Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale 

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A pile of papers I was going through ...

The history of Procol in print


Three sections to this page, so do scroll down to explore. In each category, articles are compiled in inverse chronological order. If you have articles not listed below, please send them to us.


Articles containing a chronological survey

2006 The biography of Procol Harum, by their Italian tour-promoter
2003 The biography of Procol Harum, from Eagle Rock, their new record-label
2002 Scaruffi's online history of Procol Harum
2001 Programme note from the Procol Harum / Hallé orchestra concert
2001 The prestigious Grove's Dictionary of Music
2000 A Procol Harum 'biography' that can be found at Amazon.com
2000 Full length biography of Procol Harum in Claes Johansen's book, Beyond the Pale
2000 Programme note from the Procol Harum / The New London Sinfonia concert
1999 So Sixties!: unexpected parallel between C19th painter Gustave Moreau and Procol Harum.
1999 Procol Harum and the British Psychedelic trip – From Record Collector September 1999
1999 A close encounter between Peter Solley and Procol Harum in 1967 – from Record Collector December 1999
1999 Rock Hound ... brief survey of Procol's work, and the influence of the Shangri-las
1997 The Repertoire re-releases have excellent liner-notes by Chris Welch
1997 Virgin Encyclopaedia of Sixties Music has star ratings for all the albums to date
1995  Salty Dogs and Rotten Worms – Mojo review of all the PH albums ... so far
1992 "Matthew Fisher is much more like the way people think I am. Actually, I'm pretty light-hearted ...": a  good Keith Reid interview from 1992
1991 Superb liner notes to the Zoo compilation album, by John Mendelssohn
1989 Goldmine article about the Great Lost Procol Harum album
1989 Goldmine article about Robin Trower: Magic Fingers
1989 Q Magazine Procol Harum on record with 76 other musicians, 'not dicking about'
1987 Good liner notes to a PH compilation album, by Jim Bickhart
1986 From the book Stairway to Heaven – the Spiritual Roots of Rock 'N' Roll,
1983 The Paramounts: their history, from the Whiter Shades of R&B LP insert
1983 Good, illustrated article from The History of Rock
1982 Record Collector No 39: a chronological retrospective
1981 A personal history of PH and the Paramounts from a fanzine, Gorilla Beat
1981 Slightly flawed history of the band from The Great Rock and Pop Nostalgia Book
1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide assesses the first ten Procol Harum albums
1979 A good article from an Italian book about British music
1978 from Rocket: a good survey of the first ten years of Procol Harum
1977 Procol Harum entry from the 'NME' Book of Rock
1977 'A Whiter Shade of Pale and Beyond': retrospective from Super Rock
1976 Nine Years Before the Mast: band history from Street Life magazine
1976 Three-part history from ZigZag magazine: No 60, May, No 61, June, No 62, July
1975 Band history from the Procol's Ninth tour programme by Chris Briggs
1975 Rick Wakeman and Procol Harum aren't talking these days: Rolling Stone May 8
1974 'Procol Harum: They Got Elegance' Mark David Schwartz in Hit Parader
1974 A short survey article that may have been record-company blurb announcing Exotic Birds
1973 PH retrospective from Stereo Review
1972 ZigZag interview dealing with the history of Robin Trower and PH
1972 Syracuse New Times: very opinionated review of the band's career up to Edmonton
1971-ish press report on the arrival of Dave Ball and Alan Cartwright
1971 Rolling Stone 'Procol Harum and the Facts of Life'
1971 Keith Reid interviewed in Beat Instrumental: The Purpose of Being Procol ...  
1970s The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll
1970 Chrysalis tour-programme, mis-spellings and all
1967–68 PH excerpts from NME: weekly through the band's first year
1967 PH talk to Newsweek about poverty and forthcoming success
1963 onwards Paramounts press from the NME
Three articles about Procol Harum in a nutshell

Paramounts – various pieces about the roots of Procol Harum

1963 A Paramounts scrapbook kept by Barrie Wilson's sister, Pam

 

  

Interviews, features and so forth

2008

Keith Reid interviewed in The Argotist Online about songwriting

2007

Swedish interview about The Keith Reid Project

2007

'Get Bach to where you once belonged': Guardian Unlimited, 9 November 2007

2007

Gary Brooker in the UK's Word magazine
2007 Crassly ineffectual BBC Radio Manchester interview with Gary Brooker

2006

April: Procol on the Mojo cover-disc

2005

March, Marcus Dunk in The Daily Express

2005

May: Procol Harum, the progenitors of prog-rock with their orchestral début single [sic]

2005

The lawsuit regarding authorship of A Whiter Shade of Pale ... many articles

2004

'Greatest psychedelic singles' in Record Collector

2004

Why Matthew Fisher left Procol Harum from an Italian newspaper

2004

December: the UK's Radio Caroline interviews Gary Brooker about his entire career

2003

Article in The Montreal Gazette the day Procol Harum plays in the same city in their 2003 tour

2003

Time Out (New York edition) just before the first Procol NY gigs

2003

Gary Brooker interviewed in The Daily Record, Morris County, New Jersey

2003

 11 March: Gary Brooker interviewed in Italy about the new album

2003

Gary Brooker interview from Long Island Press

2003

Gary Brooker interview from Sweden's Musikermagasinet

2003

Gary Brooker interview on Spanish Radio ... explains why R Trower is not on The Well's on Fire

2003

The script of the phone interview for the Washington Times

2003

The July edition of Twentieth Century Guitar with live pictures, Whitehorn and Brooker interviews

