Procol Harum - Procol Harum

Dan:

I used to hear "Whiter Shade of Pale" a lot during the late 1960s. It was released in 1967 as a single. The UK album with the iconic cover art actually omitted the hit single. Fortunately for album buyers, the US version led off with "Whiter Shade." I never really owned the record; it was not a priority because it was played so often on the radio. It's one of those songs that I never tire of hearing, even 50+ years later. It sealed its place in rock history when chosen for The Big Chill's soundtrack in 1983. 

As many critics have said, "Whiter Shade" succeeds because it's not straightforwardly interpretable, and a literal interpretation is bound to be pointless. Like the Grateful Dead's lyricist, Robert Hunter, Keith Reid leaves a certain number of "factual" clues that never seem to cohere into a specific story or scenario. That's a good thing because who wants to have everything spelled out?

Of course, the lyrics are only part of the story. Matthew Fisher's Bach-inspired Hammond organ cinches the deal that makes the four-minute song a timeless classic. 

Of all the members of Procol Harum's original lineup, I feel that guitarist Robin Trower made the biggest impact on rock music. Pictured at the top, "Robbie" is a mere six months younger than me. (I tend to relate to musicians of my own generation.) There is not much space for Trower on many of Procol Harum's songs, except for their second album Shine on Brightly. His featured instrumental, "Repent Walpurgis," closes Procol Harum with as fine a track as the band has ever recorded, IMHO. 

"Homburg," which appears on some versions of the original album and is added as a bonus on CD reissues, also deserves special mention for its cool lyrics. Although the premise of the song is easy to decipher (girl leaving boy), the lyrics remain mysterious. "The mirror, on reflection, has climbed back up on the wall" from the first verse is amazing, as is the whole second verse: 

The town clock in the market square / Stands waiting for the hour  

When its hands they both turn backward / And on meeting will devour  

Both themselves and also any fool / Who dares to tell the time  

And the sun and moon will shadow / And the signpost cease to sign.

In terms of (re-)discovery, son Steve is the one who loaned me his CD reissue of Procol Harum a few years ago. I never owned my own copy, but now I do. 

Steve:

This is indeed a very strong album by one of the finest bands of their time, and yet it struck me that although I listen to Procol Harum frequently, I don't reach for this album very often. More so than their next few albums, Procol Harum emphasizes a cohesive sound, really coloring outside the lines just once, on the music hall goof "Mabel". Future albums would see the band getting a lot heavier and more stylistically eclectic. Since that was the Procol Harum I grew up with (I got this album much later than I did the first few), that's how I identify with them. I see Procol Harum as a direct product of the literate, organ-driven school of rock music influenced by Bob Dylan circa Blonde on Blonde, along with The Band.  

Procol Harum nonetheless has some amazing highlights - "Something Following Me", "A Christmas Camel", "Conquistador" and "She Wandered Through the Garden Fence" are my favorites. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a perfect storm of the Three Ms (mystery, majesty, and melancholy); I have never quite understood why it was such a big hit or why it has endured so long, but it definitely sucks you in, even if I can't make heads or tails of it lyrically.

Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing at Baxter's (1967)

Steve:

The Jefferson Airplane, at the time of the release of After Bathing at Baxter's in December 1967, had already made it big both in the underground and on the pop charts. Their newest recruit, vocalist/songwriter Grace Slick, was a force of nature whose commanding voice, beauty and charisma brought them two huge hits that year that still cast a large shadow today ("Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit"). The remainder of their breakthrough second album Surrealistic Pillow (released February 1967) easily matched those two hits in quality, making it one of the definitive rock albums of its era.  

Thus emboldened, the band began to expand its ambitions, both as individuals and as a group, creating an abundance of new ideas contributed by each player. Most notably, guitarist Paul Kantner became the dominant songwriter on this album, effectively becoming the band leader from this point forward. Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen also came into his own as a singer/songwriter at this time, bringing the band's singer/songwriter total to four. The charismatic Slick continued to write songs of a serious nature, and Marty Balin, whose sweet tenor voice and strong pop songwriting had dominated the first two albums (notwithstanding Slick's seismic influence on the second), became just one of many contributors on After Bathing at Baxter's. How would all this surplus of talent find space on the album?

