Matthew Fisher (musician)
Matthew Fisher | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Matthew Charles Fisher |
Born | [1] Addiscombe, Croydon, England | 7 March 1946
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | |
Instrument(s) |
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Years active | 1963–present |
Formerly of | Procol Harum |
Matthew Charles Fisher (born 7 March 1946) is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his longtime association with the rock band Procol Harum, which included playing the Hammond organ on the 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", for which he subsequently won a songwriting credit. In his later life he became a computer programmer, having qualified from Cambridge University.
Biography
Early life and career
Fisher was born and grew up in Addiscombe, Croydon.[2] He attended Selhurst Grammar School. He started playing in bands in his teens, initially playing bass guitar, but around 1964, after hearing The Animals and Georgie Fame, he decided that he would prefer to be an organist instead. He briefly considered a career as a music teacher.[citation needed] He enrolled for classical training at the Guildhall School of Music,[3] but after a year he dropped out, obtained two Vox Continental organs, and used them on tour with The Gamblers, the backing band to Billy Fury. After The Gamblers, he played with various local groups before joining Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers in 1966.[4]
While on tour with the Jaywalkers, he met Ian McLagan, organist with Small Faces, and became fascinated with the sound of the Hammond M102 organ and Leslie speaker that McLagan used. After borrowing money from his grandmother, he bought the same model of Hammond and started advertising for gigs in the Melody Maker. He quickly discovered that owning a Hammond made him in great demand as a musician, saying "Having a Hammond was like having a licence to print money", and by the end of the year found regular work with Screaming Lord Sutch's backing group The Savages, playing alongside Ritchie Blackmore. Consequently, Gary Brooker and Keith Reid were keen to recruit him for their new group, Procol Harum, and decided to visit him at his Croydon home to discuss the formation of the band.[4]
Procol Harum
Fisher joined Procol Harum at the start of 1967 though he kept touring with Sutch for a brief while. While all the band had experience in other groups, Fisher was the only one with formal music training.[5] He recalls that "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was originally four verses and ten minutes long, with solos improvised in between by Fisher and Brooker. When it came to recording the song it was cut to two verses and it was decided that Fisher should do all the solos.[6]
Furthermore, he felt, after seeing the sheet music to "A Whiter Shade of Pale", that he deserved a co-composition credit for coming up with the well-known introduction and solo passages throughout the song. Brooker and Reid, who had composed the basic structure of the song before recruiting Fisher, refused.[5]
While "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was an immediate success, reaching number 1 in the UK charts for several weeks, Fisher doesn't recall the time as being a happy one for the band. Intending to be an underground band they were not accustomed to having a hit single, and he was unimpressed with the band's early gigs.
We were top of the bill with Hendrix billed below us. No way were we one tenth as good as him at the time, and the only reason we didn't get booed off was probably that we were Number 1 that week.
Matthew Fisher on the early days of Procol Harum[5]
The arrival of guitarist
Although no longer involved directly in recording and touring, Fisher continued as a producer for the group. After Trower left in 1971 for a solo career, he briefly rejoined the band, with bandmate Chris Copping moving full-time onto bass. He was unhappy with the financial situation of the band, and with Trower's replacement, Dave Ball, and so left again, this time acrimoniously, to become a full-time producer for CBS.[9]
Production
In addition to his work with Procol Harum, he was producer to
Two of the albums he produced for Trower,
Fisher co-wrote and performed on the soundtrack of the 1968 avant-garde film, Separation, which was released on DVD in the UK in July, 2009 and in the US in March, 2010. Fisher's instrumental "Theme From Separation" on his album Journey's End is from that film, and the soundtrack also included an alternate arrangement of the piece for Hammond, bass and harpsichord.[14]
Fisher co-produced an album by the group
Later career
Fisher quit Procol Harum in 1969 after the release of their third album,
Having studied computer programming at Wolfson College, Cambridge and graduating in 1995, Fisher became a full-time computer programmer, writing databases.[15][16]
Songwriting credits
In 2006, the High Court found Fisher to be joint-author and co-owner of Procol Harum's song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by virtue of his contribution to the song in the form of his organ solo, despite waiting nearly 40 years since its release to make a claim. Fisher won the case on 20 December 2006 but was awarded 40% of the composers' share of the music copyright, rather than the 50% he was seeking and was not granted royalties prior to 2005.[17]
References
- ISBN 9780634066931.
- ISBN 978-0-8571-2595-8.
- ^ Campbell, Duncan (14 November 2006). "Skipping the fandango in court 56". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
- ^ a b Johansen 2001, pp. 64–66
- ^ a b c d Johansen 2001, pp. 73–77
- ^ Johansen 2001, p. 66
- ^ Johansen 2001, p. 90
- ^ Johansen 2001, p. 100
- ^ Johansen 2001, p. 141
- ^ Ravnaas, Jens Anders; Clare, Roland. "Index to Fisher solo albums". Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
- ^ Ravnaas, Jens Anders; Clare, Roland. "Fisher in the Greek radio charts". Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
- ^ "Certification Criteria". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on 29 December 2005. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
- ^ Ravnaas, Jens Anders; Clare, Roland. "David Lanz, pianist". Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale.
- ^ Ravnaas, Jens Anders; Clare, Roland. "Matthew Fisher on the Separation soundtrack". Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
- ^ Campbell, Duncan (15 November 2006). "Procol Harum star looks back with regret". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
- ^ Ravnaas, Jens Anders; Clare, Roland (23 February 2001). "Air of unreality". Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
- ^ "Organist wins Procol Harum battle". BBC News. 20 December 2006.
Sources
- Johansen, Claes (2001). Procol Harum: Beyond The Pale. SAF Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9780946719280.
External links
- MatthewFisher.com
- Matthew Fisher's fan page – at procolharum.com
- Matthew Fisher at Discogs