A little more fan based stuff, from a procol nut again.
*Original Notes
This post is justified by the release, this month, of a new edition of the Procol Harum Live with Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, first released in April 1972 and received by the press as a complete masterpiece. The attempt to mix a symphonic orchestra with rock music had been tried before but honestly, this was a joke compared to this fantastic fusion that one can listen to here. The album scored very well and fans might have though that the time for Procol Harum had finally come. That would not be true actually and the further years would not be marked by the triumph that this band deserved. Procol Harum is, since 1972, I was still a kid, one of my 5 fave groups of all the times and time has not attenuated my admiration for the Brooker - Reid duo (more important to me than the other more famous duos in rock), and also for my fave drummer of all times, I mean Barrie J Wilson, this album being maybe the one in which everyone can see why some of us place this musician at the top of their drumming pyramid. There was a single drawn out of the LP. "Conquistador" was chosen as A-side, and this revealed to be a good idea since the song reached n°22 in UK and n°16 in US. In UK, the B-side was a song that did not feature in the LP, an orchestral version of the delicate and sexually explicit "Luskus Delph". This is here what I call the forgotten song. In the US, they had decided to put "Salty Dog" and this surely contributed to the success of the single, being occupied by 2 of the most Procol Harum songs (and both des chefs d'oeuvres"). But, in bonus, I add the 2 songs that made it at the rehearsals but not at the show: "Simple Sister" and "Shine On Brightly". Both are actually not totally satisfying, in particular "Simple Sister", first because it is much shorter than the original one (that you can find in Broken Barricades), and second because the orchestra is not well integrated to the song. That will be corrected for the next orchestral evenings that the bands would play in the 2 following years such as with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in August 1973 (a bootleg with a superb sound I'll post later on). So, here it is, one of the most magical band of the world in one of the most ambitious record of the last century. It could have been recorded yesterday. Enjoy this fake EP here, and then buy if you can the Salvo LP wherever you find it not too much expensive.
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