The day after their 4th of July show in Dallas. Procol Harum did a live broadcast for the ZOO from January Sound Studios. The forth in a series from January Sound.

The afternoon before the show, Procol Harum's Keith Reid gave an live on the air interview with Ken Rundell. It went something like this...

Ken Rundell: I’m Ken Rundell. The Zoo is the radio station you’re tuned to. And Keith Reid is with us. (English tones) Good afternoon.

Keith Reid: (Solemnly) Good afternoon.

Ken Rundell: Or should I say it in true Texan style? (Texan tones) G’afternoon, Keith.

Keith Reid: (Texan tones) Good afternoon!

Ken Rundell: How ya doin’?

Keith Reid: I’m doin’ all right.

Ken Rundell: You’re dressed for Texas here, let me tell you.

Keith Reid: Yup

Ken Rundell: I can’t hear you too well. Why don’t you read a note of Mary Had a Little Lamb or something so I can set a little level on you, there.

Keith Reid: ‘Mary had a little lamb; her [sic] fleece was white as snow …’

Ken Rundell: That’s a little better. Still getting a lot of, a lot of hiss in the background. Maybe we ought to do it from over here. Do you want to slide on around here? We’ll do it from this one, let the folks have a nice interview, as opposed to some snap, crackle, and pop in the background. There. We’ll get real cosy here.

Keith, of course, for those of you who are not real familiar with Procol, is the lyricist of the group.

Keith Reid: That’s right.

Ken Rundell: You’ve been writing Procol’s lyrics – have you had an exclusive thing? You’ve been doing –

Keith Reid: Yeah. Yeah.

Ken Rundell: Every Procol tune, you’ve written the words for it.

Keith Reid: Yes, that’s right.

Ken Rundell: That’s a lot of words..

Keith Reid: Yep.

Ken Rundell: That’s a lot of words. Well, Life is Like a Beanstalk, isn’t it? Up and down. I mean, Procol Harum is like, has sort of peaked and then had – had low spots and come back.

Keith Reid: Yeah, that’s true.

Ken Rundell: It’s been a long career for you.

Keith Reid: Yeah, well we’ve been – we’ve been going now for seven years, which is a long time.

Ken Rundell: And how many albums does that take us through, about eight or ten?

Keith Reid: I think it’s eight.

Ken Rundell: Is that right?

Keith Reid: And that – but that’s including the live album, as well.

Ken Rundell: Are you the only person that you know of that works in this capacity with a band, writing lyrics but not performing with the band, or you know of others that do that?

Keith Reid: Oh, I mean there are others. I mean, Bernie Taupin does it with Elton John, doesn’t he?

Ken Rundell: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.

Keith Reid: There was a guy who did it with King Crimson. I don’t know his name. There’s not – there’s not very many. I don’t know any of these people. I don’t know anybody else.

Ken Rundell: Does it – does it – I imagine it must put you in – in a strange place, but after eight years, you’ve probably gotten used to it. I was thinking last night, sitting way back in the – in the – almost the top row of the balcony and watching you perform, wondering whether or not you – what kind of perspective you had when the group performs a concert. Do you sit backstage? Or do you stay at home? Do you –

Keith Reid: Ah no –

Ken Rundell: – kind of check out the crowd, or like –

Keith Reid: Well, I usually help out with the, you know, with the sound mixing. You know, I usually rush round the hall and go back and tell them how it’s sounding in different places...things like that.

Ken Rundell: Do you ever do just a totally objective thing, just to seat yourself way up high in a corner of the – of the hall and take it all in?

Keith Reid: Well, I think that when I’m doing that, I’m, you know, I’m being objective about the thing anyway: I’m listening to how it sounds and, you know, I think that that’s what I do, yeah –

Ken Rundell: Uh-huh.

Keith Reid: – do that most nights.

Ken Rundell: Uh-huh. Mick Grabham, is it –

Keith Reid: Yeah.

Ken Rundell: – is – is replacing Robin? How – how do you think that’s working out?

Keith Reid: It’s worked out very well. I mean, it couldn’t have worked out better. I mean, we find really, I mean, particularly with the album that we’ve just done, that we couldn’t – we – we – we’re capable of doing things now with Mick on guitar that we never were with Robin at all.

Ken Rundell: Um-hmm. Do you still have any connections with Robin? Do you –

Keith Reid: No. Don’t – not at all.

Ken Rundell: Don’t see him any more?

Keith Reid: I haven’t seen him since the day he left.

Ken Rundell: He’s been busy.

Keith Reid: Yeah, yeah.

Ken Rundell: I noticed you wore your – your Home t-shirt today.

Keith Reid: Yep.

Ken Rundell: And it was very coincidental: I had a call about an hour ago from someone wanted to hear Still There’ll Be More, from the Home album.

