Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

PH on stage | PH on record | PH in print | BtP features | What's new | Interact with BtP | For sale | Site search | Home

A Whiter Shade of Pale

Highly-collectable re-release, 40 years on!

London's Union Square Music, trading as Salvo, releases AWSoP again as a single to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Procol Harum. The new writing-credit (see below) makes this a highly-collectable item and if sufficient Procol fans buy it, we have a good chance of seeing Procol Harum back in the charts. Go to Amazon UK by clicking here, and you can pre-order the single (and several copies for your friends!): the price is 3.99 GBP

Order from Amazon USA here | Win it!
Buy it from the BtP online store


The original recording will be available as

• 7" vinyl: A Whiter Shade of Pale with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone) [alt. version] on the B side

• CD single: A Whiter Shade of Pale with Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)[alt. version], Whisky Train, All This And More
 

 Collectors' Edition (with apostrophe!)
A Whiter Shade of Pale: the original mono single version newly remastered in 2007; Whisky Train: remastered in 2007 from the original master tape. All This And More: remastered in 2007 from the original master tape. Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone): Previously unreleased version of song that appeared on Shine On Brightly, but had been originally recorded during sessions for their début eponymous album. The story is often repeated that it was erased in error by the recording engineer, and and early acetate had previously been the sole version of this wonderful performance. Recently discovered among tapes of recordings dating from 1967, this version was mastered in 2007.

Regarding the writing credit, subject of a lawsuit first heard in the winter of 2006, Procol Harum's management writes (July 2007):

There have been some exchanges with Matthew Fisher's lawyers over his entitlement to a writer's credit on A Whiter Shade of Pale, which is included on the new anthology due for release on 27 August, a date prior to the judgement of the appeal court due to sit in October.

Gary Booker is not willing to be included in a three-way credit before the case has been finally resolved. The band didn't want to keep the fans waiting for Secrets of the Hive any longer, so to settle the matter without removing any important tracks from the 2 CD compilation, the credit for A Whiter Shade of Pale will therefore be

"(Keith Reid / Matthew Fisher)
Gary Brooker, the original composer of A Whiter Shade of Pale,
declines to share this credit until a decision is made
by the Court of Appeal in 2007"

In years to come this, and the imminent single release of A Whiter Shade of Pale, should be collectable items.

More about AWSoP | Detail about the vinyl re-release | Detail about the CD (EP) re-release

PH on stage | PH on record | PH in print | BtP features | What's new | Interact with BtP | For sale | Site search | Home