RIP Keith Reid

RIP Keith Reid. Tell Gary I said hello. Shine On Brightly.

April 7, 2023

RIP Gary Brooker Of Procol Harum

RIP Gary Brooker. The voice and commander of Procol Harum. You were, and will always be an English gentleman of the highest order, and the experience of interviewing and photographing you is something that I will always treasure.

Safe travels, Captain. Fly on forever, sailor. Wave when you reach land.

Your witness, my own hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGmZMKfHB2c

-Daniel

February 22, 2022

Matthew Fisher Of Procol Harum Interview, Part Two

Matthew Fisher, part two: 

Your Witness, My Own Hand

Introduction and interview by Daniel Coston

Also featured in the spring 2018 edition of The Big Takeover Magazine

In part one of our interview with legendary Procol Harum keyboardist Matthew Fisher, we covered the band’s formation in late 1966, and their first single, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”. The song would soon become the anthem of Swinging London during the heavy summer of 1967, and Fisher and Procol Harum became instant stars. Soon after, the band let go guitarist Bobby Harrison and drummer Ray Royer, pick up Robin Trower and B. J. Wilson to take their respective places. With the first “classic” lineup of the band now in place, the band (which also included singer keyboardist Gary Brooker, bassist Dave Knights, and lyricist and erstwhile band member Keith Reid) would quickly record their self-titled debt album, amid a flurry of touring and TV appearances.

We now pick up the story in early 1968, as the band began working on their second album, Shine On Brightly. Along the way, we touch on the band’s third album, A Salty Dog (1969), the reasons why Fisher returned to the band in 1991 after a 22-year absence, what brought him to the Hammond B3 organ during the mid 1960s, and the influences that shaped Fisher’s distinctive 

Daniel Coston: You have said that you were disappointed with the overall sound of the first album. Was it that frustration that led you and the band to get more involved with the album’s production, and you eventually coming to produce A Salty Dog?

Matthew Fisher: It started with the second album. We recorded at Olympic Studios with [Denny] Cordell a lot. He liked the number two studio, whereas everyone else seemed to like the number one studio. Often, we’d be working in number two, and some other band, usually a very successful band, in number one. It might be the [Rolling] Stones, it might have been Small Faces. It might have been Traffic. There was always somebody interesting next door. And usually, how recording goes, meaning once you’ve been your bit, which for me was usually the basic track. Then there might be overdubs. Rob’s going to overdub a solo, or maybe B.J. is going to overdub a tambourine, Gary might overdub his vocal. But my job was done. So I would often wander around and see what was going on next door. And I think Rob did, sometimes, as well.

The first thing we noticed was that these other bands were all working in stereo. Whereas we were still recording in mono, because Cordell didn’t care for stereo. I don’t he really quite saw the point of it. If it hadn’t been for me and Rob, I think [Shine On Brightly] would have released in mono, too. 

That being said, Denny didn’t do a lot on the second album. He was there for some of it, but a lot of the time, he was off working with Joe Cocker in the States, and things like that. He’d kind of lost interest in Procol, and Joe was his new thing, and he was very enamored of that. Tony [Visconti], who was kind of like Denny’s understudy, if you like. But he kind of took over. I think that he did as much on Denny did on that album. 

Daniel Coston: They released "Quite Rightly So” as a single before Shine On Brightly’s release.

Matthew Fisher: Yes, but it wasn’t a hit. Those were the days when the singles would be separate from the albums. Eventually, they stopped doing that, but the Beatles did it all through their career.

I was looking at something on Youtube, where John Lennon was talking about the songs that of Paul’s that he hated, and the songs that he really liked. And also his own songs that he hated (laughs). I knew that he liked “Here There & Everywhere”, but I didn’t know that his favorite song of Paul’s was “Hey Jude”. And I think he was right. I think it is that favorite song. I prefer it to “Yesterday”, and any other McCartney song.  

Coston: How were you involved in the writing for "Quite Rightly So”?

Fisher: I had this idea for a chord sequence, and a riff. This was the beginning of doing things in the studio, rather than rehearsals. I get a little confused about the sequence of events, because I was using a different organ for that. I was using an organ called the Lowrey Lincolnwood. Which I had kind of got into because they had one at Lansdowne [Studios], which I used to enjoy messing around on. So I thought, “Let’s get one in for the session.” I can’t remember whether it was specifically with that song in mind, or if it was something I was just doing, anyway. But I did end up using it for “Quite Rightly So”.

We put the backing track down, and Keith [Reid] said, “Oh, I’ve got some words that will go with that.” And he dug them out. He carried around bits of paper with all these lyrics on them. He got them out of this bag, gave them to Gary [Brooker], and Gary went off and did a vocal to it. That’s how that came out. 

Coston: Talk about how “In Held Twas In I”, and how you came to sing on “In The Autumn Of My Madness”. 

