PJ Proby
 Texan
vocalist P.J Proby (born James Marcus Smith) became an overnight
sensation in Britain when Jack Good
brought him and his
pudding-bowl haircut over in 1963 to appear on a TV special.
His specialties were re-vamped old show tunes like Hold Me
and mutilations of screen hits like Somewhere and Maria
(both from West Side Story).
By the mid 60s, Proby's stage outfits were reaching Tom Jones
levels of tightly fitting suggestiveness.
Then, during a show on
29 January 1965 at Croydon's Castle Hall - opening for Cilla Black
- the singer's velvet trousers split from knee to crotch.
The (mainly female) audience went crazy with Proby telling the
suspicious press it was all an unfortunate accident.
When it happened again on 31 January at Luton's Ritz Cinema,
credulity was stretched and the tabloids smelled a rat. The next
day Proby was banned by the ABC Theatre group.
The next week, ATV
did the same, with the BBC soon following. Proby was now unable to
perform anywhere in the UK.
A single, titled I Apologise, was rush-released to
capitalise on the publicity, and despite the lack of airplay,
reached Number 11 in the UK charts. Proby subsequently succumbed
to tax problems, bankruptcy, alcoholism and - inevitably - a spell
as a poverty-stricken stable-hand near Haworth, West Yorkshire.
In 1987, after hooking up with Mancunian label Savoy Records,
he was involved in further shame after recording a fake Madonna
duet called Hardcore which, The Star claimed,
"glorifies sex with young girls". The track opened with
the jaw-dropping line: "There aint no such thing as rape/When
you're wearing a Superman cape".
He resurfaced in 1997 with the single Yesterday Has Gone,
a collaboration with Marc Almond, followed by a solo album, Legend.
In the same year, Blur's Country Sad Ballad Man detailed
his earlier lifestyle of reclusive dissolution.
|
