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When I first heard ‘Conquistador’ by Procol Harum in 1972, it was the live version. Written by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid, it originally appeared on the band's 1967 self-titled debut album but the live version is from In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (#48 UK #5 USA) and got to #16 in the USA and #22 in the UK with Dave Ball on guitar, although I was only 11, I loved it. It wasn’t like anything else. It sounded grandiose and orchestral, like classical music and yet was rock with dramatic overdriven lead guitar.
They fascinated me, and the following year, my brother bought Grand Hotel on cassette. I didn’t find it that accessible, but loved the title track that shared the grandiosity of Conquistidor. As I got older, these two examples stayed with me, along obviously with Whiter Shade Of Pale, which lyrically made perfect sense once I’d taken magic mushrooms and I went back to A Salty Dog which was the highest charting album they had in the UK #27 and found I loved that whole album. It felt heavy, not musically, but in the hippy sense, like it was grasping towards something more profound about existence.
Next up I got Shine On Brightly when I was 19 and in full thrall to psychedelics. In Held 'Twas in I’ fitted the freaky menu I dined from at the time. It got to #24 in America but didn’t chart in the UK where they’d been hampered by law suits and bad management. In fact, although well known here, ‘Whiter Shade…’ which was #1 all over the world and sold a massive 10 million worldwide and to a lesser extent ‘Homburg’ excepted, they were not very successful on the charts with singles and albums (#27 was the highest album, four got into the 40s) Pandora’s Box was brilliant and made #16. They concentrated more on touring America.
In Held Twas I was an acrostic. It is formed by taking the first word of the lyrics in each of the first four movements as well as the first word of the sixth verse in the first movement. Writer, Keith Reid claimed it meant nothing but somehow it was part of this reaching into the void for truth. Likewise, the notion got around that the band’s name meant "beyond these things", which is suitably far out but which isn’t correct, as the correct term would be procul hīs.
By the time I was 15 I had discovered, first with Long Misty Days, Robin Trower. It shocked me that he was part of Procol Harum for five albums. Because he was so brilliant, they rather hid his light, though I discovered Broken Barricades, the Procol album he is to the forefront on. He hit the zeitgeist with some amazing 1970’s albums like Bridge Of Sighs, of course.
It was some time before I got the debut album, which might fetch £100 these days for an original. Hearing it now, it strikes me that it is a sort of prog rock album, or at least, in its classical influences, it allowed prog to flourish. Procol were around for ages, still knocking out a 1977 album and reforming for one in 1991. Their identity was formed by Gary Brooker’s voice and that big opulent sound. And they were never less than interesting, even though apart from Whiter … and a couple of other songs, they rarely get any credit for their originality and their influence on prog rock. Even the Something Magic final 1977 album featured an 18-minute second side, three part The Worm And The Tree which is a kind if In Held Twas I, part two and without orchestration.
They were not commercial enough to be a big hit but did produce original music and in A Whiter Shade Of Pale had one of the best selling singles ever. So, I thought we needed to celebrate them and acknowledge their contribution to our lives.
