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It was December 4, 1965, and the Paramounts were set to open for the Beatles at Newcastle City Hall in England.
Just hours before they hit the stage, the two bands’ lead singers had a craving they couldn’t ignore.
Beatle John Lennon turned to Paramounts’ frontman Gary Brooker. “Come on, Gary,” he said. “Let’s go get some fish and chips.”
The duo disguised themselves in hats and glasses, and sneaked out for a casual dinner, Mr. Brooker reminisced nearly 50 years later during a recent telephone interview from his home in England. When they had eaten to their hearts’ content, they headed back to the venue and knocked on the stage door.
“Yes, what can I do for you?” a uniformed guard had asked.
“Well, I’m in the Beatles,” Mr. Lennon answered. “We’re playing tonight.”
“You couldn’t come in here if you were John Lennon yourself, mate,” the man responded.
“I am bloody John Lennon!” Mr. Lennon laughed, removing his hat and glasses to a very apologetic doorman.
Mr. Brooker and his British rock band—which evolved two years later into Procol Harum, playing the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Sunday night—were headlining shows of their own. And nearly five decades later, their original leader is still going strong.
“I have a theory,” Mr. Brooker said, “that the best music in England always grew up near the sea.”
Mr. Brooker was raised in Southend-on-Sea, a seaside resort town close to London. His father, Harry Brooker—Britain’s top Hawaiian guitarist, according to his son—took him to piano lessons starting at age 5. Music stuck, Mr. Brooker said, and right out of high school, he was opening for big British rock bands with the Paramounts as their lead singer—a lucky fluke after the original frontman left the band.
“They said, ‘You’ll have to do it, Gary,’” Mr. Brooker laughed. “I said, ‘I don’t know all the words!’ They said, ‘Well, make it up.’ That was the start of my singing career.”
The pianist had a mature, soulful sound that sounded more like Ray Charles than a 14-year-old adolescent, he said. The group was signed a few years later.
“When I was in school, I was playing music on the weekend and sometimes during the week—that’s what I was doing instead of studying for exams,” Mr. Brooker said. “I took a career test and it said I’d either be an astronaut or a musician. Something panned out well.”
When the Paramounts disbanded in 1966 to rebrand themselves as Procol Harum, Mr. Brooker was introduced to poet and lyricist Keith Reid by music producer Guy Stevens.
“Gary, this is Keith. He writes words,” Mr. Stevens had said. “Keith, this is Gary. He writes music.”
Again, Mr. Brooker found himself in uncharted waters. “I’ve never written any music!” he had said.
To that, Mr. Stevens responded, “Well, you’re going to start now.”
A short time later at home in Guilford—just 80 miles from his hometown—Mr. Brooker sat down with a file of Mr. Reid’s lyrics. He surprised himself by quickly writing the music to what would become the band’s self-titled debut album in 1967—including their most famous single, “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” which soared up the British and American charts, and went on to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
With more than 10 albums and countless concerts under his belt, Mr. Brooker is still at the band’s helm—at age 69—and doesn’t see retirement in his future. He loves performing too much, he said.
“So far, it seems to get better,” he said. “When I get off stage, I always think, ‘Well, I sang that well. This is as good, or better than, I’ve ever sang it.’ If it started to go down in some sort of quality, I don’t think I’d be able to do it.”
Procol Harum will give a concert on Sunday, July 13, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. For more information, call 288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.
on Jul 8, 2014