Procol Harum (Liquorice John Death) - Ain't Nothin' to Get Excited About (1970)

Normally, I have a rule of not posting an album that is the same as the officially released version. But I'm making an exception here because of the obscurity of this one. The reason it's so obscure is because it was performed by the British band Procol Harum, but they didn't use their name for reasons I'll explain, and it only came out decades after it was recorded.

Procol Harum started with a bang. Their debut single in 1967, "A Whiter Shade of Pale," was a massive worldwide hit. But they actually started around 1960 as the Paramounts, a rhythm and blues cover band. Gary Brooker was the lead singer and Robin Trower was the lead guitarist from the very start. They had a minor hit in Britain in 1963 with a cover of "Poison Ivy." But by 1966, they realized they were rapidly falling out of style. So they changed the name and switched to doing all originals.

In 1969, Procol Harum had some personnel changes. Two band members left and one former member of the Paramounts joined. The band members realized they once again had the exact same line-up as the Paramounts line-up for many years, minus one member. In January 1970, the band had a studio recording session for their next album. One night, they started feeling nostalgic for their years as the Paramounts. Instead of working on new songs, they spend many hours playing all the covers they could remember that they used to do as the Paramounts. They played almost forty songs. Everything was recorded, but most of them were discarded for one reason or another, such as forgetting the lyrics or stopping before the finish. 

But still, there were a bunch of songs they thought sounded good, enough for an album. However, Procol Harum was known for their original styles done in a progressive rock style. They never did covers on their albums and almost never did them in concert. Putting out an all-covers album didn't make sense for their career at that point. Furthermore, the tape of the recordings soon got lost. It wasn't recovered until the late 1990s. 

This album of covers was finally released in 2005. But even then, instead of releasing it under the Procol Harum name, they decided to release under the name "Liquorice John Death." This was a tribute to a friend of the band who knew them back in the early 1960s, hated the name Paramounts, and had suggested that other name instead.

I've used the officially released album cover. But that cover didn't mention "Procol Harum" at all. So I added that in a big font size at the top.

This album is very different from everything else released by Procol Harum, but I think it's pretty interesting. 

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 High School Confidential (Procol Harum)
02 Kansas City (Procol Harum)
03 Lucille (Procol Harum)
04 Brand New Cadillac (Procol Harum)
05 Matchbox (Procol Harum)
06 Breathless (Procol Harum)
07 Everything I Do Is Wrong (Procol Harum)
08 Old Black Joe (Procol Harum)
09 Shopping for Clothes (Procol Harum)
10 Well, I... (Procol Harum)
11 I'm Ready (Procol Harum)
12 The Girl Can't Help It (Procol Harum)
13 Keep A-Knockin' (Procol Harum)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16182495/PROCLHRM1970_AntNthintoGtExctdAbt_atse.zip.html

As I mentioned above, I used the official cover art, but I added the "Procol Harum" name at the top. Also, the names of the band members were mentioned. I removed those names in favor of the band name.