Fisher: I don’t quite know why that was. Maybe I just wanted to (laughs). The thing about “In Held Twas In I”, Keith and Gary had started it off, and they had gotten as far as the bit where Gary says, “Well, my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn’t it?” And they didn’t really know where to go from there. So that’s when I was brought in. And I came up with this idea, which we really just used as a link from that bit, to something else that they had already got, as well. (Hums “Look To Your Soul") They’d already gotten that, but they didn’t know how to get to it. So I wrote them that bit, to join the bits up. But the thing is, we hadn’t finished writing it when we started recording it. It was all recorded it bits, but we couldn’t B until we knew we knew how C went. And then we couldn’t record C until we knew how D went. We were always one or two steps behind in the recording, to where we were in the writing. We had to have some idea of, “Where is this going to go? Where is this going to finish up? What’s it going to join on to?” But you never knew how it was actually going to finish. When do we know when we’ve done enough? (laughs) Or getting to the end? I can’t remember how we did decide that. 

I had a lot of fun on some of these things. I like “Tea Time At The Circus”, and all of the little bells, and the fairground organ effects (laughs). 

Coston: And you played guitar on “Autumn Of My Madness”?

Fisher: Just acoustic. I also played the piano, actually. (laughs). Gary’s wife Frankie was very upset about that. That I’d played the piano, and she thought that they should wipe my piano, and let Gary record a piano track. Because the piano that I put down was actually put down live. It was me on piano, with Dave [Knights] and B.J. [Wilson]. I don’t think that Rob [Trower] is on it, or Gary. The basic track was just me, B.J. and Dave. And then I put the acoustic on, I put the organ on, and then I put the vocal on. So Gary wasn’t on that, at all. Frankie wanted my piano off, and [Denny] Cordell said, “Nope. There’s nothing wrong with that piano track.” (laughs) 

CostonL I have to ask about the song, Shine On Brightly. Did you know that it would the title track when you were putting the album together?

Fisher: I don’t think that we knew when we recorded it that it was going to be the title track. I certainly didn’t. As the album progressed, it became more and more obvious that it would make a great title track. It wasn’t planned that way, it was just how it turned out.

Coston: How much did the constant playing during that life inform the sound of Shine On Brightly? To me, it sounds like a tighter band than on the first album. 

Fisher: I never thought of that, actually. It never sounded tighter to me, particularly. I’d have to listen to it again to see what I think. The main difference to me between the first album and the second was that the songs were better. Keith and Gary’s approach to songwriting and arrangement was pretty basic. It was verse, chorus, verse, chorus, guitar solo, verse, chorus, end. They all seemed to fall into that pattern, but then things got a little more interesting. A bit more experimental on the second album, and that’s the big difference to me.  I don’t know. It might have been, because Rob and B.J. had just joined when we recorded the first album. They were worked in by the time we got to the second album. Maybe that’s what it is about?

Coston: At what point was the decision made to have you handle production for A Salty Dog? Was it a band decision, or was it yours?

Fisher: Something had happened, and Keith and Gary had fallen out with [Denny] Cordell. Back then, every other week, I was threatening to leave the band. And I think I did leave it, a few times. (laughs) And one of the times I did, I had told everyone, “That’s it. I’m leaving now,” including Cordell. And at that point, Cordell tried to persuade B.J. to leave Procol to join Joe Cocker, instead. He sort of offered a gig with Cocker, if you like. And that didn’t go down very well with Keith and Gary. I think it was Rob that came back to me with the peace offering. It was usually that would come and talk to me. (laughs) To talk me back into not leaving the group. But I think that was the offer. They knew that I was interested in production. That was the bargaining chip. “Well, if you come back to the band, we’ll let you produce the next album.” It was avery long time ago, but I seem to remember that it was something along those lines. That was why I came back. 

I was really something that I really wanted to do, production. Working in the studio. I really wasn’t keen on playing in the band, in those days. The funny thing is that years later, when I actually rejoined [Procol Harum] in the 1990s, I’d come full circle. It’s like I was getting really bored with studio work, and the idea of just going onstage, and blowing and having fun really appealed to me. But back in 1969, I was in a very different frame of mind. 

Coston: Which is interesting, in that you were also more involved in the writing for Salty Dog, and you ended singing three lead vocals. Did that just happen during the writing of the album? Or was that more of a studio decision?

Fisher: At the time, I’d never written anything with the idea that I would sing it. I’d gotten into writing songs with the view to Gary singing. I suppose that “Quite Rightly So” was done that way. I was thinking in terms of me to sing. I suppose that was just what I wanted to do, at the time. But I think that the novelty wore off (laughs), a long time ago.  I don’t really see myself as a singer. I don’t know if I ever did. 

Coston: This was also a period when Robin was also starting to write and sing, as he did on “Crucifixion Lane”. From this distance, it feels like a more democratic version of the band, having everyone doing different things, rather than having Gary sing all of the songs.

Fisher: There were lots of things going on within the band, at the time. Getting back to the Orson Welles analogy, I felt that A Salty Dog was Procol’s Citizen Kane. It’s when they finally got into a studio to do whatever THEY wanted to do. And of course, recording at EMI [Abbey Road Studios] was really great, in those days. They had this huge cupboard. They had all of these interesting musical instruments lying around in the studio, anyway. They had a mellotron. I mean, a big mellotron, with two keyboards. Not the usual kind of little mellotron that the Moody Blues used to have. They had a harmonium. The one that they used on “We Can Work It Out”. Some sort of tinkly piano. I’m not sure if it’s the one that Russ Conway used, but it this sort of tack piano sound. But they had this big cupboard that was just full of the most incredible percussion. Wooden blocks, marimbas, xylophones, bells, tambourines, you name it. It was full of all of these sort of things, which was there, just to use. And we made use of it. 

