few outings, the band was a fivesome star- in all these cases was a basically sterile mu- reportedly postponed an album until he ring the organ and piano of Matthew Fisher sic in which the two styles never really could turn out something a bit more upbeat. and Gary Brooker, the bass of David meshed, but merely alternated with each Practically speaking, this may have been a Knights, the guitar of Robin Trower, and other. Procol Harum never fell into this good idea;Broken Barricades,afterall, the drums of the ubiquitous B. J. Wilson trap-largely, I think, because first and fore- was about the decline of Western civiliza- (not to be confused with B. J. Thomas). most they're rock -and -rollers, and they con- tion, an awfully tough act to follow. But I This lineup set the basic pattern for their sequently adopted only those elements of think they needn't have worried. Even at his work, with the compositional chores divided classical music that are most compatible gloomiest, he seems unable to avoid flashes between Fisher, Brooker, and Trower. (It spiritually with those of rock, the harmonic of mordant wit and healthy self -mockery. is interesting to note, parenthetically, that language and the tight structure in particu- And if his vision is a dark one, itis never a good deal of the material from this early lar. With thisin mind, the quintessential trivial; if he has not been quite the Compleat period remains a part of their performing Procol Harum track would have to beRe- and Perfect Songwriter, he has rarely been repertoire.) pent, Watpurgis,a shattering instrumental anything less than a very good one: In 1969, David and Matthew departed, to from that first album in which, against a melancholy Bachian organ -and -piano back- There's too many women, and not enough be replaced by one Chris Copping, a tricky wine, lad who could play Matthew's organ lines ground, Robin Trower's guitar screams out Too many poets, and not enough rhyme, with one hand while negotiating a keyboard in the purest kind of rock-and-roll language. Too many glasses and not enough time. bass with the other. As a four-piecer, the The juxtaposition is moving in the extreme. Draw your own conclusions. band recorded "Home" and "Broken Barri- cades," and it became apparent that most of THE man who provides the words for The next few steps for the band are ob- the weight had fallen on Robin. Whereas Procol is the previously mentioned Keith viously going to be crucial. Procol is now in previously he had functioned almost exclu- Reid, who can, at his best, achieve as cun- the enviable position of coming off a hit al- sively as a solo voice, he now unleashed a ning a synthesis with seemingly divergent bum just as their record contract expires. scathing Hendrix -style attackthat more verbal traditions as the band can with its They are, I'm sure, well aware of the power than compensated for the reduction in man- musical ones. His work is terribly literary in this gives them; a strongly supportive label power and began to gain him a measure of the academic sense (in some ways it is even (which is something they've never really had notoriety. We can, with some justification, more overtly "poetic" than that of Paul Si- at their disposal) can be an important factor label this the band's Blue Period. mon), owing to a fondness for classical im- in their continuing to reach the mass audi- Finally,lastyear, the inevitable hap- agery and an almost Eliot -like feeling for ence that suddenly seems to have discov- pened:Robin,visionsof superstardom modern life. And yet he's extremely funky, a ered them. And they are probably equally dancing in his head, trotted off to form his rock poet demonstrably in the line that runs aware that the next album had better be own ensemble, and was promptly replaced all the way back to Chuck Berry. He has of- damn good or there goes the ball game. by David Ball and a new full-time bassist ten been compared to Dylan, and indeed Odds are, of course, that it will be: let us not named Alan Cartwright. Full circle, with there are times when his surrealistic narra- forget that Procol boasts, in Gary and B. J., their original instrumentation intact, it was tive style recalls the Dylan of the early elec- a vocalist and a drummer who are arguably this band that moved out to cut the live ef- tric albums (as inRamblin' On).But more among the most powerful in the business. fort which has so unexpectedly propelled often than not he's simply his own man.Still Meanwhile, the new band has had more them into the public eye. There'll Be More,one of the niftiest cuts than a year to get its chops in shape, and the This convoluted game of musical chairs from "Home," provides a good example ofevidence of the last tour is that they're play- might well suggest that we haveseveral his approach. The song centers around a ing, if possible, even better than ever. (A Procol Harums to deal with, but, remark- prototypicalmachofantasy that has been measure of that can perhaps be gleaned from ably, the sense of continuity from record to common in rock since Bo Diddley'sWho the most recent concert of theirs I attended, record is very strong. This is not to say that Do You Love,and it has roots in blues that at which the Staten Island audience sat in they haven't experimented or grown (their are considerably older. But Reid's kind of stunned silence for a fullten secondsafter later stuff, such as the forthcoming "Grand skinny, and he's been to college, so it comes an encore ofRepent.)Nonetheless, Keith Hotel," is increasingly full of conscious at- out like this: Reid islikely at this very moment to be tempts at non -mold material), but rather that I'll bathe my eyes in a river of salt off somewhere reading a lamb's entrails for a particular vision has guided the band since I'll grow myself right up to the sky confirmation. its inception. That vision, not surprisingly, is I'll sing in the forest and tear down the Jerry Garcia is fond of quoting the/ most formally exemplified by the music of trees Chingto the effect that perseverance pays, their debut album, titled simply "Procol Foul all the fountains and trample the and though personally I find both book and Harum." Procol was not the first to attempt leaves. guitarist unreliable, there's still a little grain the elusive fusion of rock and classical tech- I'll blacken your Christmas of truth in there somewhere. God knows niques, but they are still the only ones to And piss on your door Procol Harum has persevered, and it looks have pulled it off, and never quite so effort- You'll cry out for mercy like it just might begin to pay. For an old lessly as they did in that seamless merger of Still there'll be more . . . cultist like me, that's got to be cause for a Bach and Ray Charles. One recalls the simi- and so on. couple of loud huzzas at the very least. lar attempts at fusing "serious" music with Overall,hisviewpointisunrelievedly jazz -the Third Stream of Gunther Schuller pessimistic; in fact, his lyrics of late have and others-and more recently the work of been sicklied over with such an alarmingly All that was written a couple of weeks ago such rock bands as the Nice and King Crim- graveyard cast that the band (which con- and, as the alert reader will know, a great son. It's generally agreed that what resulted siders him an equal member, incidentally) deal has gone down since then. God knows what may happen before this finally sees print (I am adding this postscript in early Three constants: Gary Brooker, Keith Reid, and B. J. Wilson November), but as we go to press, this is the scoop: the band is now on the WB/Chrysalis label, A & M is reissuing the first album and "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and-most im- portant-they'veshuffledleadguitarists again. Ball has apparently pulled an Eric Clapton, quitting the now successful group to play the blues, and his replacement is Mick Grabham, formerly with an English country band called Cochise. How the per- sonnel change will affect "Grand Hotel" is at this point anybody's guess, butIcan report that in concert, at least, things are working out just fine. Stay tuned.

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