View Gallery: Stars who died in 2022: Barbara Walters, Sidney Poitier, Naomi Juddīrooker, who was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen in 2003 in recognition of his charity work, was also regarded for his collaborations with artists including Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, who played on one of Brooker’s four solo albums. Procol Harum dotted the charts with other material – “Homburg” in 1967, “A Salty Dog” in 1969 and “Conquistador,” released as a single in 1972 – but the emotive “Whiter Shade” remained the band’s signature. 57 ranking in Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” In 2018, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the ballad – which has spawned more than 1,000 cover versions - into its Singles category.
The legacy of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” extended to a No. The song, the band’s statement asserts, was “widely regarded as defining ‘The Summer of Love,’ yet it could scarcely have been more different from the characteristic records of that era.” Procol Harum’s debut single, the woozy, organ-drenched “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and topped the charts in the U.K. More celebrity deaths: King Crimson founder Ian McDonald dies Without any stage antics or other gimmicks he was invariably the most watchable musician in the show,” the statement says.īrooker, born in London, founded Procol Harum in 1966 with songwriter Keith Reid after the breakup of his first band, The Paramounts, which enjoyed fleeting success with the 1965 song, “Poison Ivy.” “Gary’s voice and piano were the single defining constant of Procol’s fifty-year international concert career. 19, according to a statement from the band. Gary Brooker, frontman for British prog-rockers Procol Harum, died at his home following a battle with cancer on Feb. If you spend too much time trying to figure out Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade Of Pale,” you might miss out on its majestically-rendered sorrow.The voice behind the 1967 classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” has died. Even when you can’t quite understand their meaning, Reid, who was clearly influenced by Dylan’s surreal story songs from the mid-60’s, writes lines that leave a lasting impact, right from the immortal opener: “We skipped the light fandango.”Īttempts to wrangle these lyrics into linear coherence are thwarted at every turn, in part by red herrings (Reid claimed that the line “As the miller told his tale” has nothing to do with Chaucer) and by the demands of pop radio (Two extra verses were excised to keep the running time low.) Don’t let it bother you. Yet the song defies a specific interpretation, instead conjuring various shades of melancholy which are embellished by the mournful music and Brooker’s pained delivery. The general consensus is that “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” is a snapshot of a drunken sexual escapade gone awry. With the ceiling flying away and room humming harder, I wanted to paint an image of a scene.” I was trying to conjure a mood as much as tell a straightforward, girl-leaves-boy story. “It’s like a jigsaw where you’ve got one piece, then you make up all the others to fit in.
“I had the phrase ‘a whiter shade of pale,’ that was the start, and I knew it was a song,” he said. In an interview with Uncut magazine, Reid shed a little light on the song’s origin and meaning.
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