Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Procol Harum - The Best of Procol Harum [Fly] CD (album) cover

THE BEST OF PROCOL HARUM [FLY]

Procol Harum

 

Crossover Prog

2.95 | 3 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Guillermo
Prog Reviewer
3 stars I don`t have this album, but I have (recorded in a cassette, from a friend`s L.P.) an album called "A Salty Dog", with the same songs as this "The Best of Procol Harum". This "A Salty Dog" album obviously is not the original 1969 album, but a compilation, released by the "Music For Pleasure" label (a budget label from EMI, L.P.number:MFP 5277). It was released in July 1972, made from the same matrices from "The Best of Procol Harum (Fly)" (which was released in March 1971). (it says that in the website www.procolharum.com, in the compilations page, where I found information about these two albums) .It caused some confusion with the original "A Salty Dog" album in one of my brothers. I told him "no, this is a compilation, see the label and the songs`dates, and I remember that the cover is not the same" (as I confirmed when I bought the CD years later). The cover of this compilation is blue with a drawing of a sailor and a woman beside him. In the label, each song has a year asigned, like, for example," "Homburg", (P) 1967". But the label doesn`t have a year of production. The song listing only includes songs from the years 1967-70, from the "Homburg" single until one song from the "Home" album ("Your own choice", 1970).Procol Harum changed labels in England after "Home" (which the same as the "Procol Harum", "Shine on Brightly" and "A Salty Dog" albums was originally released by Regal Zonophone records,a division of EMI), and their next album "Broken Barricades" was released by Chrysalis Records in mid 1971. Some things are interesting in this compilation. It has stereo versions and maybe alternate recordings of "Homburg" (with a more audible guitar and different drums), "She wandered through the garden fence" (without a fade out and with a complete ending) and "Conquistador" (with a different organ solo). As their first album was only released in mono, it was good for me to find these stereo versions of "Conquistador" and "She wandered through the Garden Fence" in this compilation. This Stereo version of "Homburg" is different to the single version released in the "Best of Procol Harum" album released in the U.S. by A&M records in 1973.It seems that these "alternate" versions were also released in the "30th Anniversary" Box set in 1997, but as I donīt have this Box Set, I can`t say if they are the same alternate versions of these 3 songs. I sent an e-mail to procolharum.com to find an explanation about these versions, but I didn`t receive an answer. The rest of the songs of this compilation are: 5 songs from the "A Salty Dog" original 1969 L.P. ("The Milk of Human Kindness", "The Devil came from Kansas", "A Salty Dog", "Boredom" and "Pilgrims Progress"), 3 from the 1968 "Shine on Brightly" album ("Magdalene (my Regal Zonophone)", "Shine on Brightly" and "Rambling on"), and one from the 1970 "Home" album ("Your own choice"). The back cover has notes about how Procol Harum wasn`t only "A Whiter shade of Pale", "as this album shows" (more or less as I remember).
Guillermo | 3/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this PROCOL HARUM review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.