The Vinyl of the Day is ‘Procol Harum’, the debut album by Procol Harum, 1967. Procol Harum had already released two enormously popular hits - ‘Homburg’ and the masterpiece ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, but when they released this record in the UK it included neither song! Which was a huge disappointment to listeners, and subsequently made the album pretty much a failure. When released in the US, the American version did include ‘A Whiter Shade’ and with the other giant hit on the album ‘Conquistador’, that’s when the band really hit the big time. One of the great early examples of prog/psychedelic rock, it helped usher in the era of big, complex orchestral experimentation.
Why is this album so important? Its because Procol Harum’s debut represents the best example of successful fusion of the blues rock idiom of popular music with classical themes. Listen not just to their massive hit ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ but also such pieces as ‘Repent Walpurgis’ and you will hear how the the music of the band is imbued with the classics. It was - and remains - one of the most unique and enduring albums of that era. Robin Trower is on guitar (and sounds great!). Drummer BJ Wilson was invited by Jimmy Page to create Led Zeppelin with him (this after the did Joe Cocker's 'Help From My Friends). And the Brooker-Reid songwriting team were often as clever as Lennon & McCartney. It's hard to go back to a pre-1967 musical mindset and listen to this brilliant debut from a band that pre-prog-rocked the world, and was right at the forefront of the psychedelic sound that would soon sweep the music world.
And then there was “A Whiter Shade of Pale” with an organist who eschewed a Vox Continental organ for a B3, a pianist who knew how to insert depth into mystical lyrics, a guitarist who could overload his amp and not overload the sound, and a bass player and drummer who knew that competition with the front men was not an option: they had enough to do with holding everything together perfectly. I remember first hearing Procol Harum on my AM radio when I was just 8 years old, it was like nothing I’d heard before and even at that young age it completely blew me away - and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ and ‘Conquistador’ are what really set me off on my lifelong love of music. To me, even 50 years later on, it’s still one of the most amazing pieces I’ve ever heard, and the only flaw I can find in the song is that it just doesn’t last nearly long enough!
IMHO this debut easily sits with Cream’s ‘Disraeli Gears’ and Hendrix’s ‘Axis Bold as Love’ or the Beatles’ albums of the day in terms of originality and quality. It was - and remains - one of the most unique and enduring albums of that era.
AllMusic Review by Bruce Eder
Procol Harum’s self-titled, debut album bombed in England, appearing six months after “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Homburg” with neither hit song on it. The LP was successful in America, where albums sold more easily, but especially since it did include “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and was reissued with a sticker emphasizing the presence of the original “Conquistador,” a re-recording which became a hit in 1972. The music is an engaging meld of psychedelic rock, blues, and classical influences, filled with phantasmagorical lyrics, bold (but not flashy) organ by Matthew Fisher, and Robin Trower’s most tasteful and restrained guitar. “Conquistador,” “Kaleidoscope,” “A Christmas Camel,” and the Bach-influenced “Repent Walpurgis” are superb tracks, and “Good Captain Clack” is great, almost Kinks-like fun. Not everything here works, but it holds up better than most psychedelic or progressive rock.