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Post by Horacewimp on Feb 22, 2022 22:05:37 GMT
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Post by BSJ on Feb 22, 2022 23:37:51 GMT
This is a hard one. RIP Gary.
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Post by Chippa on Feb 23, 2022 0:07:45 GMT
This is something else. What a voice
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Post by trekkielo on Feb 23, 2022 5:14:47 GMT
February 19th is a bad day for rock stars to die over a span of 42 years (1980, 2009 & 2022) Bon Scott, Kelly Groucutt and now Gary Brooker, may they all RIP.
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Post by Timeblue on Feb 23, 2022 7:27:12 GMT
This is sad, Whiter is an all time classic and I think Procol Harum never got to be as big as they deserved.
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Post by soonerorlater on Feb 23, 2022 9:43:29 GMT
This is an awful shock, I found my self genuinely floored when I heard the news last night.
Over the past decade or so I've really got into Procol Harum, starting with the compilation sets and graduating to each original album. Fortunately they've been remastered and reissued over a similar time period - complete with many bonus tracks.
I'm so pleased to have seen them on their 50th Anniversary tour in 2017, barely a month before seeing Jeff at Wembley Stadium. They are such an underrated band whose public perception centres around A Whiter Shade Of Pale. There is just so much more to them.
Just been listening to A Salty Dog and Sunday Morning from opposite ends of a rich career.
RIP Gary
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Post by fluffy on Feb 23, 2022 15:31:20 GMT
sad
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Post by queenofthehours on Feb 23, 2022 21:39:29 GMT
This is very sad. I didn’t know until today so it was a shock but Gary had been ill for a while. Even so I always hoped he would get well again. He seemed indestructible after getting into many physical scrapes including a fractured skull in South Africa, broken ribs in Finland and a "boxer's fracture" after falling face first from the Royal Festival Hall stage. He's gone far too soon.
I last saw Procol Harum the same month as I last saw ELO in 2018 and had tickets for the 2020 Palladium show. Covid meant the gig was pushed back to 2021 and then 2022 and then last year all Procol shows were cancelled across Europe as Gary was awaiting medical treatment ( www.procolharum.com/2021/gb-bulletin_2021.htm ) . It’s been a sad time for the band during the last year as two former members also died.
Gary starred in a Madonna film and was a champion fly-fisher. Just before the first lockdown he organised a charity concert at the O2. He might be like Jeff Lynne in that he was the last person holding up a band with many past members but to reduce Gary Brooker down to ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is like reducing Jeff Lynne down to ‘MBS’. He, like Jeff, had many talents and there are many other songs to listen to. For every ‘MBS’ there's a ‘Wild West Hero’ and for every ‘AWSOP’ there’s a ‘Grand Hotel’ -
A lot of the obituaries say he had an OBE when in fact it was an MBE!
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Post by trekkielo on Feb 24, 2022 18:16:40 GMT
I'm so pleased to have seen them on their 50th Anniversary tour in 2017, barely a month before seeing Jeff at Wembley Stadium. They are such an underrated band whose public perception centres around A Whiter Shade Of Pale. There is just so much more to them. "Now the current hit by the British group who bombed with their first recording of this song 5 years ago, but this 2nd version is a winner, and all they had to do was add a 52-piece symphony orchestra, and a 24-voice choir, in the Summer of 1967 they had a big hit called A Whiter Shade of Pale, which went to #5, they followed that with another single that never even saw the Hot 100, on the next try a couple of months later with a song called Homburg, they reached #34, but that was their last time on the charts, the single charts, until now, this current hit the one that failed 5 years ago, was rerecorded last November at a concert in Canada, 3,000 people sat in the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, Alberta, and listened to a 5-man English rock group, backed by 76 classical musicians and singers, a best selling album came out of that program, and a hit single came out of the album, a song that didn't make it the first time around, now at #22, and movin' up, Conquistador, by Procol Harum" - Casey Kasem's American Top 40 from July 8th, 1972
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Post by unomusette on Mar 3, 2022 21:53:33 GMT
Seems we've taken Gary a bit for granted all these years and it's taken his obituary to point it out. Pandora's Box is my favourite from his back catalogue but there are plenty more gems. And he had talents outside of music as well - he's left quite a legacy. Really sad to hear of his passing, RIP Gary
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