harum, managed to get hold of number 47 in America during October of 1967, based on "A Whiter Shade of Pale" being among its tracks (which included the first edition of "Conquistador") -- simply a British version of the LP, issued over in that location without the reach, failed to appeal any important gross revenue. The unmarried "Fedora," however, got no higher than number 34 in America a calendar month afterwards.
On March 26, 1968, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" south Korean won the International Song of the Year award at the thirteenth Annual Ivor Novello Awards (form of the British equivalent of the Grammys). The group's newest unmarried, "Quite an Rightly So," still, merely reached the number 50 spot in England in April of that year. A fresh get for the group was secured with A&M Records in America (they remained on Regal Zonophone in England), and by November, a second base album, Shine on Brightly, highlighted by an 18-minute epic entitled "In Held 'Twas I," was finished and in the stores, and rose to number 24 in America only failed to chart in England. The following calendar month, they were playing the Miami Pop Festival in front of hundred,000 people, on a billhook that included Chuck Berry, Canned Heat, the blues version of Fleetwood Mac, and the Turtles, among others.
In March of 1969, David Knights and Matthew Fisher exited the batting order shortly subsequently finishing sour on the group's new album, A Salty Dog, preferring management and production to the playacting side of the music business. Knights' going away open the way for bassist Chris Copping to join Procol Harum (thus re-creating the lineup of the Paramounts), playing bass and organ. Another American tour followed the following calendar month, and in June of 1969 A Salty Dog was issued. This record, considered by many to be the original group's best work, combined high-energy vapours and classical influences on a august scale of measurement, and returned the band to the U.S. charts at number 32, while the title song ascended the British charts to number 44. The album afterwards reached number 27 in England, the group's first long-player to chart in their own country.
Contempt the group's chair gross revenue in England and America, they remained among the more democratic progressive rock music bands, capable of reaching more middlebrow listeners wHO didn't have the patience for Emerson, Lake & Palmer or King Crimson. Robin Trower's gaudy guitar promptly made him the star of the grouping, as practically as singer/pianist Brooker, and he was considered in the like league with Alvin Lee and any number of late-'60s/early-'70s British blues axemen. Matthew Fisher's noble, cathedral-like organ had been a seminal percentage of the band's heavy, juxtaposed with Trower's blues-based riffing and Reid's unusual, darkly witty lyrics as soft by Brooker. Following Fisher's going away, the group took on a more straightforward rock sound, but Trower's playing remained a major attraction to the absolute majority of fans.
"Whaling Stories" was an example of quintessential Procol Harum, a integrate of 19th century cantata that sounds like it came out of a Victorian-era duomo, with igneous blues riffs blatant at its plaza. And being stiff in Reid's dark, eerie, regret-filled lyrics didn't catch "A Salty Dog" from becoming unitary of the group's most popular songs.
It was a year earlier their next record album, Home, was released, in June of 1970, ascending to the American figure 34 and the British 49 slur. This marked the end of the group's contract with Regal Zonophone/EMI, and on the button of their adjacent LP in July of 1971, they were at present on Chrysalis in England. Broken Barricades reached figure 32 in America and 41 in England, just it too marked the departure of Robin Trower. The founding guitar player left that month and subsequently organized his own mathematical group, with a heavy sculpturesque along lines standardized to Jimi Hendrix, which had outstanding success in America throughout the 1970s.
Trower's replacement, Dave Ball (b. Mar. 30, 1950), joined the same calendar month, and the lineup expanded by one with the addition of Alan Cartwright on bass, which freed Chris Copping to boil down full-time on the hammond organ. The radical returned to something of the wakeless it had earlier Fisher's difference, although Trower was a tough dissemble to espouse. It was this edition of the band that performed on August 6, 1971 in a concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the DaCamera Singers in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada -- the concert was a bold and expansive, high orchestrated reconsideration of before material (though non "A Whiter Shade of Pale") from the group's repertoire, and, released as an prescribed hot album in 1972, proved to be the group's most successful LP button, peaking at number five-spot and drawing in thousands of new fans.
In England, Procol Harum Live: In Concert With the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra only rose wine to number 48 in May of 1972, just it was competing with a reissue of the group's debut album (retitled A Whiter Shade of Pale, with the single added) paired with A Salty Dog, which outperformed it considerably, reach number 26. A single lifted from the hot criminal record, "Conquistador," redone in a rich and dramatic version, shot to identification number 16 in America and 22 in England that summer. Soon after, the U.S. distributer of the debut album, London Records, got further play from that record by re-releasing it with a dagger announcing the presence of "the original version of "Conquistador."
Amid all of this success, the group's batting order over again was thrown into excitement in September when Dave Ball left Procol Harum to link up Long John Baldry's ring. He was replaced by Mick Grabham, at one time of the bands Plastic Penny and Cochise. The band's next record album, Heroic Hotel, was a delightfully melodious and decadent assembling (anticipating Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music in some respects) that featured node backing vocals by Christianne Legrand of the a cappella singing group the Swingle Singers. That record, their first-class honours degree released on Chrysalis in America as comfortably as England, peaked at number 21. Six months later, A&M released the number one digest of the band's material, Best of Procol Harum, which only made it to number 131 on the charts.
The group's adjacent iI albums, Alien Birds and Fruit (May 1974) and Procol's Ninth (Sep 1975), the latter produced by rock & roll songsmiths Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, performed moderately well, and "Pandora's Box" from Procol's Ninth became one of their larger hits in England, emerging to number 16. July of 1976 sawing machine a exit and a lateral reposition in the group's batting order, as Alan Cartwright left the band and Chris Copping took over on basso, patch Pete Solley joined as keyboard player.
By this time, the band's string had carry out, as everyone seemed to know. A new record album, Something Magic, hardly scraped the U.S. charts in April of 1977, and the band tear up following a net tour and a farewell concert at New York's Academy of Music on May 15, 1977. Only five-spot months later, the band was back together for a one-off performance of "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which had interpreted on a life of its own separate from the group -- the song was named stick succeeder (along with "Bohemian Rhapsody") of the Best British Pop Single 1952-1977, at the Britannia Awards to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, and the band performed it live at the awards ceremony.
Apart from Trower, Gary Brooker was the about successful and visible of all ex-Procol Harum members, cathartic deuce-ace solo albums between 1979 and 1985. Fear of Flying (1979) on Chrysalis, produced by George Martin, attracted the about attention, only Lead Me to the Water (1982) on Mercury had some notable node artists, including Eric Clapton and Phil Collins, while Echoes in the Night (1985) was co-produced by Brooker's previous bandmate Matthew Fisher. During the late '80s, however, Brooker had turned to committal to writing orchestral music, chiefly ballet material, only this didn't stop him from turn up as a invitee at 1 of the yearbook Fairport Convention reunions (Procol Harum and Fairport had played some important early gigs together) at Cropredy, Oxfordshire, in August of 1990 to sing "A Whiter Shade of Pale."
Still, Procol Harum had bleached from the consciousness of the medicine human beings by the end of the eighties. The death of B.J. Wilson in 1990 went for the most part unreported, to the chagrin of many fans, and it seemed as though the group was a closed in book.
Then, in August of 1991, Brooker re-formed Procol Harum with Trower, Fisher, Reid, and drummer Mark Brzezicki. An album, Squanderer Stranger, was recorded and released, and an 11-city tour of North America took home in September of 1991. Although this lineup didn't final -- Trower and company, later on all, were push 50 at the time -- Brooker has unbroken a new version of Procol Harum together, in the pretense of himself, guitar player Geoffrey Whitehorn, keyboardman Don Snow, and Brzezicki on drums, which toured the United States in 1992.