A few years later, I came back to Abbey Road with Rob, and all of that stuff had gone. I don’t what happened. If musicians had just walked off with them, or if the studio had sold them off. It was very upsetting to find suddenly that this cornucopia of percussion goodies was just now there anymore. It was like, “Oh, it’s a different era, now.” 

Coston: When you were working the song, “A Salty Dog”, did you have an idea of what you wanted the song to sound like?

Fisher: Any song that Gary had written, he would run them down with the band. I remember listening to him play that song, and me, listening as the producer, thinking, “Well, I just record it with just bass and drums, and then stick an orchestra on it.” (laughs) “I think that’s all it needs, really.” I couldn’t see an organ part for it. I couldn’t see any guitars. It just wasn’t part of the song.

Coston: It also opened up the door for where Procol went a couple of years later, when they recorded with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Fisher: We did our own orchestral arrangements for that album. Gary did “Salty Dog,” and I think that he did the trombones on “All This And More”. And I did the score for “Wreck Of The Hesperus”. Generally, Gary did get other arrangers in, or [Nicholas]  Dodd. But by the time you get to the later recordings, Gary had other arrangers do that. 

Coston: Two of my favorite songs on that album are on the first side, apart from “A Salty Dog.” The first one is “Too Much Between Us”. It’s a very different feel for Procol, but it gets to something. 

Fisher: I like that one. I had a big row with our manager at the time [over that song]. We were trying it out, as an idea, and Gary was playing this little guitar thing. We were a bit experimental at first, the way we were putting it down [to tape], and our manager was getting very impatient. Saying, “This isn’t getting anywhere.” And I basically told him to f—k off. Because he was rather being a complete pain, and as you say, it was a rather nice track, the way it turned out. (laughs)

Coston: The one that comes after song is “The Devil Came From Kansas”. 

Fisher: Oh, yes. I remember that I don’t play organ on it. I play rhythm guitar. Rob put down a rhythm guitar, too. We had two guitars on the basic track, but he overdubbed a solo. And if you listen to it, you can hear that the sound is changing. I think that we had more than one mic on the guitar amp, and perhaps the engineer was experimenting, switching mics in and out. We liked that take, even though the sound was changing, we kept it. It’s a bit like “Green Onions”, actually. There’s a solo in that, and if you listen to it, you can hear the engineer messing with that, turning the echo up and down. No one would mix a track like that, of course, but that was a long time ago. It might not have even been mixed. It might have gone straight into mono.

I remember hearing that song at a dance, at a youth club, and there was a guy there who was Scottish, and he was talking about “Green Onions”. He said, “That’s Ray Charles, that is. That’s not his real name, Booker T. That’s really Ray Charles.” Well, turned out he was wrong! (laughs)

Coston: Have you ever meet Booker T. Jones?

Fisher: I have, just the once. It was around the time that we were finishing off The Prodigal Stranger (1991). We were in New York, and looking for places to mix it, and other things, and somebody was friendly with Paul Shaffer. Paul was friendly with the MGs, because they shared a drummer, and we got invited to this Stax gig at a club to celebrate the release of this multi-CD set, The Stax Story. Booker T. & the MGs were there, and Eddie Floyd. Sam Moore, or Sam & Dave. We met Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. Of course, I was pretty shaken to meet them. (laughs) But they put me at ease, they were very nice people, and I got used to being in their presence. We didn’t see too much of Booker T. that night, but he came on and played, and I thought, “Oh, he does sound a bit like me,” and then I realized it’s really the other way ‘round. (laughs) I sound like him!

Later, I was talking to Steve Cropper, and Booker T. walked through the room. Steve said, “Oh, have you met Booker T.?” And I shook hands with him. I was in a daze, and he walked off, and I was like, “I’ve just shaken hands with Booker T.” I was just absolutely knocked out. 

In my early days, I had two idols as Hammond organists.  One with Booker T., and one was Jimmy Smith. The ting about Jimmy Smith was that he was so incredibly beyond anything I could think of doing. I could listen to him, and stand there open-mouthed, and say, “How the hell does he do that?” But Booker T. was different. I sort of felt that I could be in the same sort of bracket. I could at least play as good as him. That was within my reach. Closer to what I could do. So in that retrospect, he was a greater influence on me than Jimmy Smith. 

People have asked me, and they say, “Who have you met that you liked?” And I say, “Booker T,” And they go, “Oh.” It’s like they don’t get it. I have to explain that the thing about Booker T. is that his playing is distilled. There’s a million notes he could play, and he’s like, “I’m not going to play this one, or this one. I’m going to play THIS one.” (laughs) He chooses his notes very carefully, and I really admire that about him. He’s the total opposite of these young guitar players that play 20 million notes, as opposed to B.B. King. They’re playing a million times faster, but B.B. King plays one note, and you’re like, “Wow!” (laughs)

Ian McLagan was the one that really talked me into buying a Hammond. I was scared, and he said, “Oh no, don’t worry. You’ll at least be paid for it. There’s people that can’t even play Hammonds, and they’re making money. And  you can play, so go for it.” So I did, with a little help from my mother and my grandmother. But I did pay them back.

Coston: How did you meet Ian?

