Sixties Players

Funny how the wheel of life turns. Or the CD on the record player of life. Putting the finishing touchs to my cigarette book (blogs passim) I was reminded that Procol Harum made an album in 1969 called A Salty Dog. And that the album sleeve was a primitive pastiche of the original Player's Navy Cut cigarette packet. I'd never heard the album, even though A Whiter Shade of Pale transcends genres and time to still be one of the best pop songs to make the Hit Parade; and I do have an obscure album of theirs called Exotic Birds & Fruit which I bought just for the still life on the cover. So needing a pristine example of A Salty Dog to scan in for the book, I sent off for what I think is a 40th anniversary edition. It arrived yesterday, so I can now tell you that the cover was painted by Dickinson, who, surprisingly, is a lady and married (at least at the time) to the lyricist in the band Keith Reid. I popped it into the player in the car this morning, and have to tell you I had to stop the car in a field gateway and stare out over the wet fields of Leicestershire as the eponymous first track swept over me. I thought it simply brilliant. Which is a good job, after forty two years.