Customer Reviews

Procol Harum - Greatest Hits

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Typical of A&M's shabby treatment of it's domestic rock catalog (ie. Strawbs), this lame greatest hits collection is a huge disappointment. The remastering is weak, the song selection limited to a mere 12 cuts, and the liner notes should have been much more extensive. Procol Harum fans are running to their import retailers in massive numbers to buy the superior, recently remastered individual albums, complete with numerous bonus cuts. Guess A&M would rather not have our money these days...

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.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a song that refuses to die, no matter how many retro-themed movies it appears in and I am willing to bet that most people assume that Procol Harum (the song's originators) were a one-hit wonder of the 1960s. That isn't really true. Procol Harum started off with a delicious "Ray Charles meets JS Bach" vibe but matured into one of Great Britain's best art rock bands. They never over-indulged in meaningless virtuosity or psychedelic excess, preferring instead to create mostly tastefully arranged moody classics. That's probably why they never enjoyed the vast commercial success of later prog rock bands.

The songs here are drawn from their first few LPs and are sequenced so that the more accessible material comes first. Like most art rock bands, Procol Harum seems to have prided themselves on creating a diverse songbook, and the variety unfortunately gives this short anthology an unfocused feel. This was also a problem with Procol Harum's original studio releases. Personally, the variety suits me just fine but you might not like the idea of a Greatest Hits CD that you can't listen to straight through. The production values are especially stunning considering these songs are close to 40 years old.

Hopefully, this CD will encourage you to seek out more of what this fine band had to offer in their early years. I strongly encourage you to track down a copy of "A Salty Dog" as it's hands-down the best album the band recorded as well as one of the most beautiful rock LPs of the late 1960s.

An excellent, though not that well arranged, and well remastered introduction to Procol's music, drifting from the mexican live rock of "Conquistador", a big hit in the UK, to the sea song "A Salty Dog" to the tune based on Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C major, "Repent Walpurgis". And it also has hits like "Homburg" and of course, "A Whiter Shade of Pale". "Shine on Brightly" is also great. However there is nothing here from any album after "Grand Hotel". Just in case anyone likes those albums.

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.

Procol Harum was one of the leading `second British invasion' bands such as Traffic, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes. Unlike the first three of these six, and like the latter three, Procol Harum fused Rock idioms with symphonic accompanyments. There very first hit single, `A Whiter Shade of Pale' is based on the melody from a Johan Sebastian Bach work and strong orchestral sounds are heard on their second major single, `Conquistador'.

One of the hallmarks of this second wave can be identified by the change in subject in the great `first wave' bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. These bands move from `Please Please Me', `Satisfaction', and `My Generation' to `Eleanor Rigby', `Sympathy for the Devil', and `Armenia, City by the Sea' (and other mythical stories) such as `Tommy'. That is, the established bands changed the landscape and the new bands moved in when the emphasis is on protest, counterculture, myth, and legend, not to mention a little consciousness expanding here and there.

Between 1967 and 1971, Procol Harum released four really great albums. These were `A Whiter Shade of Pale', `Shine on Brightly', `A Salty Dog', and `Home'. I can still remember the rush I got when I put the `Salty Dog' LP on for the first time and heard the haunting opening bars signifying a lonely foghorn in the night. Through this period, Procol Harum was on A & M records, which has put out 25th anniversary CDs for various artists, including one for Procol Harum covering largely the hits on these four albums, although some of the versions are not the original album versions but live versions with symphonic accompanyment.

For those of you who may not know Procol Harum that well, it's leaders were vocalist and keyboard man, Gary Brooker, who did very well in comparison with such leading Rock vocalists such as Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood, and Roger Daltry. Lead guitar was Robin Trower, who may not have been in the same league as Eric Clapton, but he could go toe to toe with Jimmy Paige and Jeff Beck. One of the most unusual aspects of Procol Harum's compositions was that they were done by a non-performing member of the band, Keith Reid, who is credited, with Brooker, as the composer of most of Procol Harum's best numbers.

I generally dislike `best of' albums, but in the world where I already have all the important albums on vinyl, a CD of the twelve (12) best Procol Harum numbers is a real bargain.

In contrast, there is another CD entitled `The Chrysalis Years 1973-1977'. This is also a `best of' collection, unfortunately, there is practically nothing of value from which to cull a `best of' collection of numbers. I am totally unfamiliar with these fourteen (14) numbers, and not one of them sets my nerves atingling as the work from their first four years.

I strongly recommend the first album and do not recommend the second.

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.

where I've gotta have a song. In this case it was Whiter Shade of Pale. It's as simple as that. I'll buy the pie sometimes, even if I only want a piece. The song is GREAT, I don't even know what else is on the disc. I got what I want, it's fantastic, and I'd recommend anyone wanting it to put down the bucks and get it. Oh, did I mention I almost had to walk to Kansas to get it :)

Great 60's and early 70's band featuring the great "Jimi Hendrix Like" guitar of Robin Torwer. It is worth the price of the CD just to hear Whiskey Train. Very seldom heard on the radio, this tune is a hidden gem and if you love guitar, you'll love this song. Scott