October 16, 2008 Earworm

Growing weary of the slice and dice of post-debate polls, I re-adjusted the positions of three dogs and rolled over onto my side while wrestling up enough covers to cover my bottom. Encountering a face that I've watched change for sixteen years, I had the good fortunate to experience the sort of heart swelling feeling of appreciation that explains big sweeping ballads like Jackie DeShannon's version of "I Can Make It With You" and Claude Rains in "Mr. Skeffington".

And then a terrier twitched her tail and soiled the air.

But I still have Jackie, perhaps paying homage to her friend P.J. Proby, and what I consider the best version of "I Can Make It With You". Oh, and "Mr. Skeffington", too.

August 21, 2008 Earworm

It's not as though I'm trying to start a revival but...

I woke up singing P.J. Proby's crowning U.S. chart achievement, "Niki Hoeky", this morning. Leave it to Proby to do this with an ode to marijuana. Not that I would know this without having been told because it's all jibberish to me. That is probably why I can enjoy it without craving a brownie.

Pat and Lolly Vegas, the composers, would go on to form Redbone and P.J., of course, would continue on with his usual shenanigans.

July 21, 2008 Earworm

After a maddening couple of hours fighting with Roxio and digging deeper into exe files than someone as clueless as I should ever dig, my digital world is back on track and I the finer things in life can be the focus before drifting off to sleep. Thankfully, the new P.J. Proby compilation has arrived and I can confirm that the good folks at EMI UK have done a fine job. The long awaited digital version of "Just Like Him" sounds gorgeous and forty-some year old 45s can now get a long deserved rest.

P.J.'s buddy, Jackie DeShannon, wrote "Just Like Him" just for him - maybe as consolation for losing the girl he stole from Elvis to Bob Colbert. For me, "Just Like Him" is a chance to play a variation of Barbie; dressing P.J. in various outfits and placing him in different settings where he can stroll forlornly with an occasional scanning of the heavens in search of answers never forthcoming. My favorite locale is on a beach in the fading hours of the boardwalk, giving him an opportunity to come upon a nearly deserted bandstand where he stops to watch couples dancing from sheer boredom. Clinging to each other out of desperation, their feet try to do right by that breath-taking string section that shines like the stars in the sky during the middle eight.

Jackie DeShannon was never short on lyrical romance and P.J. never passed up on drama and putting them together created cinematic fodder for my childish fantasies of happy endings. That I've had a crush on her for as long as I can remember and a bizarre fascination with him for nearly a decade allows me to widen the screen to Cinemascope proportions and saturate the color until their as vivid as the hope in P.J.'s final "...just like him" at the fade out.

Sticking around for the credits reminds me that major respect should be given to the somewhat unsung producer, Ron Richards, best known as the man who discovered The Hollies and as the probable producer of the LP version of "Love Me Do"; the pale faced English guy clearly stakes a claim in the beginnings of soul, both black and blue-eyed, with this record. Jack Nitzsche has been suspected of being the uncredited arranger and even though it doesn't quite fit anyone's travel schedule, the strings certainly fit Jack.

June 24, 2008 Earworm

Just a quickie since it's been that kind of day. 'Still waiting for Amazon to deliver my brand spanking new P.J. Proby compilation and all I can hear is "Let The Water Run Down". I imagine him loose in my home and running amok like a velvet trousered hamster in an elaborate tunnel of lust obstacle course. And there's the tiniest silk bow on his tail...

"I'm alright!"

May 19, 2008 Earworm

As P.J. Proby's UK success wound down, he scored a surprise US hit in '67 with the funky Pat and Lolly Vegas song, "Niki Hokey". Climbing to #23, it was his best showing in his native land but, unfortunately, it would be his last. Liberty Records - lacking foresight - probably thought that they'd finally discovered what it was that the US would accept from him and released a rather pedestrian cover of Hank Ballard's "Work With Me Annie" backed with the menacing "You Can't Come Home Again (If You Leave Me Now". Disc jockeys began to play the former but, when Proby was cooking, he sounded as though he were singing with his erection as a microphone and even a pedestrian cover of "Work With Me Annie" comes across as too lascivious. With little lyrical content to work with, P.J. sounds as though he was looking for relief from blue balls and it was probably too much for listeners. If someone would have flipped the record over, it may have fared better than it's #119 peak because "You Can't Come Home Again..." showcases exactly what Proby was; the sordidly soiled link between the heretic hip swiveling of the young Presley and the panty catching posturing of Tom Jones.

Proby could have been a god, but...

To experience: PJ Proby

One of the hottest jets to ever power out of Houston