This being the end of 1967, the band took the strategy to let the ideas flow freely and see what happens; musical freedom and pushing boundaries were at the forefront of many rock bands' minds in these post-Sgt Pepper days. Hit singles were probably the furthest thing from their minds. I get the sense that they felt they were in a good position to influence the future of music, and restraint was for the timid. All the band members were given free rein to experiment as they pleased.  

Highlights include Kantner's anthemic opener, "The Ballad of You Me and Pooneil" and folksy ballad "Martha", Slick's "Two Heads", Balin's "Young Girl Sunday Blues", and drummer Spencer Dryden's funny sound-collage interlude, "A Small Package of Value Will Come to You, Shortly." A whole nine minutes on side two is devoted to a free form acid jam called "Spare Chaynge" by the rhythm section (Kaukonen, Dryden, and bassist Jack Casady) that mainly serves to show that Jack Casady is an absolute monster on the bass.  

Tempting as it is to individually praise every song, this really is an album that works best as a unit - a band portfolio that features each band member fairly equally without highlighting any particular member or song (no obvious singles here). To add to the democratic vibe, most of the vocals are sung in two- or three-part harmony, with Balin and Slick both soaring above the mix with their formidable pipes. In some live recordings I've heard from this period and after, they almost sound like they're trying to out-sing each other, which makes for an intense if somewhat unnerving listening experience. The instrumentalists also crank up the intensity here, playing their hearts out, sounding more like a live band than they did on the concise, restrained Surrealistic Pillow. The band benefited immensely from this kind of collective/competitive spirit, for a couple of years anyway.

My personal experience with After Bathing at Baxter's does not go back very far. Beginning in my college years, the first Jefferson Airplane I heard was the CD anthology 2400 Fulton Street, which featured several tracks from Baxter's, and it was years before I heard the songs in the context of the album proper. Now that I have the album, I much prefer hearing these songs in this sequence.

Dan:

I loved the singles-oriented version of the Airplane back when they were recorded. I wasn't too sure what to make of After Bathing at Baxter's when I bought it sometime in the early 70s. But I stayed with it, and it became a favorite. It felt improvised in places, which appealed to my jazz inclinations. 

It also contains one of the most shocking songs to come out of the 1960s: Grace Slick's "Rejoyce." It's not easy to hear all the lyrics, much less digest them, and the sleeve notes did not include the text of songs played. "Rejoyce" is a bitter condemnation of an older generation of Americans and appears as the second song of the suite: "Hymn to an Older Generation." Keep in mind that the U.S. was embroiled in war in Vietnam and soldiers were drafted, against their wills, to fight and die. Thus, the lyric: "War's good business so give your son, but I'd rather have my country die for me" was an understandably radical response. 

Although the Airplane returned to more conventional albums with Crown of Creation (1968) and Volunteers (1969), much of their outrage continued. These were artists reflecting the evil realities they saw - voices in a cultural revolution that would not be silenced or contained. 

Love - Forever Changes (1967)

Steve: 

Love's third album has been acknowledged as a "cult classic" for almost as long as it's been out. Being labeled as a cult classic implies that lots of people like it, but not nearly enough people to qualify it as popular in the Byrds or Doors sense. The Byrds and Doors, of course are two other bands from LA in the mid-to-late 60s who also released ambitious music, but who DID become household names.  

Love's relative lack of commercial success may have been due to the instability of the band. Leader Arthur Lee dominated the singing, songwriting, and overall direction, while the band's other members were less dependable. In fact, one song on Forever Changes ("The Daily Planet") was recorded with session musicians after the band couldn't get it together in the studio. The band would break up after this album, and Lee would resurface the following year with a new Love lineup. Another factor in their lack of success was their reluctance to travel to promote their music beyond the LA area. They simply didn't generate enough buzz to strike while the iron was hot.

