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A memorable concert during a particularly great period of the band and if you aren't familiar with them, or only know them from Whiter Shade of Pale, now's a great chance to hear what the fuss was all about.

Enjoy.

*note: Thanks to an eagle-eye reader, it was pointed out to me that the actual recording venue was A&R Studios in New York. I screwed up, thinking of something else. Thanks for setting it straight!

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Here's the rundown:

1. Wishing Well
2. Skip Softly (My Moonbeam)
3. Long Gone Geek

Because precious little survived from this period of time at the BBC, some of these recordings are a bit damaged and have abrupt beginnings or endings. Can't be helped. But this one sounds pretty good considering how some others fared under similar circumstances.

At least it's preserved.

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Procol Harum are one of those bands with a long and rich legacy that have pretty much maintained a strong popularity some 40+ years since their inception. They were just enough outside the spectrum of mainstream pop music to be considered Art Rock (a precursor to Progrock), but commercial enough to garner wide appeal with an impressive batch of hit singles. So they've managed to straddle two musical worlds while maintaining their individuality and come out with a timeless quality that still has a lot of appeal to newer listeners.

Unlike most of the bands who suffered from bad timing and bad luck, Procol Harum were at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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1. Shine On Brightly
2. Seem To Have The Blues
3. Simple Sister

Enjoy and get ready for the weekend.

And while you're at it - please hit the "donate" button?

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(Procol Harum - if you named your band after a cat you'd have to be special too)

I think the gods of top-40 were a fickle bunch in the 1960's. Procol Harum had already established themselves as a unique and original band. Some say the forerunners of Art Rock (which, in retrospect is probably true - even though some Moody Blues aficionados would argue). In 1968, when A&M released this, their 3rd single, they issued "Quite Rightly So" as the A side and this track "In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence" as the B-side.

Neither side hit very well with the listeners or single buyers. Probably because the charts were a bit crowded with new and splashier singles. But still, Procol Harum always came out with something interesting, even if the marketplace was crowded.

I have found this song on various compilation albums, but very rarely have I heard this version. It is the single version, as issued by A&M, but for some reason a slower version is the one that shows up on most compilation albums. True, it's mono, and the stereo version is the slower one. But this version has much more energy and punch,possibly because it may be an earlier take. Just speculating.

At any rate, Procol Harum made a very big dent in the music scene from 1967 on.

And this was one of the reasons why.