Keith Reid: Well, that’s good. I haven’t heard that for a few years

Ken Rundell: But I thought before we did that, though, we’d ask you to maybe give us a little bit of a background of what went into that tune. It’s one of your stranger ones, and you’ve had some strange ones. But – but Still There’ll Be More. There’s a lot of heartache and misery in that tune.

Keith Reid: Well, it’s supposed to be a very venomous, you know, really a venomous outpouring at someone. You know, ‘I’ll bathe my eyes in a river of salt, and I’ll piss on your door, and blacken your Christmas’.

Ken Rundell: Um-hmm.

Keith Reid: It’s supposed to be really a – telling somebody off.

Ken Rundell: All right. It – it gets it across. Definitely. [Gap for music] 'Shoes are laced up wrong.' KZEW on your radio. Some tunes from Procol Harum there. Homburg from – well, actually, it wasn’t ever on an album, except for the Best Of, was it?

Keith Reid: No. It was released as a – it was our second single, back in ’67.

Ken Rundell: And we heard Monsieur R. Monde from the new LP, which is called Exotic Birds and Fruit, and from the Home album, a thing called Still There’ll Be More.

While we were playing Homburg, someone called up and wanted to know what a Homburg was in the context of that song. It’s just a hat, isn’t it?

Keith Reid: It’s a hat, yeah.

Ken Rundell: Is it –

Keith Reid: It was made – made famous by Anthony Eden.

Ken Rundell: It doesn’t have anything to do or look anything like the hat you’ve got on today.

Keith Reid: No, this is a –

Ken Rundell: What – what distinguishes a Homburg from other types of hats?

Keith Reid: Well, about 30 bob a week.

Ken Rundell: (Laughs) It’s – it’s a well – it’s a hat for the well-to-do. Is that right?

Keith Reid: Yeah.

Ken Rundell: Okay. And that song, then, wouldn’t be more or less a – well, it’s pretty obvious. Someone – someone just couldn’t – couldn’t understand what 'Homburg' meant –

Keith Reid: No.

Ken Rundell: – in the context of that song. It’s a – it’s a hat. Monsieur R. Monde is a strange tune. What’s behind that one?

Keith Reid: Well, in fact, that’s – the words for that were written a long, long time ago. And when we were making the – the new album, we were just playing around with, you know, different things. And that – well, that turned out really well and everyone said, “You should put it on the album.”

Ken Rundell: And you did.

Keith Reid: And we did.

Ken Rundell: And there it is. Do you ever do In Held ’Twas In I any more?

Keith Reid: Erm, well, yes, we do. I mean, we – we often do quite – quite a lot of it on stage.

Ken Rundell: Um-hmm.

Keith Reid: We haven’t been doing it on this tour. But I think we were doing it – on our last tour, we were doing it.

Ken Rundell: Do you have any idea what – what’s going to take place tonight in the live concert? What – they’re going to do the – the same act that we –

Keith Reid: Oh, no. We’re not going to do the same act that we did last night. We’re going to – we’re going to try and – we’re going to do some things that – that you can do on radio that you – possibly won’t come across in a 20,000-seater auditorium, you know.

Ken Rundell: Excellent. Excellent. That sounds good. New stuff, or old stuff, or in-between?

Keith Reid: New stuff. We hope to do some things that you’ve never heard before.

Ken Rundell: Aah, very fine. That’s tonight at 8 pm, live, right here on the ZOO, from January Sound Studio. Have you been down there yet?

Keith Reid: Haven’t been down there, no.

Ken Rundell: Well, I think you’ll like it.

Keith Reid: Yeah?

Ken Rundell: Some fine producers down there, especially Bob Pickering, who’ll probably be handling the sound tonight –

Keith Reid: Really?

Ken Rundell: – with help from your man, Terry.

Keith Reid: Yes. Yeah, good. Well, I hope so. I mean, we hope to – we hope to get a really good tape from it.

Ken Rundell: Good. Well, we’re really glad that – that you’all could do it for us and – and for the people out there because it’s – the neat part about it is there’s no ticket necessary. You just turn on your radio and there’s Procol, playing for you.

Keith Reid: Yup, that’s it.

Ken Rundell: Thank you for stopping by, Keith.

Keith Reid: You’re welcome.

Ken Rundell: And we’re going to do a couple of more Procol Harum tunes. And then it’s Mark Addy’s turn on the radio. This is KZEW. Something from the – the live album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra ....

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That evening, at 8pm, Ken Rundell introduces the band and history was made. This concert became very popular among fans as the bootleg "Homburgs and Stetsons", which was prized for its interesting choice of songs, which differed greatly from any regular PH setlist.

Procol Harum - January Sound 07-05-74 Ken Rundell intro

Setlist:

Conquistador
Bringing Home the Bacon
Long Gone Geek
Homburg
Cerdes (Outside the Gates of)
Beyond the Pale
Power Failure
As Strong as Samson
The Idol
Butterfly Boys
Mabel
Nothing But the Truth
New Lamps for Old

Procol Harum - January Sound 07-05-74 Ken Rundell closing announcement