“Klotz” As In “Blood”

My good friend Rag shot me a note in Tuesday’s on-line NY Times concerning the venerable progressive British band Procol Harum. “So long as you’re resuscitating ancient Beatles material,” she offered, “maybe you’ll like this snippet of pathetic nastiness.”

The organ strains of the 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” by the group Procul Harum floated through a London courtroom yesterday as a music-loving judge sought to decide a claim of ownership that has pitted the band’s former organ player against its lead singer, The Associated Press reported. The organ player, Matthew Fisher, contends that he wrote the organ melody, based on Bach’s “Air on a G String” and “Sleepers Awake,” and is thus entitled to a co-author’s credit and a share of the song’s copyright and royalties. The lead singer, Gary Brooker, credited with the lyricist Keith Reid as the author of the song, which has sold 10 million copies worldwide, maintains that they wrote it before Mr. Fisher joined the band in 1967. — NY Times

Counsel for defense pointed out that delaying litigation for 40 years was “bizarre and obviously prejudicial.”

Procol Harum made interesting and very good listening music. Their sound was unique for the time, dominated by Brooker’s grand piano and Fisher’s Hammond organ, supported by B.J. Wilson’s amazing syncopated rock beats. Brooker’s voice conveyed humor and passion, Fisher’s more mournful and romantic. Keith Reid was the band’s full-time lyricist– I often wondered what he did during the daytime.

By the time I got around to seeing them in concert, Fisher had departed, as had lead guitarist Robin Trower. Trower went on as a soloist, deluded into thinking he could imitate the sound of Jimi Hendrix. He couldn’t, but he was a talent nonetheless, and faded out of the Big Picture.

Matthew Charles Fisher cut 3 albums I know of, each weaker than the next, and none with the impact and power of Procol. There were several good songs, though, one of which a personal lament about fans’ obsession with a band and one particular song he’d left behind. One verse:

with the strains of Whiter Shade of Pale morphing through it.

Happy litigation, Matthew.