2003

July: Italian news articles (translated into English) from Il Tempo and Il Messagero

2003

July: Arizona's Acoustic Storm radio show interviews Gary Brooker

2002

Keith Reid interview with uclaradio.com, text and sound files

2002

Gary Brooker interview the day of the cancelled Newcastle concert

2002

Matthew Fisher feature from Croydon Council publication

2002

Croydon Advertiser: 'Procol Harum are back'

2002

Gary Brooker briefly interviewed on Swedish TV: mentions the The Well's on Fire album

2001

Gary Brooker radio interview from 17 April 2001

2001

Matthew Fisher on AWSoP and his career

2001

Paler-power in action: Procol Harum fans bewail perceived snub

2001

Gary Brooker interview with uclaradio.com, text and sound files

2001

' ... time to reclaim PH as a great rock and pop band ...' : a fascinating website article

2001

Substantial Matthew Fisher interview with uclaradio.com, text and sound files

2001

Substantial Geoff Whitehorn interview with uclaradio.com, text and sound files

2001

Procol bits, and stuff about Southend, from the Vivian Stanshall biography, Ginger Geezer

2001

? Substantial Robin Trower interview printed in 20th Century Guitar

2000

March: good resumé of current interest in all things Procol, from Record Collector No 247

2000

BBC Radio 2 interviews Matthew Fisher (broadcast 25 March)

2000

Procol's first guitarist tells his story in the Brechin Advertiser

2000

Brooker and Fisher talk about AWSoP on London Weekend Television

2000

Brooker and Fisher talk about AWSoP on the '100 Greatest Hits' programme (broadcast 6 Jan 2001)

1999

January: Brooker in his own words, on German radio

1998

Bud Scoppa on 'Trower's Travails' in Guitar World

1998

Radio Azzurra talks to Chris Copping

1998

A few sentences from Gary Brooker in this pre-Guildford interview / feature

1998

Rock in and Around Croydon : some good bits about Matthew Fisher in particular

1998

A telephonic Gary Brooker interview, stylishly written by a lynch-pin of The Homburg Society

1997

Brooker piece in The Daily Telegraph

1997

Blundersome Vox piece entitled 'Missing in Action', with visual howler!

1997

Shine On interviews with Keith Reid and with Gary Brooker

1997

Many fascinating bits of Procol History in the Repertoire re-issues' Liner-Notes

1996

Progression interviews with Gary Brooker and Matt Pegg

1996

Progression assesses Procol Harum in the light of prog-rock

1996

'Procol Harum takes the uncommercial road': a Brooker Radio Azzurra interview

1996

Radio Azzurra interviews with Kellogs, Matthew Fisher, and Nicholas Dodd

1996

from Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Music From the 1960s to the 1990s

1995

Gary Brooker interview from January's Record Collector

1995

From Mojo: a substantial Procol Harum feature and a piece about Matthew Fisher

1995

This young cat ... the original bearer of the great name?

1995

Newsday: mini-interview with Matthew Fisher

1995

Brief Gary Brooker interview from the UK's Today newspaper

1995

Gyldendal's Literary Calendar: tiny, but interesting: The Authors of Rock

1994

Musician magazine: substantial guitarists' interview, with Trower paragraphs

1993

Guitar magazine: substantial Robin Trower interview

1992

Frank Fedeli talks to Keith Reid, the band's lyricist, sage and historian

1992

Rather silly feature from Q magazine's Tom Hibbert

1992

Gary Brooker at the Midfyn Festival (transcript of interview)

1992

Gary Brooker and Matthew Fisher in the UK's Daily Telegraph

1992

Matthew Fisher talks to Keyboard Review: Prodigal details and musicianly stuff

1992

Matthew Fisher interviewed on BBC Radio Merseyside

1992

Procol talk to France's Rapido (transcript of interview)

1991

Brooker interviewed for UIT: on Kate Bush, ballet, and the post-Prodigal album ...

1991

GB, KR, MF and RT interviews from promotional CD for The Prodigal Stranger

1991

Keith Reid interview, Chicago Tribune: comments on his own song-writing

1991

Gary Brooker : Turning Points from RCD

1990

Intriguing multi-part Brooker interview with Radio HSR, Copenhagen

1990

Short snippets from Bill Wyman's Stone Alone

1987

Gary Brooker -  Rock star who made a country retreat She magazine

1985

Where are they now? asks Rolling Stone

1984

Creem mentions PH as 'the Purple Horrors'

1983 (about):

excerpted Brooker interview (journalist unknown) + Joan May's comments

1983

Gary Brooker's chapter from George Martin's book, Making Music

1982

Phonogram press-release that heralded Brooker's Lead me to the Water

1980 (about)

Gary Brooker and the Parrot pub ... feature from She

1979

Brooker on Reid: 'He could have been dumb for all I knew' from Dutch radio.

1979

No More Fear Of Pale: Gary Brooker promoting No More Fear of Flying

1978

Home Again: Mick Grabham interview from Déjà Vu

1978

Gary Brooker in Contemporary Keyboards (though Procol had split 14 months ago!)

1977

In Best magazine: GB interviewed in Paris: TWaTT is his favourite composition so far

1977

Circus: PH have their tenth anniversary: will they have another?

1977

Pop Group Annual 1977

1977

Beat Magazine: Gary Brooker foresees a post-Magic double-album

1977

Good Times: a review of the last Old Testament Procol album