Sunday Music – A Whiter Shade Of Pale

Posted on Sun 11/01/2009 by TonyfromOz

Today’s music video is ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ from Procol Harum.

This video was posted to You Tube by gazsmash

There is an old adage that goes, ‘If you can remember the 60’s, you weren’t there.’

For all those people who do remember the 60’s then this song is part of the fabric of those memories. This song is now recognised as a standard, not just from the 60’s but from the whole of popular music culture through the ages.

It was released in 1967 by the English band Procol Harum, their first single, and even though the band had a relatively long history, this song is the only one remembered when referring to the band.

Gary Brooker wrote the song in conjunction with Matthew Fisher. Popular culture has it that the main theme closely resembles music from Johann Sebastian Bach, particularly the Aria from Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite, sometimes called Air On A G String, but that reference is only in passing, and simply provided the inspiration for the song. The song was originally composed with 4 verses, but only 2 appeared on the Single Release.

The song went to Number one, virtually across the whole Western World, and since then, regularly makes close to the top of best songs ever recorded.

The band has follow up hits with ‘Homburg’ and ‘Conquistador’, but it was difficult to match something like that earlier ‘monster’. They produced Ten albums before splitting, only to reunite in the mid 90’s. One of those albums is the beautiful one they did ‘Live’ with The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra which I have in my collection of 500 or so LP’s. By this time Fisher had left the band replaced on organ by Chris Copping.

The song has been performed in concerts by the band since then, and this clip today is from the time not long after it was first released. Brooker is seen here playing the piano and doing the lyrics, and in one part of the clip, you can see Fisher playing the organ which gives the song that haunting effect.

The organ of Fisher’s choice here was a Hammond organ, an organ particularly popular with bands of the time as keyboard of choice. Bands with big careers were often among those few who could actually afford one of these top of the line specials, and they were played by a variety of the top keyboard players of those famed bands. Rick Wright from Pink Floyd used it prolifically, as did Tony Banks from Genesis, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Gregg Allman, Elton John, Steve Winwood, Jon Lord from Deep Purple, John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, Rick Wakeman from Yes, and most notably, Keith Emerson from Emerson Lake and Palmer, Keith at one time reputed to own three or four of them, and that constitutes a large lump of cash, and these band’s used to take those huge heavy organs on tour with them everywhere, so much were they respected as an instrument. The list of Hammond owners from popular music is a very long one indeed, and they were also popular with Jazz players as well, notably Count Basie.

This song IS one of the most remembered things from the 60’s, a Classic in the true sense of the word.