A Salty Dog has an ostensibly nautical theme, as indicated by its cover (a pastiche of the famous Player's Navy Cut cigarette pack). Interspersed with straight rock, blues and pop items, A Salty Dog showed a slight change of direction from its predecessors, being thematically less obscure. The title track itself was the first Procol track to use an orchestra, as would be referred to in the live album performance released some three years later.

The album was the first record produced by Matthew Fisher, who quit the band soon after its release. This was also the last Procol Harum album to feature bass guitarist Dave Knights.

Background and recording

A Salty Dog was recorded in March 1969. The musical tensions between the group and Robin Trower were beginning to show in this album, and although his guitar sound remains integral to most of the tracks, "Crucifiction Lane" (featuring a rare Trower vocal), in retrospect, shows that Trower was already moving in a different direction from the rest of the band. Still, this album is much more musically varied than the two previous albums, with three Fisher vocals and one by Trower. Many of the instruments the band used on A Salty Dog had been previously used on albums by the Beatles and the Shadows.^[2]

Release

A Salty Dog was released in the US in April 1969 by the record label A&M, and June 1969 in the UK by record label Regal Zonophone. The title track, backed with "Long Gone Geek", reached number 44 in the UK Singles Chart in 1969 and the album itself number 27 in the Albums Chart.^[3] In Canada, the album reached #25.^[4]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[5]

When Gary Brooker first played Keith Reid's lyrics of "A Salty Dog" on the piano for the benefit of B.J. Wilson, the room was filled with sunlight shining through the windows. Wilson, with a sunbeam on his face, told Brooker he thought "it was the most beautiful song he had ever heard."^[6] John Mendelson, writing for Rolling Stone, called it "a confusing album. At its best it represents the group's greatest success to date with the brand of rock for which the group is known; at its worst it is both surprisingly mediocre and trivial".^[7] Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic in The Village Voice, giving it an "A+",^[8] although he later said the printed grade was "a mistake" and should have probably been a "B+".^[9]

In a retrospective review, Bruce Eder of AllMusic wrote, "This album, the group's third, was where they showed just how far their talents extended across the musical landscape, from blues to R&B to classical rock. In contrast to their hastily recorded debut, or its successor, done to stretch their performance and composition range", calling the title track "one of the finest songs ever to come from Procol Harum and one of the best pieces of progressive rock ever heard".^[10]

Track listing

Side A
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"A Salty Dog"	Gary Brooker, Keith Reid	4:41
2.	"The Milk of Human Kindness"	Brooker, Reid	3:47
3.	"Too Much Between Us"	Brooker, Robin Trower, Reid	3:45
4.	"The Devil Came from Kansas"	Brooker, Reid	4:38
5.	"Boredom"	Matthew Fisher, Brooker, Reid	4:34

Side B
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Juicy John Pink"	Robin Trower, Reid	2:08
2.	"Wreck of the Hesperus"	Fisher, Reid	3:49
3.	"All This and More"	Brooker, Reid	3:52
4.	"Crucifiction Lane"	Robin Trower, Reid	5:03
5.	"Pilgrim's Progress"	Fisher, Reid	4:32

1999 reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
11.	"Long Gone Geek" (B-side of the single release of "A Salty Dog"^[11])
12.	"All This And More"
13.	"The Milk of Human Kindness" (Instrumental Version)
14.	"Pilgrim's Progress" (Instrumental Version)
15.	"McGreggor" (previously unreleased track, originally intended for Shine On Brightly^[12])
16.	"Still There'll Be More"

2009 reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
11.	"Long Gone Geek"	Reid, Brooker, Fisher	3:20
12.	"Goin' Down Slow" (Live in the USA, April 1969)	James B. Oden	7:56
13.	"Juicy John Pink" (Live in the USA, April 1969)	Robin Trower, Reid	2:37
14.	"Crucifiction Lane" (Live in the USA, April 1969)	Trower, Reid	4:34
15.	"Skip Softly (My Moonbeams) / Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Live in the USA, April 1969)	Brooker, Reid, Richard Strauss	5:26
16.	"The Milk of Human Kindness" (Take 1; Raw Track)	Brooker, Reid	3:51

Personnel

Procol Harum

Gary Brooker – lead vocals (1–4, 6, 8), piano, celeste, three-stringed guitar, bells, harmonica, wood recorder, orchestral arrangements (1, 8)
Robin Trower – lead and acoustic guitars, lead vocals (9), sleigh tambourine
Matthew Fisher – organ, lead vocals (5, 7, 10), marimba, rhythm and acoustic guitars, piano, recorder, orchestral arrangements (7), production
Dave Knights – bass
B. J. Wilson – drums, conga drums, tabla
John "Kellogs" Kalinowski – bosun's whistle, refreshments
Keith Reid – lyrics

Technical

Ken Scott – engineering (1–5, 8–10)
Ian Stuart - engineering (6)
Henry Lewy – engineering (7)
Dickinson – front cover art

References

External links

Procol Harum

Procol Harum
Gary Brooker Geoff Dunn Matt Pegg Josh Phillips Geoff Whitehorn Dave Ball Graham Broad Dave Bronze Pete Brown Mark Brzezicki Alan Cartwright Chris Copping Laurence Cottle Matthew Fisher Mick Grabham Bobby Harrison David Knights Dee Murray Keith Reid Tim Renwick Ray Royer Don Snow Peter Solley Henry Spinetti Jerry Stevenson Robin Trower Ian Wallace B. J. Wilson
Studio albums	Procol Harum Shine On Brightly A Salty Dog Home Broken Barricades Grand Hotel Exotic Birds and Fruit Procol's Ninth Something Magic The Prodigal Stranger The Well's on Fire Novum
Live albums	Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra Live at the Union Chapel Procol Harum – In Concert with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and Choir Some Long Road
As Liquorice John Death	Ain't Nothin' to Get Excited About
Songs	"A Whiter Shade of Pale" "Homburg" "A Salty Dog" "Conquistador"
Related articles	Discography Members The Paramounts The Long Goodbye

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