Fisher: I did a tour with him. It was when I was doing a tour with Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, backing Paul Jones from Manfred Mann. What happened was they had been offered the gig of backing him on this tour, and they had Terry Reid with them, at the time. And Paul Jones said, “I want an organ.” So they said, “Oh, we’ll get an organ,” so they advertised in the Melody Maker for an organist, and I answered and got the job. 

Back then, we used to have a lot of jams, with various different people. I’ve seen a photo of myself and Terry Reid, and it says, “Small Faces”, underneath. They thought Terry was Steve Marriott. It’s quite funny.  

Coston: Looking back, it seems that the circles that all the musicians ran in were much closer. Mist musicians seem to know everyone else, within a person or two.

Fisher: I remember recording at Olympic Studio, and we used to visit the band that was recording next door. One time, we need a capo, and we didn’t have one. And the engineer said, “Oh, the Stones are next door. Go ask them if they can lend you one.” So I went in, as people used to do in those days at Olympic, and I asked if anyone had a capo. And someone said, “Brian [Jones] has one, go ask Brian.” So I went in the studio and found Brian Jones. And my God, he looked so fragile. They is fairly towards the end of his stay in the Stones. I thought, if I went up to him and just gone (blows out air), he’d have just fallen over. He looked that fragile. And I asked, and he said, “Here you are.” and he got this capo out of his case, and gave it to me. I said, “Thank you, I’ll bring it back.” Which I did, of course. That was the only time I ever met Brian, and it was a memorable experience. 

Coston: Looking back, what are your feelings about those first three Procol albums, and what they mean to you now?

Fisher: These records were made a long time ago. They have to stand or fall by how they stand today, but you can’t judge them by today’s standards. You have to accept them for what they are, or what they were. I do take a rather detached view of them, I have to say. It’s always interesting when you hear these old records, especially when you haven’t heard them for a long time. “Oh, I’d forgotten that it sounded like that.” It’s a bit like finding an old photograph. People that you know now, and what they looked like then. “Oh yeah, I remember. He used to have more hair back then, blah blah blah.” (laughs) That’s how I look at them. Pictures of old friends.

Coston: One of the things that I’ve always liked about Procol Harum during that period was that they might have been influenced by what was happening in music around them, but they were not beholden to it. I hear a group of people saying, “This is the stand we want to make." There’s a really good band there, making music that they wanted to make.

Fisher: Yeah, I guess so. That was the only way that I ever looked at it. But that’s just me. And that’s not only when I was in Procol. It’s always been my downfall, really. My whole life, I’ve only followed what interests me, rather than what would be a smart move. (laughs)

Coston: Ultimately, that’s one of those things that makes you, you. Sooner or later, you make the decision that hopefully allows you to be yourself. And maybe you made that decision. 

Fisher: Yeah. Maybe. (laughs)

Matthew Fisher, Procol Harum Interview, Part One

Matthew Fisher: Of Cartwheels And Kaleidoscopes

by Daniel Coston

Also available in the winter 2017 issue of The Big Tskeover Magazine

That sound. Those sounds. Anything that has heard “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, and the early Procol Harum albums knows what I’m talking about. As a founding member and organist in Procol Harum, Matthew Fisher was a key part of the band’s three albums. Procol Harum, released in 1967, Shine On Brightly, in 1968, and 1969’s A Salty Dog, which Fisher also produced. During this time, Procol Harum stood at the crossroads of pop, psychedelia and progressive music. And for as much influence  that Procol had on all genres, they still stand on their own. Ahead of time, yet out of time, searching for the next territory to explore.

All discussions about writing credits, past or present, for “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” can be read elsewhere. This conversation highlights the three albums that Fisher and Procol Harum recorded during the 1960s, which still hold up as among the finest during that amazing cultural and musical time. This first covers the band’s debut, while a future edition will cover Shine On Brightly and A Salty Dog. 

Born in Addiscombe, Croyden, Fisher initially joined Billy Fury’s backing band, the Gamblers. While playing with Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, Fisher was introduced to the Hammond organ by Small Faces keyboardist Ian “Mac” McLagan. Fisher then played with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages before answering an ad to play with a new group in London during the final days of 1966.

Coston: You had recorded a few recording sessions and radio sessions with other bands, but “Whiter Shade Of Pale” was the first time that your playing was on a record. 

Matthew Fisher: I’ve always compared myself to Orson Welles. He once said, “I started at the top, and worked my way down.” I’ve thought of myself as the Orson Welles of rock, definitely.

Coston: When you recorded the version of “Whiter Shade,” were you thinking that it was going to be released as a single? Or were you thinking that far ahead?

Fisher: We’d already recorded the demo. Both times, it was recorded at Marquee Studios, which at the time was just a little demo studio. We did the first demo of Whiter Shade straight down to mono. And then we did it again, with no overdubs, but this time we did a certain way that [producer and early manager] Guy Stevens had this idea that it would sound better laid out a certain way over four tracks. In the end, it didn’t sound as good as the original demo, and I think at that point Guy lost some credibility with [lyricist] Keith [Reid] and [keyboardist and vocalist] Gary [Brooker]. 

