Our Throwback Thursday features a favorite song, something about the song and a cover version of the song.
Not meaning to, I fell down a Procol Harum rabbit hole and of course, A Whiter Shade of Pale came up. I found that the group had made two versions of the their promotional video for the song.
The first promotional video featured four of the five musicians who played on the hit single: Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher, David Knights and Ray Royer, in performance and walking through the ruins of Witley Court in Worcestershire, England. The film was directed by Peter Clifton, whose insertion of Vietnam War newsreel footage caused it to be banned from airplay on the BBC’s Top of the Pops TV show. The second video was made for the Scopitone music jukebox system, (Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots are Made For Walking was another example of this type of promotional video.) By this time, Robin Trower and B.J. Wilson had replaced Ray Royer and Bobby Harrison in the band, so only three of the five musicians on the recording are in the video.
This was one of the biggest hits of the “Summer Of Love“. John Lennon was a big fan of the song. In 2004, the UK performing rights group Phonographic Performance Limited named this the most-played record on British TV and radio of the past 70 years. In 2009 it was announced that this song is still Britain’s most played record. The runner-up in the list was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The two songs share one unusual similarity-on both of them the word “fandango” crops up in the lyrics.
Annie Lennox’s version of A Whiter Shade of Pale is from her 1995 album, Medusa. This performance took place on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Annie Lennox turns this classic song into a sad, sweet ballad.
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