Bill Edyn Keith Reid Gary Brooker
Keith West and David Bowie
are all a whiter shade of now
(cf David Erdos)
Somehow I always knew Bill Eyden played drums
on Whiter Shade of Pale
I knew his work as a jazz drummer and the last time
I heard him play live was with a pick-up(?) quartet
at a pub in New Southgate North London,.
There were about 20 people in the audience.
When I first heard ‘WSOP’ (1967) on the radio
the drum track struck me immediately – it was clearly
not the work of a run-of-the-mill rock drummer
and it lifted this terrific song.
I thought Procul Harum were an excellent band
and when I heard them live
at what was (then) Hatfield Polytechnic)
Keith Reid was sitting up on the lighting-rig scaffold.
In i967 ‘Excerpt from a teenage opera’ was released
with lyrics by Mark Wirtz and Keith West and its hook-line
’Grocer Jack Grocer Jack get off your back
go into town don’t let them down oh no no’
is the only one I can remember.
David Bowie name-checked
‘K West‘ on one of his album covers though’
Jeff Cloves
.