A Whiter Shade of Pale

A link with Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd

Joan May writes: I got the following from the Pink Floyd Newsgroup. It's a long interview of which I just excerpted a snippet.

[Transcript of article written by Kevin Hennessy which appeared in June 1984 edition of the magazine Music & Sound Output – published by Output International Publications INC, New York]

... What Gilmour wants to do is tout About Face. Featuring 10 tunes and seven lyrics from his own pen (with the remaining two lyrics coming from Peter Townshend), About Face is the album upon which Gilmour, the non-Waters puppet, stands or falls. At press time, reactions were mixed. ('The British music press was savage', says arranger Michael Kamen, who also worked on The Wall and The Final Cut). But the album was in the US Top 50 after only five weeks in the shops, an accomplishment several Floyd albums couldn't boast.

... Although About Face is far from sounding like a Who album, it does revive a certain quality aspects [sic] of rock more typical of 1969 than 1984. The album has the kind of orchestral texture (rarely) heard since Procol Harum's A Salty Dog, and indeed Gilmour and his cronies would admit that that sound is close to what they were after.

Arranger Michael Kamen used to perform A Whiter Shade Of Pale with his New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, while Gilmour himself refers to Let's Get Metaphysical – an instrumental with a Bach-inspired chord progression and a guitar solo that could make Robin Trower smile – as a 'rip-off' of Procol ...

I infer from Gilmour's comments that it's primarily Matthew's PH contributions that he admires, but, like so many others including his former CD-mate, Kate Bush, he probably doesn't know that, yet. One of my dreams is that Matthew and David will someday record together – I think they can make some outstanding music – they both really excel at ethereal melodic rock and HOT blues.