When [Keith and Gary] brought the original demo to Essex Music, they said, “Oh, we like this.” Most people don’t know that at that point, Gary was not signed to Essex Music in those days. Keith was, but Gary was someone was that Keith was writing with. And there was no interest from Essex in recording Procol, although they had a record label. Keith and Gary had come to the conclusion that while they would’ve liked to have written for other people, no one else seemed interested in their songs. So it was down to them to get some kinds of vehicle for the songs, and that’s where Procol came in. Essex Music did give Keith and Gary advance to go off and form a band, but it wasn’t very much. It may have only been a few hundred pounds. But they had only been interested in releasing it on their label, but when they head the demo for “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, suddenly they changed their minds. And Denny Cordell was brought in to produce, and Guy Stevens got the elbow. 

I don’t know if anyone has a copy of the original demo, and I was I did. Denny Cordell said, “Oh, I don’t like your drummer on that demo. I’m going to bring in a session drummer.” I can’t remember what his real name was, everyone just knew him as Tubs. My memory is that when we got in the studio, Bill Eyden was drumming, and he was doing pretty well the same thing that Tubs had been doing. He had been given the demo, and pretty much copied what Tubs was doing. To me, at the time, the only difference to [those versions] was that it sounded better. At the time, producers tended to be pretty superstitious. Like when the Who recorded their first records, the producer insisted on getting Jimmy Page in to play guitar. That was his lucky guitarist. Denny really wasn’t very musical. He wouldn’t give us direction about the music. All he ever talked about was sounds. And I think maybe he thought, “How can I justify getting two percent? Oh, I’ll get a better drummer. That was my contribution.” That’s just a suspicion of mine.

Coston: What was it like to have that single become THE single, and everyone is responding to it the way that they did?

Fisher: I was 21, at the time. That’s pretty young, and I was a young 21. I wasn’t streetwise, or anything like that. I hadn’t done much. And then suddenly, the Procol thing happened. To be honest, I was more than a little naive, at the time. A cross of naive and arrogant. I had a lot of confidence in myself as a musician, at the time. Much more than I have now. I had played on these records that had never gotten released, and I was thinking, “Stupid idiots. Any record with me is bound to be a hit.” Finally, a record I play on gets released, and it goes to number one. And I’m like, “See? I said so, didn’t I?” I didn’t realize that it wasn’t that simple. It doesn’t alter that the fact that it was a mind-blowing experience, but perhaps not as much as it should have been. 

Coston: Did you know after “Whiter Shade” was recorded that you had something special?

Fisher: I did, but I didn’t. We were told that it was going to be released, and we were told that it was going to be played on Radio Caroline. And I was listening and listening for it to be played, and I can remember hearing the Move’s “I Can Hear The Grass Grow,” which was going a lot of plays. And I was thinking, “Wait till our record comes on,” and then they said, “Here’s the new record by the Kinks, and it was they played “Waterloo Sunset.” And I was so brought down because it sounded so f—king good. I thought, “Wow, what a fantastic f—king record! That’s a hit. Our record’s not a hit, it’s nothing like that.” And the funny thing was, “Whiter Shade” stopped “Waterloo Sunset” from being number one. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about that. (laughs) I always thought that it was the Kinks’ finest moment, and I f—ked it up for them. I’ve always meant to apologize to Ray Davies for that, but I never got ‘round to it.

Coston: How much had you recorded with guitarist Ray Harrison and drummer Bobby Royer before they left the band?

Fisher: We had pretty much recorded most of what became the first album with them, and then we just recorded it again with [guitarist] Rob[in Trower] and [drummer] B. J. [Wilson]. I think that it went a bit quicker with Rob and B.J., than it did with Bobby and Ray. The funny thing was the whole business with “Homburg”. This was Denny Cordell’s thing about drummers. He always had to complain about drummers, and had to complain about Bobby. He wasn’t a virtuoso, but he was okay. He was really slagging Bobby at the session when we recording “Homburg”. We were in Lansdowne Studios, and we went into the studios to give it another try, and I can remember watching Bobby. He was just glowering. If looks could kill, Denny would’ve been dead. He just played the track all the way through without a single fill. Just a steady, relentless beat. And then politics reared its ugly head, and Bobby and Ray had to go. We tried recording it with Rob and B. J., but it just didn’t turn out as well. Something about that take with Bobby glowering as he knocked a steady beat. Of course, “Homburg” wasn’t anything like, or as good as “Whiter Shade”, anyway. And in the end, they just B. J. to overdub a few fills on top of it. They kept Bobby’s take, but embellished it. So I guess that you got the best of both worlds, there. This whole thing about hit records, it’s not an exact science. At the end of the day, all you can say is, “That’s the way that happened.”

We did re-record the songs with Rob and B. J., and it went a lot quicker, and a lot better. Procol was changing. The band that recorded “Whiter Shade Of Pale” would’ve been more like a San Francisco hippy band. It wasn’t what Procol became when Rob joined. They became more of a blues band. I think so. Rob was always more of a blues guitarist, which steered the band more into a classical and blues combination. You take songs like “Outside The Gates Of Cerdes”, and “Repent Walpurgis”, the songs that Rob plays on, there’s just no way that Ray could’ve turned out that sort of a performance. He wasn’t that kind of a guitarist. 

I can remember when we auditioned Rob and B.J.. B. J. was the drummer, and we all liked him straight away. There were two guitarists that auditioned. Rob, and some guitarist that Denny [Cordell] had gotten on with. As soon as we heard Rob, we knew he was the one.

