film for it, this time featuring new members Trower and Wilson. Whilst the whirlwind of business machinations was whipping up all around them, the band took off to the continent and other foreign climes to exploit their growing international fame. By the end of the summer, Procol were now being managed by Tony Secunda, whose other managerial charges of note were The Move. Secunda was nothing if not a skilled manipulator of the media, and had the ability both to spot trends and to capitalise on them. With The Move, he frequently changed the band look to stay one step ahead of the game, and with Procol, he kitted the band out in garish psychedelic threads. Mind you, the “psychedelic yoke” was never one that hung lightly on the Procol collective shoulders. The contemporary press shots of the band done up in The Fool’s psych clobber depict a bunch of geezers somewhat ill at ease in their hippy nouvelle trappings (see this issue’s cover photo for further proof). That may be because they were wearing gear originally intended to be worn by The Move, who actually rejected it, and ended up being given to Brooker and co as a means of providing them with a happening look.


the first four albums


Procol did well on their first tours of the USA – their debut album was rush-released Stateside in August, and entered the Top 50. In the UK, the band followed up their chart- topping exploits with the rather fine single ‘Homburg’, but their self-titled debut album didn’t get a UK release until the end of January, ’68, and then on the Regal


Zonophone label, not Deram (exactly the same as their stable-mates The Move, whose ‘Night of Fear’ and ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’ singles were on Deram, before they moved to Regal).


The fact that it contained neither of their hit singles (although, to be fair, that wasn’t necessarily the “done thing” back then) didn’t enhance its chart chances, and the album didn’t even make the album listings. Quite how much of their self-titled debut album features Harrison and Royer is still subject to conjecture amongst Procol fans. Not that it wasn’t an accomplished piece of work – despite the change of line-up during the recordings, it’s a cohesive album that boasts engrossing lyrical ruminations and some frequently brilliant ensemble playing. ‘Conquistador’ was a dramatic opener, inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote; the early Reid/Brooker opus ‘Something Following Me’ is about a man followed around by his own tombstone, whilst ‘Cerdes (Outside The Gates Of)’ is redolent of Dylan’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, with its dramatic piano chords and towering lyric. Salvo’s recent reissue of the album is by far the best-sounding CD version available.


1968 was a year in which Procol Harum split much of their time between touring the USA and recording their second album, Shine On Brightly. The album itself clearly shows the bands’ musical ambition, featuring a lengthy song cycle taking up much of the second side of the old vinyl album, ‘In Held Twas In I’, the title being a composite of the first words of each song in the cycle. Pete Townshend would claim later that ‘In Held…’ was a major influential factor on the writing of Tommy.


Interestingly enough, from the outset, the album was supposed to have much more in the way of blues-orientated content until ‘In Held Twas In I’ took shape. Although Procol Harum are frequently labelled as a prog band, its something of a misnomer; their music is progressive in terms of its ambition, not by its execution. Procol’s sound is more concise, shorn of musical noodling. By now,


An Italian ‘Shine On Brightly’ picture cover


producer Denny Cordell was losing interest in the band, and engineer Glyn Johns and assistant producer Tony Visconti did much of the sound manicuring work on the album.


A Salty Dog, the third Procol Harum album, was produced by Hammond organist Matthew Fisher, and recorded at Abbey Road studios (after an abortive start at A&M studios in LA in Autumn ’68) in London early in ’69. Although the band eschews the writing of a lengthy, interconnected piece a la ‘In Held Twas In I’, it was, nevertheless, a


56


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