Procol Harum's 'Legend'

A very minor mystery

In 1968 I sent off to Essex, Procol Harum's publishers, for the sheet-music of songs from the first two albums. Disappointingly minimal lead-sheets appeared through the post, pallid xeroxes of file copies which had evidently been compiled with little care.

A puzzling subtitle at the head of the music for Skip Softly (My Moonbeams) caught my eye: it read 'from Legend', as the scan shows:

I waited for this 'Legend' to be released on record, hoping it might turn out to be another long suite in the mould of In Held ... . Of course it never materialised. Maybe this was the 'nine-minute long track' that was referred to in 20 January 1968's New Musical Express? I don't know.

Years later I had the opportunity of asking Matthew Fisher if he could shed any light on this scroobious 'Legend' business. He couldn't, nor did he know who had prepared the scruffy lead-sheet. All that it reminded him of, he said, was Mickey Jupp and his band, Legend ... then he detailed some of the connections explored by Mikael Werkelin in his Jupp feature.

Roland Clare