Coston: You mentioned “Warpurgis”. Where did that song come from?  

Fisher: The crowd sequence was basically taken from a Four Seasons record called “Begging”. That was being played on the radio at the time, and I was just fascinated by the chords. Just the four chords that they used. Very unusual. And then, when [Procol] was looking for ideas, maybe an instrumental, I said, “There’s this Four Seasons record with a great chord sequence. We could slow that down a bit, and then see what happens. And that’s how the song got going. Obviously, with a different melody line. Fortunately, you can’t copyright a chord sequence. You can only copyright melodies, words and things like that. This is not a secret. 

Coston: The album opens with “Conquistador”. Most people know the version that the band played on the live album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. 

Fisher: When I played with the band [from 1991 to 2004], we tended to play more like the Edmonton version. With the trumpet, which I never particularly liked (laughs). If I had never joined the band, that would’ve been their first single. When I joined, “Whiter Shade Of Pale” wasn’t even considered a B-side. It was considered a white elephant. But after I joined, it all changed. 

How Keith and Gary wrote songs in the early days was Keith would type out some words, and send them to Gary, typed out on the strange typewriter he had with an italic font. He’d send you these lyrics, and it was never “Dear Matthew, Dear Gary, here’s something.” No. there would just be this envelope, you’d open it, and there would be this sheet with these lyrics on them. And you knew who they were from, because you’d recognize the typeface. And the content, of course. (laughs) “Conquistador” was apparently an exception to that rule. That was apparently a musical idea that Gary had, and he got Keith to write some words for it. And Keith said that he hated that. He found it very difficult to work that way around. 

Coston: The next song on the album is “She Wandered Through The Garden Fence”, which the current band still performs in concert. 

Fisher: I liked it, but it always reminded me of the McCartney song, “For No One”. It was a bit light, as opposed to what Procol later became, where they tended to get rather heavier (laughs).  Tony Visconti reckoned that this song should have been follow-up to “Whiter Shade”, instead of “Homburg”. 

Coston: I’ve always loved “Kaleidoscope”. 

Fisher: That song really changed. If you had heard how we used to do it with Bobby and Ray, and then compared it with how it turned out, it was a bit of a contrast. It was just plod, plod, plod, really. Very polite, really. But when they came in, suddenly it was like an animal. Really much more exciting. I think that song benefited the most from the change in lineup.

Coston: “Cerdes” has one of my favorite basslines that Dave Knights played during his time with the band.

Fisher: Dave was really very under-rated. I can remember when I first came down to jam with Keith and Gary, they turned up with a acetate of just a piano and vocal demo of Gary singing “Salad Days”. I thought it was very interesting. I was into [Bob] Dylan, and thought that it was a bit Dylan-esque. I asked to record the acetate, and I did, and went home and listened to it. They weren’t offering any money. Just blood, toil, tears and sweat, but we think that we can make it, if you want to throw your lot in with us. And that’s really all that was offered. I had always wanted to play with a band that played their own material.

When I came down to jam with the band, Dave was one of the aspects of the band that I really liked. He did all sorts of things that I could write stuff to go with. He was definitely a plus, as far as I was considered.   

Coston: What did you think of “Salad Days”?

Fisher: It was okay. I was a bit disappointed with the sound on the first album. We had this lineup that was similar to what Dylan had on Highway 61 and Blonde On Blonde, and our record sounded nothing like that. 

First albums have a certain charm, which is usually seen more by the people not involved, than the people that are involved (laughs). I loved the first Beatles album, though I’m not sure that the Beatles did. I know that Lennon thought that he sounded terrible on “Twist & Shout”, whereas the rest of us loved it. 

Coming soon, more with Matthew Fisher about the band’s second and third albums, Shine On Brightly, and A Salty Dog. 

RIP Dave Ball of Procol Harum

Here's my 2012 interview with him. Safe travels, Dave.
-Daniel

http://danielcoston.blogspot.com/2012/08/dave-ball-interview.html

My Photos On Procol Harum's Website

http://www.procolharum.com/2014/procol_durham-coston.htm

More pics posted soon,
-Daniel
September 1, 2014

Procol Harum pics, Durham, NC, July 19, 2014

Procol Harum
Carolina Theater
Durham, NC
July 19, 2014
all photos copyright 2014 Daniel Coston

Gary Brooker, Procol Harum interview

Gary Brooker: Shine On
Interview and introduction by Daniel Coston
Originally published in the spring 2013 issue of The Big Takeover Magazine

Gary Brooker is very glad to be here, and on tour again. In May of last year, Brooker nearly died from a skull fracture, suffered in a hotel room in South Africa. His band, Procol Harum, were performing there for the first time ever. Due to circumstances that still have yet to be explained (the band’s website has suggested that Brooker had been drugged, in a robbery attempt), Brooker fell, and ended up spending over two weeks in the hospital, before finally being allowed to fly home to England.

Many of us know the music of Procol Harum. Formed in early 1967, the band’s first single became a song for the ages, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale.” Through the majority of the following 45 years, Procol Harum has evolved and changed, touching on pop, rock, classical, symphonic and the fringes of progressive rock. Sometimes, all in the same song. Brooker’s voice and songwriting has led the band through it all, and continues to lead the band through a healthy touring schedule. The band may have missed out on a Rock Hall nomination this year, but a fantastic new biography of the band, "The Ghosts Of A Whiter Shade Of Pale", is already reminding fans of just how much the band has accomplished over their history.

