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Anecdotes About Procol Harum 

John Roberts of Wakefield, Yorkshire
I’ve been a fan and advocate of Procol Harum since about 1972, when I first heard Grand Hotel. In particular the single Robert’s Box being played on Stuart Henry’s Saturday morning Radio 1 Show (bless Stuart — he was a good man, with good taste in music, and a genuinely caring spirit for people and environmental issues).

At that time I was 16, and favourite bands were such as Argent, Van der Graaf Generator, Wishbone Ash, The Beatles and Pink Floyd, but Procol Harum was special, because I felt they were my discovery!

In 1973 I won a Sounds magazine competition — a Chrysalis sampler called Prime Cuts — it included Toujours l’Amour and a Robin Trower track I Can’t Wait Much Longer amongst things like Ten Years After, Jethro Tull etc. etc.

This was good stuff, and I’ve collected all Procol Harum’s output since. I remember the NME Book of Rock, a week-by-week series building up to a ‘book’. The entry for Procol Harum spoke of "Keith Reid’s scholarly lyrics and Gary Brooker’s superb playing". Yes, someone else had noticed!

With Procol Harum, the ‘marriage’ of rock and classical worked — they pulled it off with finesse, something indefinable called ‘class’. When other bands attempted to fuse the two musical forms, the results were often cumbersome and turgid.

I think the reason Procol succeeded where other had failed was because of the high quality of the material, both musically and lyrically.

I remember years later when I was going through quite a dark period in my life, listening to In Held 'Twas In I. It held me spellbound, and proved to be cathartic.

You know what they say about poetry, that it is about ‘digging up truth’. Well for me, that piece of music achieved the condition of poetry. Haunting. The ‘tingle factor’ was definitely here.

Procol Harum also possessed a self-deprecating humour and humility. They didn’t take themselves as seriously as many other groups, yet took their music very seriously and that is why I feel they have a total lasting value, as many are now discovering.

Just another thought. You know when you don’t always hear the lyrics right? (especially on the equipment I used to listen on!). When I heard Toujours l’Amour I thought Gary sang "I’m thinking of renting a villa in Prague". In fact, of course, he says "France", but this was a nice notion, which fired my imagination. Prague was a neglected and beautiful city beyond the Iron Curtain, just a sublime place you could only dream and read about. Visiting it in later years (1985, and later after the curtain fell in 1996), fulfilled all expectations. Thank you Procol Harum for whetting my appetite there!

I always liked the fact that Procol played countries like Poland, to great appreciation, and later cities like Tallin. The people in these countries have great ‘soul’, probably because of their sufferings over many years. I like to think that they respond to something special, something of great depth, in Procol’s music.

Thank you to Gary and all the boys!

Back to 'Shine On-line' November 1998