Six bells...please...

Ask people to pick their favourite track...

...from the late 1960s flower power era and you'll get quite a few rooting for "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum. 

OK, it was fine in its day, but now it just sounds turgid to me and the lyrics are the usual hippy-drippy nonsense. I never play it - and I'm a huge Procol fan - and if it comes on the radio, I'll either turn it off or just zone out until it's over.

However, Procol's finest track is as magnificent as "Pale" is tedious.

I refer to their 1969 single "A Salty Dog", which climbed to the dizzy heights of #44 in the UK in 1969.

By this time, Procol had settled down to their five piece post-"Pale" #1 hit line up, but organist Matthew Fisher was getting restless in spite of also landing the job as the band's producer, and Robin Trower's more blues based guitar style seemed at times to be at odds with the band's main thrust. What the pair went on to do will come up later...

However you look at it, the title track of Procol's third album - "A Salty Dog" is a remarkable piece of music. Trower and producer Fisher don't appear on it and the song is carried by Gary Brooker's piano, the superb drumming of B.J, Wilson (legendarily described as looking like "an octopus in a bath tub"), a bass guitar and an orchestral part which was scored by Brooker.

It's a longish track - just under five minutes - with no discernible chorus, and the words by band lyricist Keith Reid describe an ill-fated sea voyage, so not exactly a chart cert on paper to start with. However, there's a narrative here - unlike "Pale" - although it's not straightforward and its ambiguity makes it hard to nail down whatever meaning it might have. I think it's about our own voyage into death but, after 54 years, I'm still not too sure. 

It opens with seagull cries - appropriate, as seagulls are supposed to be the souls of dead sailors - and goes into a repeating, descending and somewhat funereal chord progression played by the strings and Gary Brooker's piano. Brooker starts singing - really, really well - and then Wilson comes in with a beautifully fractured drum roll, as the song enters a different section. That's it really - Brooker's voice and piano, the orchestra and Wilson on drums. Yes, there's a bass from Dave Knights but it mostly follows the bass notes of the piano chords. There's an interlude at about the 2:30 mark with just Brooker's piano and the strings before it resumes the verse section. It ends on the interlude section and then slows to play the final chord - a Dbsus4 for those interested: the chord it started on, although it sounds far more enigmatic at the end than at the beginning. The music stops, but that chord hangs there unresolved.

Oh, and let's not forget Kellogs on bosun's whistle. 

Brooker tended to start the song too quickly live...hear him having to slow down...

Like Procol's other albums, the "Salty Dog" album itself is a bit of a mixed bag, with Trower's guitar dominating some songs to their detriment. His playing sounds overwrought but strangely gauche at times: even, although it pains me to say it, a little out of tune on occasion. It's not a bad album, but it's wildly inconsistent.

As for Procol, Fisher left the band but stayed on as producer for a while and then Trower left. The pair would meet up and record Trower's first three solo albums with Fisher producing. Just a few years after he quit Procol, Trower sounded like a different player and his superb second album, 1974's "Bridge of Sighs", owed absolutely nothing to his past in terms of material, sound and presentation. It was power trio rock with a Hendrixy vibe, although there was, and still is, far more to Trower's playing than mere homage.

Matthew Fisher is still around, and blagged co-composer credits for "Pale" in 2006, after a court case. Robin Trower still gigs and records, although he's never surpassed "Bridge" in the studio as far as I'm concerned. Thankfully, he can still cut the mustard live. B.J.Wilson died after a three year coma following an intentional drug overdose. Bassist Dave Knights seems to have dropped out of music altogether. Gary Brooker died of cancer just last year.

"A Salty Dog" - Procol's true masterpiece.