Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker dies at 76

[spike jones]

2. A Whiter Shade Of Pale and its February.

In the army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama in 1967, I met a guy during the few months I was there for advance training on the Nike-Hercules missile launcher. He was training on the Hawk missile, and we met on the wooded trails near the base. He had weed and I did not. He was stationed there before me and had made local contacts. John was a funny guy and we had good times hiking the trails, playing in the woods, caving the local holes, smoking weed after classes, and going to the cafe to drink coffee and play the jute box. I always played A Whiter Shade Of Pale when we went in.

It was the army, and we only knew each other for a few months. After he was transferred, I did not hear from him. It was the army and that is the way it is. Later in February 1968, I was at Fort Bliss in El Paso Texas, and I was reading the army paper and John’s name jumps off the page that list the guys killed in Viet Nam that week. I had a portable record player and a John Rivers album that has a version of the song. I played it that day as I sat in the desert and cried. It took a long time to hear this song without thinking about John. And not today.
RIP John. RIP Gary.