Just five weeks after the incident in South Africa, Brooker returned to the stage for a US tour opening for Yes. The recovery from the accident has been gradual, and is ongoing. Despite that, Brooker remains a remarkable person to talk to. He talks to you with a knowing sparkle in his eye. Down to earth, yet able to laugh about it all. It was really good to see him. Onstage, or backstage in Alpharetta, GA, where this interview was done. The world around us too often takes our heroes from us too soon, but it is always good when someone can continue, and indeed, shine on, brightly.

Daniel Coston: Let me ask first what a lot of people want to know. How are you doing, and how are you feeling after the incident in South Africa?

Gary Brooker: I’m feeling pretty good. One of the problems that came from that events there was that I got deaf in one ear, and I can’t hear how loud I’m talking, and occasionally I got a little topply and dizzy. But apart from that, I’m fine. I was a bit worried about coming out here, but its all worked out fine. No problems.

Coston: Was it good to jump back into a tour?

Brooker: Well, it was a target. I’ve got to get myself back in shape here for a certain date, so that’s what I did. It involved staying at home, and being pretty quiet for a few weeks.

Coston: Was that hard to do?

Brooker: No. (Laughs) I didn’t feel like doing much.

Coston: Has that incident made you think about what you what you want to do next? Has that incident affected you?

Brooker: It’s made me think that I could’ve laid there in a pool of blood and died. But some of the lads found me, if you like, and figured out what was going on. But therefore, I survived, and I didn’t have any permanent injury, hopefully. It’s made me think that every moment is quite important. There’s a lot of people that come to that in some stage of their life. But as we were saying earlier, the one thing was to make sure that I was able to even get up on stage and hear what I was singing. So that’s got a little bit [to go], so I haven’t gotten through the next stage, yet. Plenty of time to think about this while driving through the United States, though. (laughs)

Coston: This is your first time back in the United States after I saw you on the Jethro Tull tour, in 2010.

Brooker: We also did some some other dates on our own that year, as well. There wasn’t a lot of them, and a lot of it was based around going up to Canada to play with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. We also came back about a week after we went home, and did a date with the Wilmington [Delaware] Symphony, at their Opera House. Stayed at the Dupont, all very nice. Very fair. (laughs)

Coston: Do you enjoy coming back to the US, after all this time?

Brooker: Yeah, yeah. In the old days, we used to come over for about six months of the year.  It’s good to come over, but I think once every two years is all right.

Coston: Would you like to come over here often with your own show, as opposed to opening for another band?

Brooker: Actually, that’s worked out for me [on this tour], because I was in a bed for quite a few weeks. Therefore, I lost a bit of strength. And I’m very glad that we’re only playing for an hour, and not two. (Laughs)

Coston: There has been a number of different lineups during the history of Procol Harum. You’ve had this lineup together now for a few years.

Brooker: Geoff [Whitthorn, guitarist] and Matt [Pegg, bassist] date from ‘92, ‘93. Twenty years. And it seems that Josh [Phillips, on organ] and Geoff [Dunn] on the drums have been with us for, it could be, five years. Some bands don’t last five years (laughs), so we don’t have a constant lineup change. It’s not like every time we go anywhere as Procol Harum, that there’s a different team. We try to stay together, we get on well. It’s a social event, as well. It’s fun, touring. It should be fun. But it’s fun going around with Yes. They’re similar ilk to us. They’re a little older than us, but they’re good lads.

Coston: You have a new live album out [MMX].

Brooker: Yes, as a download.

Coston: Is that something that you think you’d do more of? Putting live albums out via download, or would you like to go back to the more physical album?

Brooker: Do you mean a studio album?

Coston: Yes. That, too.

Brooker: Well, I think that we’ll get back in there, at some point. The great difference nowadays is that you can’t try out a new song on stage, and then go in and sharpen it up a bit in the studio. Because as soon as you’ve played it onstage once, it’s out there. So all that side of it is gone. Once you play it, and if you haven’t honed it, or sharpened it up in that time, you’ve spoiled it. So really, you can’t play anything on stage unless you want it to be out there on download.

We have a method now where we record ourselves every night now, anyway. It’s just, whoever gets the terrible job after this tour of 27 dates, picking out what was a good performance, and what wasn’t.

Coston: This is much a Keith Reid question, as it is for you, but one of the things I like about Procol Harum is that the lyrics are very descriptive, yet not overly so. I don’t know what you guys wrote the song “Shine On Brightly” about, but I know what it means to me. You can take your meanings from the song.

Brooker: Well, that is what it’s all about. That’s a good example, because it’s much harder to think, “What the hell’s that about?” “Whiter Shade Of Pale” is easy, or “Homburg” or something, compared to “Shine On Brightly.” But I think that each person can get something out of it. If it’s a fantasy, it could be glowing pictures, or whatever. Hopefully, the music goes with it, as well, and vice versa.

It was funny. The other night, we were in Clearwater, Florida, and they had a young lady on the side of the stage with a light on her, and she does sign language for all the lyrics. How they’re able to do it is a miracle, to me. How they learn to do that. And of course, I thought, if they are deaf, and if anybody’s watching this performance, what are they listening to? But I’ve been told that it’s the vibration [that they can feel]. There’s a very good percussionist with the classical orchestras in England that’s totally deaf.

