Outstanding Contribution

Gary Brooker, Procol Harum

Gary Brooker: “There wasn’t a genre when we started and I’ve never really seen it. I just thought I liked playing something that would be different and that really was a progressive outlook in 1967 and it still is today. If you want to play something that no one has ever played before, that no one has ever written before, that to me is a progressive way of doing it. It’s not regressive, it’s not following fashion. It’s different. That’s the challenge! To do something that nobody has ever done before. That’s the challenge every day, every album, every song.”

David Hepworth: “He’s one of the great British singers and he sings in a very particular British tone, really. He sings songs that are very literate and very literary and very sophisticated, but sings in a very direct, soulful way and I think that’s quite a remarkable talent. He’s one of those musicians whose music I’ve enjoyed more over the years. It’s one of those things that drifted back into view via YouTube, because you have access to everything from the past. It’s all there permanently, so certain things that you hear sound even better, and that was one of them.”

“There wasn’t a genre when we started. I just thought I liked playing something that would be different and that really was a progressive outlook in 1967 and it still is today.”

Gary Brooker