As with much of my early rock education, I read about this album for years before actually hearing it. The Rolling Stone Record Guide gave it 5 stars and praised it enthusiastically without really giving me a sense of what it sounded like. Because it came out in 1967 in California and wasn't Frank Zappa or Spirit, I imagined it to be a somewhat dated variation on hippie idealism, nice as a period piece but not a timeless classic. (Yes, I was iconoclastic and cynical back then. I'm more tolerant now). I viewed it as a typical example of albums that critics raved about mainly because it was an established critic favorite, and no one seemed bold enough to take a contrary point of view. 

Turns out I was wrong.

Eventually, in the mid 90s, I decided to take a chance on Love Story, a double CD anthology of the band on the Rhino label. I already had a high opinion of Rhino's thoughtful reissues/anthologies, so that was a big factor in my decision. I was glad to learn that Love Story included the entire Forever Changes album, in correct running order. I'd finally have that album, and if any of the other material was good, that would just be gravy (turns out I liked the extra material just as much, if not more).

I had heard the leadoff track "Alone Again Or" before, but in a version recorded by The Damned that benefited from that band's dark glammy/goth drama. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by Love's original version. It begins and is punctuated throughout with quiet solo acoustic guitar sections that give way to verses in a near-flamenco acoustic style with orchestral backing and a totally rapturous trumpet solo. There is no chorus in the song to provide resolution, leaving the acoustic punctuations to provide the melancholy reflection between the resigned loneliness of the verses. It's deservedly one of the band's most loved songs, and the kicker is that it was written by the distant-second songwriter in the band, Bryan MacLean. It's as if a Kinks album led off with a Dave Davies composition and it became their best-known song. Kinks leader Ray Davies would never let that happen. But Arthur Lee surely saw how strong this track was, and it's to his credit that he gave it the high-profile opening slot it deserved. It sets the tone musically, but its relatively fluffy lyrics ("I could be in love with almost everyone / I think that people are the greatest fun") don't prepare you for what follows.  

"A House is Not a Motel" also begins with an acoustic guitar figure (all the songs are basically acoustic guitar-driven) but the lyrics sung by Arthur Lee are shockingly dark, and the song's briskly quiet pace exudes an air of unease. After a particularly vivid reference to what blood looks like when it's mixed with mud, the song takes one of the album's louder detours with an electric guitar outro. This queasy tension is typical of many songs on the album: "The Red Telephone", "Live and Let Live" (most reviews call out the "snot has caked against my pants" lyric, but even more poignant to me is "served my time / served it well / made my soul a cell"), "The Daily Planet", and even the seemingly benign "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This" all juxtapose melodic acoustic (often orchestrated) folk rock music against unexpected musical shifts and surreal, sometimes doom-laden images. Lee's high reedy voice calmly relays the confusion from a distance, his smooth delivery partly concealing his anger and frustration at a world spinning out of control. 

Granted, not all of this is obvious on first listen. The relative mellowness of the album hides much of this underlying tension. Songs like "Andmoreagain," "Old Man" (Bryan MacLean's other contribution to the album), and the Herb Alpert-isms of the verbose "Maybe the People Would be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale" all have sweet melodies and lyrics that are a bit more obtuse and subtle.  

Like most great albums, Forever Changes finishes strongly with a climax that ties it all together. "You Set the Scene" is actually two songs stitched together in one, a cathartic conclusion clocking in at just under 7 minutes (the longest on the album). The first part consists of more paranoid observations ("There are people wearing frowns who'll screw you up / But they would rather screw you down") over rapid minor key arpeggios and a nervous drum shuffle. After two verse/chorus cycles, the song transitions into a slower march tempo in a major mode, signifying a shift in perspective. The next words out of Arthur's mouth really stand out: "This is the time and life that I am living / and I'll face each day with a smile / because the time that I've been given's such a little while." The 60s were a tumultuous time, and the preceding songs on the album are a reflection of that. But Arthur resolves to just keep on, because that's all there is to do. Even the observation that "all that lives is gonna die" is not a pronouncement of doom, but rather a sober realization of reality. This newfound resolve is accompanied by a triumphant musical arrangement that may just put a lump in your throat. It fades out on this bittersweet note.

