Disco de Procol Harum: “Classics Volume 17”

One purpose to releasing a 'Greatest Hits' collection is to generate the listeners interest in purchasing other productions by the artist. That was my goal in purchasing this collection by Procol Harum. Nevermind that the album would have been better titled 'The Best Of', since Procol Harum only scored three charting songs in the US ('A Whiter Shade of Pale', which reached number 5 in July of 1967, 'Homburg' at number 34 four months later, and 'Conquistador' at number 16 in 1972), and five in their UK homeland ('A Whiter Shade...' not once, but twice, in '67 [when it reached #1] and in a 1972 stereo version [#13], 'Homburg', 'Conquistador', and 'Pandora's Box', which ironically is not included in this 'Greatest Hits' compilation). Like most progressive rock bands, the magic of Procol Harum supposedly lies in their long-form pieces, not in pandering to Top 40 success.

It is instructive to note that the arrangement of the songs offered on 'Greatest Hits' is not chronological. In fact, the final three songs on the disc are some of the earliest tracks the band produced. I would speculate that the producer, Bob Garcia, arranged these tracks according to their perceived quality and popularity, since the opening six tracks are clearly where the meat of the album resides. 'Greatest Hits' is squarely focused on the first 5 years of the band's output, offering 4 tracks from 1967's 'Procol Harum', and two each from 1968's 'Shine On Brightly', 1969's 'A Salty Dog', 1970's 'Home', and 1971's 'Broken Barricades'. Pretty democratic for a bunch of English socialists!

I was inspired to track down an affordable copy of a compilation of Procol's best after seeing a Musikladen performance of 'Simple Sister' in which the band really cooked, especially lead guitarist Robin Trower. The studio version of that track is offered here, and while it's certainly enjoyable, the band never seems to catch fire on this track the way they did for German TV. The studio version is too formulaic. Nevertheless, the live 1972 version of 'Conquistador' does cook, as does 'Whiskey Train', with a great lead guitar foundation laid down by Trower. The title tracks from the band's 1968 and 1969 albums, 'Shine On Brightly' and 'A Salty Dog' follow, both airing the band's trademark 'classical, epic' mode. I'm much more fond of this band when they're laying down merciless rock and roll, and while the second track, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale', is an undeniable masterpiece, I can only take so much of that dirge-like tempo. The longest track, 'Whaling Stories' at 7:07 takes that tempo to the extreme. Unfortunately, none of the remaining tracks on the disc ever get back to the ragged edge of 'Simple Sister' and 'Whiskey Train'.

The liner notes for 'Greatest Hits' state that Patricia Sullivan remastered these tracks at A&M studios, and while most of the disc sounds fine, it is listed as an AAD recording, two of the tracks are in mono ('Homburg' and 'In the Wee Small Hours of Sixpence', which is so 'British' it may strain your sensibilities anyway), and 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' is the 1972 "reprocessed stereo" version, which means fake stereo. So the remastering leaves something to be desired as well.

While this album hasn't completely darkened my interest in Procol Harum, I am convinced I need to find a collection more centered on Robin Trower's metallic contributions to their legacy. Any suggestions?

A. AS MANY TIMES AS THEY DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE

Shame on you, A&M. All you've done here is is rehash a best of collection origianlly put out in the early 70's, and while I'm on my soapbox, why are "Broken Barricades" and "Live With The Edmonton Symphony" not available? A&M was once the most adventurous label out there, but when it comes to all the great talent they championed in the late 60's through the 70's, it's downright sad that they put out these half baked "best of" collections.

There's some great stuff here, but Procol Harum along with The Strawbs and Joan Armatrading, deserve to have their entire A&M catalogs available. The Strawbs at least got a great 2 disc anthology a couple of years back (Most of their other catalog is only available as pricey imports) and they were not as well known stateside as Procol Harum. I certainly hope that A&M gets off it's duff or that a small label comes along and re-masters all that is currently unavailable from this ground breaking band.

To me Procol Harum was "Whiter Shade of Pale" or "Salty Dog." That was pretty much my familiarity with the band, but I started to realize that I rarely ignored those songs when they came on the radio. With this collection, I found an extremely talented band that seems to have found a very interesting niche for itself. Between Robin Trower's soaring guitar work and Gary Brooker's powerful vocals and arrangements, I found myself thoroughly intrigued by the quality of Procol Harum's talent and the interesting lyrical bent of Keith Reid. ("Simple sister, got whooping cough, got to burn her toys") Musically this band can stand with any of their contemporaries, with every instrument played well whether it is the blues rock of "Whiskey Train" or the classically influenced "Conquistador." This is definitely a band that I am going to spend a bit more time investigating their back catalogue. That being said, this seems to me to be only a sampler and probably not a good representation of the band's true best. Some of the tracks seem a bit truncated and while I'm no expert on Procol Harum I would assume that the band has few longer pieces that should be represented.

For those people who enjoyed Procol Harum, this cd has many of their better hits. It has the live version of Conquistador, which is the better track of the two. There a few tracks I would have substituted for being their greatest hits, but overall is not too bad a slection.

This is a good CD; I like a fair amount of Procol Harem a LOT; the rest is just OK.