Two former 1960s rock stars appeared before a music-loving judge Monday for
a showdown over authorship of one of the decade's most iconic songs.
The organ strains of Procol Harum's
A Whiter Shade of Pale sounded
through Court 56 of Britain's High Court as the band's former organ player,
Matthew Fisher, sued an ex-bandmate for a share of copyright in the
multimillion-selling song.
Fisher's lawyer, Iain Purvis, said the song ''defined what is sometimes
called the summer of love in 1967,'' and had achieved cult status.
He said Fisher had composed the organ melody, and particularly the eight-bar
Hammond organ solo, which gives the song its distinctive baroque flavor.
Purvis said the solo ''is a brilliant piece of work and it is crucial to the
success of the song.''
''Our case, in essence, is that Mr. Fisher wrote the entirety of the organ
tune,'' he said.
Fisher is suing Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker and publisher Onward Music
Ltd. for a co-author credit and a share of the song's copyright and
royalties.
Brooker, who is credited as the song's author with lyricist Keith Reid, says
the pair wrote the song before Fisher joined the band in March 1967.
Brooker has said the melody was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's
Air
on the G String' and
'Sleepers Awake.'
Defense lawyers said the fact Fisher had waited almost four decades to bring
his claim was ''bizarre and obviously prejudicial.''
''Mr Fisher's claim should fail on that ground alone,'' they said in court
papers.
The song, renowned for its mystifying lyrics – beginning ''We skipped the
light fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor'' – topped the British
singles chart for five weeks and was a top 10 hit in the United States.
Rolling Stone magazine has ranked it 57th in a list of the 500 greatest
songs of all time.
Purvis said a
Web site compiled by a fan
lists 771 recorded cover versions, ''most of them, sad to say, disastrous.''
Fisher, now a computer programmer, left the band in 1969. Brooker, 61, still
tours with Procol Harum. The two sat facing
Judge William Blackburne and did not look at one another on the first day of
the five-day hearing.
Blackburne later asked Fisher to play the organ melody on an electric
keyboard near the witness box.
Blackburne, who studied both music and law at Cambridge University,
requested access to the keyboard and sheet music of
A Whiter Shade of
Pale' so he could run through the song after court hours.
Judges are not always familiar with popular music, and Purvis noted that
''one always risks in these cases a 'what-are-The-Beatles' moment'' – a
reference to a famous but possibly apocryphal story of a judge who
purportedly asked that question during a case in the 1960s.
''But I'll hazard that your lordship is familiar with
A Whiter Shade of
Pale,'' Purvis said.
''I am of an age, yes,'' said the 62-year-old judge.
On the Net:
www.procolharum.com