A Salty Dog (Re-master)
Artist: Procol Harum
Label: Salvo
Time: 16 tracks / 68 mins

A lot of great bands have had creative partnerships, but Procol Harum at this stage had a whole quartet of outstanding contributors.

The obvious pair is vocalist Gary Brooker with Keith Reid, who like Bernie Taupin for Elton John and Guy Chambers for Robbie Williams, was a non-playing lyricist. While Brooker is the sound of Procol Harum, I still find myself struggling to make out many of his key words. I could keep Google in business if I really wanted to know everything that he is singing ­ although Reid was either on drugs or deliberately oblique when he wrote many of his lines. Even learning here that the song was inspired by a corrupt senator, I’m not really much wiser once I know that the chorus to “The Devil came from Kansas” says,

I am not a humble pilgrim / there's no need to scrape and squeeze
And don't beg for silver paper / when I'm trying to sell you cheese.

Robin Trower left shortly after this Procol high point, going on to create a reputation as Hendrix’s best imitator and making some superb music (notably his five-star second release, Bridge of Sighs ). Without Trower’s blues influence and the raw power of his guitar, Procol lost some of their breadth. It was surely his licks and solos that brought many a rock fan into their fold.

But the fourth player, the little- known Matthew Fisher, is hugely under-rated. In 2006 Fisher successfully challenged Brooker in the courts for credit for his part in creating the sound of “A White Shade of Pale,” the most-played song of the last 75 years in British public places.

Hearing “Pilgrim’s progress” on this album, released a couple of years after “Whiter Shade,” but the nearest-sounding piece that they have ever recorded, makes me wonder whether Fisher was stating his case for recognition even then, just before he quit. If so, he has been battling that one for a mighty long time. Certainly for many, his organ tone is as synonymous with the Procol sound as is Brooker’s voice.

But Fisher’s production here turns the head as much as his organ tone. Barely one track has the same sound as another, or even anything similar. While the title track is a majestic minor-key masterpiece that aims for classical effect, “Boredom” is a compelling list song that succeeds because it features marimba all the way through (and even a marimba solo at the end). Contrast both of those with either “The Devil came from Kansas,” with its brick-solid piano chords and growling, high-octane guitar solo that gains power from holding back, or the waltz-time ballad “Too Much In Between Us,” where Brooker sings so softly that you might mistake him for another vocalist; they are all completely different, proving that Fisher’s ear heard the right sound for every track, eschewing thoughtless assumptions.

Brooker selected the bonus tracks himself and has put together a very cohesive set that emphasizes the blues side of the band of that time. It begins with the twelve-bar B-side to the title track and eases into three live blues numbers for twenty minutes. The live version of “Skip Softly (My Moonbeams)” passes through a section of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” before climaxing with a snatch of “Sabre Dance” (months before Love Sculpture took it into the charts). The disc plays out with a raw track of “The Milk of Human Kindness,” a playful honky-tonk piece that shows how inventively drummer B. J. Wilson read the feel of a song.

The triple-gatefold digi-pack contains a superb glossy full-colour, illustrated twenty-page booklet, filled with track-by-track trivia, historical notes and comments by band members.

Procol Harum were almost too eclectic for their own good, so getting the ideal blend of songs is not easy (short of downloading and so missing the excellent package). The best-ever combination may well have been the 1971 set with the same title as this, released by, of all people, Music for Pleasure. It had many of the best tracks here, plus the two big singles and excellent songs like “Shine on Brightly” and “Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone).”

Salvo have re-worked their entire catalogue, but in rightly covering their whole career, the 2-CD best-of ( Secrets of the Hive ) misses some of their best tracks. After this, you may well want to try the earlier Shine on Brightly or the later Exotic Birds and Fruit .

4+ Tocks Derek Walker