IN MEMORY OF GARY BROOKER
Procol Harum’s singer-songwriter Gary Brooker MBE took the band from the British R&B scene to the burgeoning prog movement, and he quickly became one of the genre’s pioneers. His distinctive voice added elegance to the band’s unique blend of baroque pop and progressive rock, and his classical piano training made him a sought-after guest musician appearing with a wide variety of artists from George Harrison to Kate Bush. He died from cancer in February, at the age of 76, and we pay tribute to the rich musical legacy he leaves behind.
Words: Mike Barnes
Gary Brooker began his musical career in 1960 in the teenage Southend-based beat group The Paramounts. They released a number of singles on Parlophone and scored a Top 40 hit in 1964 with a cover of Leiber And Stoller’s Poison Ivy. But by 1966 the musical landscape was changing fast, and the band felt they had done all they could by playing R&B covers.
The Paramounts were remodelled into Procol Harum in 1967 and Brooker started to develop his musical ideas. “Things seemed much freer,” he said, “that you could do whatever you wanted, so I thought I’d become a songwriter, which I’d never done before. I got some ideas and thought, ‘Oh, I can do this!’”
Brooker was classically trained – he had played piano since he was five years old – and listened to a lot of Handel and Bach. He was very taken by the Jacques Loussier Trio’s jazz interpretation of Bach’s
Air
On
A
G
String and wrote his own fantasia on the composition.
The first that the public heard of Procol Harum was A Whiter Shade Of Pale, released as a single in March 1967. Brooker had met with lyricist Keith Reid and was inspired by his writing. They formed a songwriting partnership that endured for decades. (Following legal action, organist Matthew Fisher is also now credited as the song’s co-writer.) They couldn’t have dreamt of a more impressive calling card. At a time when an industry figure had told Brooker that pop songs should be no longer than two minutes and 47 seconds to be considered for airplay – that precise timing – the original version of the song rolled on for just over four minutes.