Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 172

Record label: Regal Zonophone

Produced: Matthew Fisher

Recorded: Abbey Road, London; January–February 1969

Released: July 1969

Chart peaks: 27 (UK) 32 (US)

Personnel: Gary Brooker (p, v, hm, celeste, recorder); Matthew Fisher (o, g, marimba, recorder); Dave Knights (b); Barrie Wilson (d, pc); Robin Trower (g, tambourine); Kellogs (bosun’s whistle); Ken Scott; Ian Stuart, Henry Lewy (e)

Track listing: A Salty Dog (S/UK); The Milk Of Human Kindness; Too Much Between Us; The Devil Came From Kansas (S/US); Boredom; Juicy John Pink; Wreck Of The Hesperus; All This And More; Crucifiction Lane; Pilgrim’s Progress

Running time: 43.07

Current CD: Westside WESM534 adds; Long Gone Geek; All This And More (alternate take); The Milk Of Human Kindness (alternate take); Pilgrim’s Progress (alternate take); McGregor; Still There’ll Be More (alternate take)

Further listening: Procol Harum: 30th Anniversary Collection (1997). For the excellent later incarnation of the band seek out the mighty Grand Hotel (1973), a real forgotten gem

Further reading: Procol Harum: Beyond The Pale (Claes Johansen, 2000); www.procolharum.com

Download: Not currently legally available

For most people, the story of Procol Harum began, and ended, with Whiter Shade Of Pale. After that one era-defining single, the band simply skipped the light fandango right out of the frame. But that, as with so many rock’n’roll clichés, is only half the picture. Procol Harum actually went on to record a further 10 albums, and this, their third, is generally regarded among fans as their best.

A Salty Dog was their fourth single, released in June 1969 – a swirling, Gothic epic, drenched in salt spray, it was progressive rock at its very best, Procol Harum in excelsis. The subsequent album built on the band’s strengths – Trower’s guitar flowed freely (he was yet to be subsumed by his Hendrix infatuation); Brooker had rarely sung better; Fisher’s production was ’69 rock in Cinerama; and Barrie Wilson’s thunderous drumming (he was Jimmy Page’s original choice for the Led Zeppelin drumstool) underpinned the whole album. As well as the title track, the music was ambitious on Matthew Fisher’s epic Pilgrim’s Progress and Wreck Of The Hesperus. They got all heavy on The Devil Came From Kansas, folky on Milk Of Human Kindness, and slipped into a Latin rumba groove on Boredom; while All This And More took Procol Harum into a stratospheric place all of its own.

The 1999 reissue added the single’s B-side – the robust Long Gone Geek – which found Procol trying to sound like the Small Faces; some outtakes; and a real gem, in the shape of the only existing take of McGregor.

In its day, A Salty Dog received respectful reviews, and helped cement Procol’s position as critics’ favourites – particularly in America where they toured pretty much non-stop during the late ’60s; but increasing apathy at home led to their split in 1977. Posthumously, Procol Harum began to receive the respect they had always deserved. Latterly, A Salty Dog has been covered by Marc Almond and, ahem, Sarah Brightman; while Pete Townshend and Brian May have testified to Procol’s influence on The Who and Queen. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of A Salty Dog, the band let slip the one gig that could really have lifted them up another notch: by declining to appear at a rock festival in upstate New York – reputedly because the Trower family had already booked their summer holidays – Procol Harum missed out on Woodstock.