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PROCOL HARUM - BBC SESSIONS 1967 - 1968

December 21, 2022 – 6:50 am

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PROCOL HARUM
BBC Sessions 1967-68 [no label, 1CD]

albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com:

Next up with my BBC project is the British band Procol Harum. These days, they’re primarily known for their international number one hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” But they were a classic rock band with a number of hits, especially in Britain, and a long career of albums with intelligent songs.

There has never been any kind of official BBC album. However, some songs have been released as bonus tracks. For this album, all but one of the songs (plus the bonus track) come from bonus tracks.

The exception is the song “Conquistador.” This recording isn’t from the BBC at all. It’s a key song (and a minor hit) that the band played at the BBC around this time period, but the recordings apparently didn’t survive. However, I found a version performed on a French TV show without a cheering audience, so I used that. Unfortunately, for a portion of the song, the lead vocals microphone was turned off. But I was able to find another soundboard quality recording of the song (I forget from where exactly, it’s been a while), and I used that to fill in the missing portion, which if I recall lasted for a verse or two. That’s why that song has “[Edit]” in the title.

Speaking of “[Edit],” there are a few more songs with that in the title. These recordings are from the time period when BBC DJs were commonly talking over the music. Procol Harum got off fairly lightly, with only four songs with that problem on this album. I suspect that’s because the band played for more serious BBC shows where the talking was less compared to the pop based shows where there could be talking over nearly every song.

Regarding that bonus track, the instrumental “Repent Walpurgis,” it comes from the same BBC session as some others here (tracks 5 through 8), but it’s officially unreleased. In this case I can understand, because the sound quality is poor. Thus it’s just a bonus track.

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Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (320 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.

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Track 01. Morning Dew [Edit] 3:12
Track 02. Mabel [Edit] 1:38
Track 03. A Whiter Shade of Pale 5:13
Track 04. Homburg [Edit] 3:50
Track 05. Good Captain Clack 1:19
Track 06. She Wandered through the Garden Fence 3:12
Track 07. Kaleidoscope 2:28
Track 08. Conquistador [Edit] 2:38
Track 09. Quite Rightly So 3:41
Track 10. Ramblin’ On 4:15
Track 11. Shine On Brightly [Edit] 3:43
Track 12. Skip Softly [My Moonbeams] 3:31
Bonus
Track 13. Repent Walpurgis [Instrumental] [Edit] 4:56
44 mins

   Click here to order Procol Harum releases.