Gary Brooker, whose “Whiter Shade of Pale” launched the Summer of Love in 1967, has died, his bandmates in Procol Harem announced Tuesday.
Brooker, who was 76, had been receiving treatment for cancer and died at home, the band said in a statement.
The singer-songwriter led Procol Harem throughout its 55-year-history, and the song, which he co-wrote, eventually sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and was honored in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
The song’s psychedelic lyrics and melancholy tone captivated listeners of the baby boom generation. Though Brooker had his roots in the blues, he derived inspiration for that first hit from Johann Sebastian Bach.
“If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’ before it veers off,” he said in a 2014 interview with Uncut magazine, cited by The Guardian. “That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining rock with classical, it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.”
“Gary’s voice and piano were the single defining constant of Procol’s 50-year international concert career,” the band said.
In addition to having a “multilingual family of fans,” as Procol Harem put it, Brooker was a musician’s musician, collaborating with the likes of Eric Clapton, the Rhythm Kings and Bill Wyman, with Ringo’s All-Starrs, and as a contributor to solo projects with Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
He also dabbled in acting, appearing in the 1996 film version of “Evita” alongside Madonna, playing Argentine foreign minister Juan Atilio Bramuglia.
In 2003, the London-born singer received one of Britain’s highest honors as he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
On the personal front, too, Brooker’s kind and winning charisma was front and center as he “lit up any room he entered,” the band said, noting his “individuality, integrity, and occasionally stubborn eccentricity. His mordant wit, and appetite for the ridiculous, made him a priceless raconteur.”
———
