and some other songs. He had told us he was going to get Mitch Mitchell (of The Jimi Hendrix Experience) to record with us, which we excited about, but on the day he said he couldn’t get either Mitch or Bobby, so he had booked (Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames) drummer Bill Eyden.” Luckily enough, Eyden lived quite close to Olympic in Barnes, South West London.


Around this time the band also signed with business manager Jonathan Weston on a recommendation from Denny Cordell. Guy Stevens had withdrawn from close association with Procol Harum because of his parlous financial circumstances, and had returned to working closely with Chris Blackwell and Island Records.


a whiter shade Mk II. L-R: Dave Knights (front), Robin Trower, B J Wilson, Matthew Fisher, Gary Brooker.


sound to develop new material.’ The ad led to the recruitment of bass player Dave Knights and guitarist Ray Royer.


Meanwhile, David Platz, Brooker and Reid’s music publisher at Essex Music, took a bunch of basic demos to producer Denny Cordell, who had a production company which traded as Straight Ahead Productions. At the end of January ’67, Stevens had booked some potential Procol musicians to augment Brooker, Knights and Royer in a session at the Marquee Studios in London’s Wardour Street; the resultant demos, now lost, included early versions of ‘Something Following Me’, ‘Conquistador’, and two new songs in the shape of ‘Salad Days’ and, portentously, ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’.


Hammond organist Matthew Fisher placed an ad in the Melody Maker on February 25th, in which he stated: “Hammond organist, harmony vocals, seeks pro group!” Brooker, Reid and Stevens auditioned Fisher, and, although he didn’t immediately join, seemed the perfect fit for the band; he had some form, having backed Terry Reid in Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers, and had done stints as a member of The Gamblers backing Billy Fury, as well as playing with Screaming Lord Sutch.


The first Procol line-up was coming together; the missing piece was in who was to fill the drum stool. Again, the band advertised in Melody Maker, it now being March, but as Keith Reid recalled: “Gary had worked with Bobby Harrison in the past, and we were trying him out as our drummer. Denny Cordell had booked the studio (Olympic) to record ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’


54


Right from the get-go, ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ was viewed by pretty much all concerned – publisher David Platz, producer Denny Cordell, manager Jonathan Weston, Decca/Deram Records (it’s eventual label home) promo man Tony Hall – as a potential smash hit. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Guy Stevens had a hand in the song, however obliquely: Keith Reid amplifies: “‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ was born during a party at Guy Stevens’ house. There was a large group of us sitting round smoking and joking, and during the course of much banter, Guy was trying to tell his wife that she had turned very white and he was jumbling up his words. It was this incident that gave me the idea for the song. It was much later after I had written the whole song that I told Guy about my moment of inspiration. He was, of course, totally unaware that he has said anything that inspired me.”


Producer Denny Cordell said that he wanted to make Brooker’s voice sound “like a psychedelic Percy Sledge”.


There is always the danger, when attempting to analyse a piece of music, that in the process of pulling it apart, somehow the inherent magic can dissipate. With ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ – recently acknowledged by Public Performance Limited as the most- played song in the UK of the last 50 years – the song is curiously resistant. It is simply a stick of pure pop music dynamite. At the time, its incorporation of a classical theme, oblique, almost opaque lyricism, and the stellar vocal of Gary Brooker sounded utterly unlike anything else at the time, and even 40 odd years down the line, is a work of wonder.


Producer Denny Cordell was quoted as saying that, in the recording of ‘Whiter Shade’, that he wanted to make Brooker’s voice sound “like a psychedelic Percy Sledge” (Sledge did go on to record a cover version of the song, incidentally). You can hear what he meant; hard as it is to listen to such a much-played, familiar record with fresh ears, it’s possible to locate a certain Southern Soul influence in session drummer Bill Eyden’s ride cymbal heavy drum track, and in Gary Brooker’s raw vocals, which often take him to the edge of his vocal range, which certainly confirm him as one of an elite bunch of ’60s Brit blue eyed soul vocalists – Steve Marriott, Steve Winwood and Steve Ellis.


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