But I did give the girl a bit of lip, as they call it in English, because I said, “What’s the worst job you ever had? That’s becoming a signer, and you go for your first job, and you say, ‘What is it?’ and they, “Translating the Procol Harum lyrics at their concert!” (Laughs loudly) How’s she going to do, “Your multilingual business friend”? Her hands were flying everywhere. Luckily for her, we didn’t do, “Shine On Brightly.” She’d have had to do, “My prussian blue electric clock alarm bell rings, it will not stop.” Anyway, she seemed to enjoy it.

Coston: What songs are you really enjoying, playing on this tour? It’s a slightly different set than when I saw you open for Jethro Tull.

Brooker: I’m really enjoying every moment, because I’m really glad I’m here. You know what I mean? Whether it’s somebody signing for the deaf, or just somebody on the road, or anything. It’s great fun, it’s great to be here. With our sets, we worked one out, when we got here. We lost a lot of time in England, with me not being there, and it kind of worked out. We worked out so that we can try something different, and if works, or if maybe it’s not quite right. Unusually for us, we’re pretty much sticking to the plan. (laughs) I’ve been sticking to the plan, but I can call it and change it in the middle of the set. “No, we’ll do that one.” But no, we’ve stuck to [the set list] so far, but we can still make it interesting. We haven’t played it enough, we’re only on about our tenth or eleventh concert [of this tour]. We’re not tired of it. In fact, on the contrary. We’re sharpening them. Trying to find different ways of going with them that are better each time. When it comes to the stage where it’s peaked, then we’ll drop it out, and try something else.

Coston: What is it like to have that kind of a catalog, through your history with this band?

Brooker: It is a big catalog, but sometimes it doesn’t seem so large. We have a certain amount, because at some point, we’ve played most of them, but I seem to have played a couple at soundcheck that no one’s ever played. Unless they’ve forgotten them. (Laughs) But we rehearse before we went to South Africa, and most of that set was meant to be for use here. So we’ve quite got a good stockpile of stuff.

Coston: I want to ask you a question about “Whiter Shade Of Pale,” without going into [the recent court case with former organist Matthew Fisher]. How was your perspective on that song itself changed over the years? Do you view that song differently now, than when you wrote it?

Brooker: It hasn’t changed a lot, except the way that people play it. That is always interesting to me. I can always create lot of interest on the piano, and the way I sing it, and it always remains fresh. If I hear it on the radio, I think, “Blimey, that’s good. Who’s that?” And it’s our record. To me, it didn’t sound like it came from a certain era, but I think it always sounded like it didn’t fit. People have called it lots of things. Ghostly, eerie, haunting. And it was always that. It’s one of its unique properties, I think. But when people refer to it as galvanizing the Summer Of Love, I don’t see that at all. That might have been the era that it was popular in, but since then, people have gotten married to it, and they’re only 25. People get buried to it. Mind you, they were probably around when it first came out. (laughs)

Coston: I’m 39, and I’ve known that song all of my life. And again, it means different things to me.

Brooker: See, you weren’t even born when that song came out.

Coston: You guys were always a little out of your time. I listen to your songs, and I can’t go, “Oh, that’s so 1967, 1968.” You guys were always a little left of what was going on.

Brooker: We were always, slightly not of the time. Not quite getting in with the current, because we didn’t change ourselves to go with might be the fashion, or the way to do things, or all that. In fact, if we were heard anything that was the fashion, or the way to do things, we would go the complete opposite. When “Whiter Shade Of Pale” came out, our first LP came out a little bit later that year. Let’s say September, October. And we didn’t put “Whiter Shade” on it, because we thought, “Everybody’s already bought that. We don’t want to cheat them, make them buy something they’ve already got.” [Editor’s note: Procol Harum’s then label, Regal Zonophone, did go ahead and release “Whiter Shade” on the band’s debut album. However, the album was released in Germany without “Whiter Shade,” and both the US and UK versions did not include the band’s most recent hit by that time, “Homburg.”] Now, you wouldn’t think that a band wouldn’t release an album without “Whiter Shade Of Pale.” That wasn’t their biggest hit that year, but we always worked against the plan. (Smiles and laughs.)

Coston: I wanted to ask you about Douglas Adams, who was a friend of yours, and whom I got to interview in 1996.

Brooker: He was a great friend. He was such a huge fan, and such a creative person, he felt like more than just one fan, but more a whole tribe of them.

Coston: Is the band ever changing, ever shifting for you? As we stated, you have had this current lineup together for several years. Have you been surprised by the number of twists and turns that this group has taken over the years that you’ve led this band?

Brooker: I think the musicians know that in this band, they can take any song we play, be it a old one, or a new one, and any direction that they feel like taking. Add. Their. Bit. They can add their character, or musical notes, or anything. Now and again, there’s bits that have to be in there. Something, a song feels wrong if it doesn’t hear THAT. It’s not written in stone, but you say, “You’ve got to have that bit in.” For the most part, the rhythms have to be somewhere near the originals. We have tried jazzing stuff up now and again, totally change the arrangements and the feels. But people are always happy when we come back to the old version. (laughs)