‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ singer Gary Brooker dies at 76

LONDON — Gary Brooker, the Procol Harum frontman who sang a person of the 1960s’ most enduring hits, “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” has died. He was 76.

The English rock band claimed Brooker died at his property on Saturday. He had been acquiring treatment for most cancers.

A statement posted on the band’s formal website stated: “With the deepest regret we ought to 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 audio business.”

The London-born Brooker was singer and keyboard player with the band, which had a massive hit with its to start with one, “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” With its Baroque-flavored organ solo and mysterious opening line – “We skipped the mild fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor” — the track became a person of the signature tunes of the 1967 “Summer of Like.”

It topped the U.K. album chart for 6 months, was a leading 10 strike in the United States and in 2018 was a single of six singles inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2006, Procol Harum’s previous organ player, Matthew Fisher, sued Brooker around the song’s well known Hammond organ solo. Brooker mentioned he wrote the Bach-impressed melody right before Fisher joined the band, but a decide awarded Fisher a share of credit and royalties along with Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid.

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

The band by no means experienced one more strike on the exact same scale, but Brooker ongoing to guide Procol Harum for much more than five a long time, by different lineup adjustments and 13 albums.

Brooker also introduced 3 studio albums as a solo artist, together with his 1979 debut “No Much more Worry of Flying” and the 1985 “Echoes in the Night time,” while these did not attain the similar business heights as Procol Harum’s output.

He also collaborated with other artists, which includes Paul McCartney and George Harrison, and played, wrote and sang for Eric Clapton’s band and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, the statement reported.

In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II created him an MBE — member of the Purchase of the British Empire — for services to charity.