As should be obvious, I get a lot of emotional mileage out of this album. It's unlike many classic 60s albums in that it neither tries to escape reality nor does it condemn it. Forever Changes regards reality with a subdued sense of horror, then ultimately accepts it, even disarming it by showing the strength to handle adversity. That's inspiring.

Dan: 

Neither Love nor Forever Changes were on my radar during the 1960s. Perhaps the field was too crowded by other bands in those exciting times. Even 20 years after its recording, I only heard about it from a friend and saw its iconic cover in music catalogs. Then one day Steve shared the Love Story CDs with me. So I ripped the tracks that comprise Forever Changes and played it frequently. I got totally hooked for many of the reasons Steve details in his review. In particular, my favorite tracks are "Maybe the People..." and "You Set the Scene," but the whole album is expertly programmed and played. I can't think of any other albums like it, not even Love's other albums which I could sample on the compilation CDs. 

Perhaps the only thing that comes close to matching the power of Forever Changes is the concert that Arthur Lee performed at the Royal Albert Hall in January of 2003, captured on video on The Forever Changes Concert. The live string and brass sections are something to behold, and the original album is given a faithful homage.

For me, a survivor of the 1960s, Forever Changes recaptures the spirit of Black awareness and hippie idealism. Even when the lyrics get uncomfortably "fluffy," it's impossible to miss the ironies. When Lee refers to his town "where everyone is painted brown / and if we feel that's not the way, let's go paint everybody gray," his humorous resolve lifts us out of the gloom of a serious topic. It's one of many delights on this superb album.

The Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed (1967)

Dan:

I will always remember the day I first heard "The Night: Nights in White Satin" from Days of Future Passed. I was driving home from Presque Isle in Erie PA and it was playing on the car radio. I thought to myself "What is this?" By the time I reached the recitation "Breathe deep the gathering gloom..." I was spellbound. Then that famous gong sounded, and I couldn't wait any longer for the deejay to say who it was. The Moody Blues? Never heard of them.

That was my introduction to what became known as prog. Only prog could turn a mundane telling of life's daily activities into a wondrous, dream-like fantasy, complete with symphony orchestra and poetry.

Although not immediately successful, Days of Future Passed laid the groundwork for subsequent albums, notably In Search of the Lost Chord; On the Threshold of a Dream; To Our Children's Children's Children; A Question of Balance, and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Each album in the sequence features a climactic piece with spoken words and a decidedly optimistic posture. For the Moodies, spiritual enlightenment, social justice, and human potential were common themes, as they were for many prog bands of the period. 

Looking back, those themes may seem naive and idealistic, but they were more than just a sign of the times. They were popular expressions of morality, delivered to millions of listeners in a highly accessible form. I would personally defend this branch of prog for its unabashed commitment to seeing the possibilities for a better world. 

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
- Graeme Edge

Steve:

In my personal prog discovery timeline, this was not among my first Moody Blues albums, and as such it doesn't hold significance for me as a personal touchstone. However, each time I listen to it, I'm amazed at how fully formed the band had become as creative songwriters and arrangers, so soon after they were a failed R&B band not far from breaking up.  Apparently, the band were asked by Decca to participate in a rock/classical adaptation of some classical piece, and the band and conductor Peter Knight conspired to ditch that idea and record the Moodies' original material instead. Somehow, they got away with it, and Decca released it anyway (let that be a lesson, kids!).  

I can only hope Decca heard what the rest of the world would soon hear, that this was a fantastic album. The orchestral variations by Knight (including a clever "overture" in "The Day Begins") work as intros and interludes, with the Moody Blues' songs remaining the focus. Since Mike Pinder had recently discovered the flute/string sounds of the Mellotron, the band's own songs were conducive to the orchestra/rock band idea. The "day in the life of an ordinary guy" concept offered a great tool for thematic unity, capitalizing on the newly confirmed (via the Beatles) idea that an album-length work can be a viable commercial endeavor for a rock band. Also, it greatly helped that the band had "Nights in White Satin/Late Lament" to close the work, wisely making it the climax of the album, and fully integrating the orchestra with the band for a stunning finale.