Procol Harum's first year in the NME

Homburg charts: 7 October 1967

These excerpts from New Musical Express, kindly selected for 'Beyond the Pale' by Yan Friis, show Homburg entering the chart, and further confusion about concert dates for the 'negative' Procol Harum

Front page: Double page (front and back) advertisement for David McWilliams' Harlem Lady / The Days Of Pearly Spencer and his album David McWilliams on Major Minor Records. (Another full page advert for same inside the NME on page 5!)

NME Top 5:

1 (1) The Last Waltz, Engelbert Humperdinck
2 (5) Hole In My Shoe, Traffic
3 (3) Flowers In The Rain, The Move
4 (4) Reflections, Diana Ross & The Supremes
5 (13) Massachusetts, The Bee Gees

18. (-) Homburg, Procol Harum

Tipped for the charts by Derek Johnson:
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich: Zabadak!
Vanilla Fudge, Eleanor Rigby
Val Doonican, If The Whole World Stopped Lovin'
Four Tops, You Keep Running Away

Procol unmoved by new hit success

(Interview on page 2 by a rather confused Norrie Drummond who claims the group suffers from 'negative attitude'.)

News pages, under the column Names in the News:

PROCOL HARUM

have put back their US promotional visit six days. They now fly to America on October 27 for a three-week visit. This delay will probably mean that the group will make its London concert début before its departure.

Three-quarters through 1967, Engelbert Humperdinck is leading the NME Charts points table:

1 Engelbert Humperdinck 902
2 The Monkees 815
3 Tom Jones 719

19 Procol Harum 309

Column LPs by Allen Evans:

****THE EVERLY BROTHERS SING (Warner Bros. 1708).

(excerpt): ...They change the mood to a quiet, long track of A Whiter Shade Of Pale, with the organ backing just as the Procol did it...

Tailpieces by the Alley Cat (NB! The different spelling of this column's title is not Yan's misprint, the NME simply couldn't make up their mind whether it should be Tail-pieces or Tailpieces, so he just follow their spelling from edition to edition.)

... Declined: huge offer from Herb Alpert's company for US issue of Procol Harum's records ...

Read more from the first year of Procol press