Procol Harum royalties battle continues

A FORMER Procol Harum member continued his legal battle to claim royalty rights to their most famous song.

Organist Matthew Fisher took his royalties appeal to the to London's House of Lords yesterday (23Apr09) after a lengthy dispute over the publishing credits.

Fisher argued he had co-written the band's hit song A Whiter Shade of Pale and should be entitled to royalties as a result. He lost a legal battle against frontman Gary Brooker last year, after an appeals court handed the singer full royalty rights.

Fisher is now appealing against the ruling at the highest level, and hopes the case will finally be resolved, because it has caused him so much anguish over the years.

And he admitted he now regrets ever joining the band because the long-running legal battle with his former bandmates has "crippled" him.

He said, "Gary's built a career out of taking credit for my work - or that's how it seems to me. I wish I'd never met Keith (Reid, lyricist) and him. I wish I'd never written that tune and I wish I'd never joined the band.

"I wished I'd gone and done something else, because I was good and I would have succeeded if I'd been in a band who appreciated me. Instead, this eating away at me all those years crippled me. It acted as a death blow to my confidence."