Procul Harum; or how to hold a grudge

June 24^th – Like many a love affair, at the start the band’s usually all good. A few good friends with an all-consuming passion in music, a creative desire and certain instrumental ability gather together and begin one of the greatest bonding sessions ever when they make music together. Most of you know I played (loose terminology used here) drums over a number of years, full on from the late 60’s through to the end of the 80’s and then sporadically up ‘til 2010, but what’s not common knowledge (biography spoiler coming up) is that I sang backing vox for all the bands I gigged with.

I’m an ex choir boy so have a voice that’s at least reasonable (compared to, say, a cat that’s having sex with a hedgehog) and so, when family or friends are together here and we gather round a piano, a full set of drums being a little out of place in such circumstances, or when I spend time with some folk-singing fellows of my acquaintance, I can join in with the joyful and emotionally bonding practise of making music together for no other reason than the thrill of making music together. This is what the first formation of a band is all about and for. There are dreams of fame and fortune of course but, much like all of us when we utter those facile words;

“If I won ten million on the National Lottery it wouldn’t change a bit not a jot.”

Yeah, sure…You’d still keep the menial employment you have and no-one would think you were lording it over them when you insisted that you pay for the drinks, the meal, the taxi…’course not. All your friends would remain just that; your friends; no change…life as normal…blah, blah…

That’s how bands go on when they first strike it popular and then the money, entourage and management come into the equation. Like Lottery Winners, all of a sudden and no matter how much you try to deny its entrance, the thought permeates;

Is it me or is it the money/fame?’

Human nature; it’s a funny old game. Anyway, as the hits and dosh pile up the first cracks start to appear. The songwriter gets royalties, the band just get performance fees, then the various factions begin to extrapolate on their influence on each record released;

‘Would it have been such a big hit if it hadn’t contained that drum pattern, the one I invented and played?’

Or

‘That harmony I added on the spur of the moment when the vox was being recorded; that made the chorus the crowd-rouser it is.’

And with this the spectre of being poorly recompensed for your artistic input into the finished article begins to permeate your soul…and that’s when it gets shitty.

When Procul Harum released A Whiter Shade of Pale and it galloped to the number one spot in the UK and then, on this day in 1967, entered the US charts on its trail to world domination, the members must all have been good chums in the light of their success. It was only later when Matthew Fisher, the organist on the track and original member, pursued his claim that Gary Brooker, the other original member and vocalist, and Keith Reid, poet and lyric writer, were cutting him out of the story of the song and its payback that friendships were…how shall I put it… dissolved. Over four years judges, committees and Law Lords deliberated on the ins-and-outs of the various claims and counterclaims.

Eventually Fisher got his way, but my suspicion is that his name was crossed out of several Christmas card lists for, in following the various transcripts of their court appearances, it’s fair to say that claws were unsheathed as the friendship contract was torn and scuffed and the former esteem of musical abilities lowered in order to discredited one or other musician causing much fur to fly…but then, the band were named after a pedigree cat, so…