– Procol Harum – In Session – BBC 1967 –
More familiar territory tonight. Procol Harum is no stranger to these pages, but the session recordings haven’t gotten around much and they did several for the BBC between 1967 and 1970.
Tonight it’s from their first group of BBC sessions, cut between June and September 1967 and featuring live versions of two of their biggest selling singles. Whiter Shade Of Pale is in just about every 60’s compilation ever put together, and it probably constitutes as overkill as far as exposure is concerned. But the live version is different, it’s also the one with the Official Procol Harum group, as opposed to the augmented session musicians on the original recording.
On 15 July 1967, the group announced the June departure of Royer and Harrison and their split from Weston as manager. Fisher later said that the major issue for the split with Weston was when he organised an extensive UK tour for Procol Harum too soon after the release of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, resulting in the group performing “for £60 per night instead of £500.” Following the addition of guitarist Robin Trower and the return of B. J. Wilson, the band secured new management under Tony Secunda. The departures brought about what Brooker described as “great lawsuits and expense” from Royer, Harrison, and Weston, and initial session drummer Eyden filed his own suit. Roughly three months into their partnership with Secunda, the band hired two Americans, Bennett Glotzer and Ronnie Lyons, to manage them in the US.
The group’s follow-up single, “Homburg”, was released in September 1967. The song reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 34 in the US. In the same month their debut album, Procol Harum, recorded between the two hit singles, was released in the US. Brooker said its release soon after the singles put the band in good stead in the US, but the problems created by the line-up changes, subsequent lawsuits and new management delayed its release in the UK until December. Brooker said it was at this point where the band “had lost the British audience.”
So here’s what’s on the player tonight:
Procol Harum – in session at The BBC
1. A Whiter Shade Of Pale (5:14)
2. She Wandered Through The Garden Fence (3:09)
3. Homburg (4:50) – including a short interview with Gary Booker.
Track 1: June 14, 1967
Track 3: September 27, 1967
Track 4: Top Of The Pops 1967
