Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, singer of A Whiter Shade of Pale, dead at 76 | CBC News

A statement posted on the band’s official website said: “With the deepest regret we must announce the death on February 19 2022 of Gary Brooker MBE, singer, pianist and composer of Procol Harum, and a brightly-shining, irreplaceable light in the music industry.”

The London-born Brooker was singer and keyboard player with the band, which had a huge hit with its first single, A Whiter Shade of Pale. With its Baroque-flavoured organ solo and mysterious opening line — “We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor” — the song became one of the signature tunes of 1967.

It topped the U.K. album chart for six weeks, was a top-10 hit in the United States and in 2018 was one of six singles inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It appeared on the massive-selling soundtrack for the film The Big Chill and has been covered by a wide range of artists.

Brooker continued to lead Procol Harum for more than five decades, through various lineup changes and 13 albums. The band never had another hit song on the same scale, though songs like Grand Hotel and Conquistador earned airplay on rock stations.

Collaborated with Beatles members

One of the band’s albums was the well-received Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 1971, one of the early examples of a rock group performing with classical musicians. The band returned to Edmonton in the early 1990s for a couple of performances with the orchestra.

Brooker released four solo albums and collaborated with most of the individual Beatles — on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Paul McCartney’s Back to the Egg and by touring with Ringo Starr’s all-star band. Brooker also wrote and sang for Eric Clapton’s band and appeared on Kate Bush’s 2005 release Aerial.

In 2006, Procol Harum’s former organ player, Matthew Fisher, sued Brooker over the famous Hammond organ solo in A Whiter Shade of Pale. Brooker said he wrote the Bach-inspired melody before Fisher joined the band, but a judge awarded Fisher a share of the credit and royalties, alongside Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid.

The judge said Fisher’s contribution to the song was “substantial but not, in my judgment, as substantial as that of Mr. Brooker.”

In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II made Brooker a member of the Order of the British Empire for services to charity.