CCMusic.com

• Track Listing

Some legendary bands from the class of ’67 have been celebrating their 50th anniversary, none more crucial, beloved and prolific than Procol Harum. This band’s deep grasp of roots music, prog-rock chops and orchestral ambitions led to a long career of acclaimed and intriguing compositions and recordings, and you’ll find the most famous landmarks as well as previously unreleased discoveries here. Let’s start with the 2-CD set, which plucks 29 key tracks from each of their albums: the immortal "A Whiter Shade of Pale," the hits "Homburg," "Conquistador," the UK hits "Quite Rightly So," "A Salty Dog," "Pandora’s Box," the 2017 tracks (from the remarkable comeback album "Novum") "Can’t Say That," "The Only One" and more. The limited-edition deluxe version expands far beyond that, adding "Understandably Blue" (recorded at Olympic Studios in July 1967), the 1969 B-side "Long Gone Geek" and a bevy of coveted album tracks as well as the band’s storied show at the Hollywood Bowl in ’73 (with the L.A. Philharmonic and Roger Wagner Chorale): "Sanctus," "Simple Sister," "Grand Hotel," "Fires (Which Burn Brightly)" and more. The CDs in this box culminate with a previously unreleased 1976 concert at the Bournemouth Winter Gardens: "The Unquiet Zone," "Beyond the Pale," "A Whiter Shade of Pale," "All This and More," "Whaling Stories" and more. Perhaps most exciting of all: over three and a half hours of footage on 3 DVDs, most of it previously unreleased, including "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (Top of the Pops ’67), "Homburg" (Beat Club ’67), "A Salty Dog" (Beat Club ’69), "Look to Your Soul" (Radio Bremen German TV, ’71), `"Kaleidoscope" (Radio Bremen German TV, ’73), "Pandora’s Box" (Top of the Pops, ’75), "Skating on Thin Ice" (Sight & Sound in Concert, ’77)…hours and hours of epic Procol Harum to savor! Esoteric.