Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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Sam Cameron's Procolpaedia

A


ABBA
Swedish pop mega-sellers who once received their royalties in oil futures.

Liked by Matthew Fisher. It is often jested by GB that Abba stole Procol tunes and had hits with them. TV documentaries suggest that Abba's producer was using rather Chris Thomas-like methods [overdubbing multiple tracks of the same parts not quite in tune with each other etc]. Possibility that Benny may have supported Procol in the 60s while in the Hep Stars has not been confirmed.

Jonas Söderström adds: I've recently been investigating the supposed link between Hep Stars and PH. There are some interesting similarities between the bands, and between Mssrs Brooker and Andersson as well, but I'll get back to that. Just one thing for now: I also have heard the rumour that Hep Stars and PH played at the same gig in 1967. I went back to the press archives, and could establish that they did not. Procol Harum played two concerts at the Stockholm stage 'Gröna Lund', 31 August 1967. Hep Stars played the day after, September 1!


AC/DC
Popular heavy metal band with lead guitarist (still) dressed as short-trousered school boy, for whom BJ Wilson auditioned after Procol Harum split.


ALMOND, MARC
Openly gay singer formerly of synth-pop duo Soft Cell [not to be confused by older readers with 70s duo of former John Mayall sidemen Mark-Almond].

Covered A Salty Dog after a friend sent him a cassette of stuff he would not normally listen to. The EP it was on did scrape the Top 50 in the UK being the only non AWSoP Procol cover version to do so. Recently-published biography of him has quite interesting analysis of this song. The fact that he had covered ASD was made the basis of a lewd quip on a UK TV rock trivia quiz show [Never Mind the Buzzcocks].


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