Glossary entry for
Proby, P. J.

Born James Marcus Smith on November 6th, 1938 at Herman Hospital in Houston, Texas, P. J. Proby was a singer who had a strong following in Britain in the 1960s, and apparently still performs. Based on the following brief excerpt from his Official Homepage, he was quite a visionary:

P.J. was known for his exhausting visional stage performances. It was one of these performances on January 29th, 1965 at Fairfield Hall, Croydon in London that Proby who was the first male ever to wear his hair in a Pony Tail in the last century at least, burst out of his skin tight velvet bellbottoms doing his act based on the coloured shows he had been used to attending in the rougher areas of Downtown L. A.

He explained to the frantic press that the ripped clothing was an accident due to the weak velvet material, but when two days later the same thing again happened, the audiences were wild with excitement, as they had never witnessed such body movement onstage nor such provocative mood and they loved him. However the British system that govern the music scene were less enthusiastic. Jim was banned from all theatres in Great Britain and not allowed to perform his recordings on the B.B.C. or A.T.V. television stations.

And P. J. Proby's response? According to his official homepage, he says: "Hi Van. Thanks for the song title. If you find out whatever happened to me - could you please let me know. regards P.J."

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Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website