P.J. Proby — “Three Week Hero”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — April 24, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,186) P.J. Proby — “Three Week Hero”

Yesterday we heard from a rock star despairing over his fans wanting him to be God and bemoaning that the more he gave, the more people asked of him. Today we hear from a “three week” sensation who finds to his dismay that “I’m no longer mobbed cause my last two records bombed and I squandered all the money that I had.” Wild man P.J. Proby’s ‘69 B-side “opens with a blues riff . . . and then P.J. in a cod country voice sings, ‘I’m a three week hero, I started with a zero, And I sold a million records on my own.'” (Spencer Leigh, https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/06/pj-proby-three-weeks-hero-1969-uk.html) It’s a hoot. And to top it all off, “Hero” comes from a P.J. Proby LP backed and arranged by John Paul Jones, who was assisted by his friends Jimmy Page, John Bonham and Robert Plant (though only on harmonica) shortly before their first live performance as Led Zeppelin!

Spencer Leigh gives us some background on the LP:

Steve Rowland . . . . formed a group with session singers and musicians including Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood and called them the Family Dogg. They had a Top 10 hit in 1969 with ‘A Way Of Life’. Rowland, an American in England like Proby, became friendly with him and agreed to produce his next album . . . . He asked the Family Dogg to be backing vocalists . . . . [and] recruited Jimmy Page . . . John Paul Jones . . . and their new friends, Robert Plant . . . and John Bonham . . . to accompany him. . . . John Paul Jones wrote most of the arrangements. Although the album is now regarded as P.J.Proby backed by Led Zeppelin, the only track on which they really sound like that is ‘Jim’s Blues’. Three Week Hero is a schizophrenic, even quadrophrenic, album. It has no idea of its market . . . . . [It] was released in October 1969 and sold miserably.

https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/06/pj-proby-three-weeks-hero-1969-uk.html

Richard Metzger adds:

[John Paul] Jones asked if he could bring in his own group for the session, thinking it would serve as a rehearsal of sorts before they went into the studio themselves and Rowland agreed. Jones told Chris Welch: “I was committed to doing all the arrangements for the album. As we were talking about rehearsing at the time, I thought it would be a handy source of income. I had to book a band anyway, so I thought I’d book everybody I knew.” It’s not known exactly when the two-day recording commenced, but August 25th, 1968 is probably the correct date, and would mark the very first time that Led Zeppelin, then still-known as The New Yardbirds, would enter a recording studio together.

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_album_led_zeppelin_recorded_before_led_zeppelin

P.J. himself recalls (in conversation with Corbin at the Finding Zoso: Discovering the Music of Jimmy Page website:

About 1968, a friend of mine from Hollywood, Steve Roland had come over to London and had done pretty well as a producer for . . . Dave, Dee Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. So I went down to Steve and asked him to produce my next album, EMI wanted one out now. . . . [H]e said, “I’ll put a band together for you.” So when I got to the studio that day, there was what they called, “The New Yardbirds”. There was Jimmy Page . . . and John Bonham and another guy Paul Jones and Albert Lee. Anyway, we recorded that album, I think it was in two days. We even undershot, we recorded it with about thirty-five minutes left over, and so Roland yelled down, “Why don’t you all busket? We shouldn’t waste the studio time.” I told the boys, “Y’all start picking and I’ll write as you pick.” So the three last numbers on the album, “It’s So Hard to Be a N*gger/Jim’s Blues/George Wallace is Rollin’ in This Mornin’”, I just made up as the boys played. Afterwards, I said, “Man, y’all did a terrific job. I’ve got some tours coming up, would you back me?” They said, “We’d love to, we’ll be your backing band, but first we’ve got two obligations we’ve got to honour in California[“] . . . . The boys told me they were going over to play in San Francisco and all that, and I said, “Look, from what I’ve heard and the way you boys played tonight, not only are you not going to be my backing band, I’m going to say goodbye right now, because I don’t think I’m ever going to see you again. That’s how successful you’re going to be. You’re exactly what they want, you play all that psychedelic stuff and everything. . . . You’re going to go over there and go down so great I don’t think you’re ever going to come home.”

https://findingzoso.blogspot.com/2012/09/pj-proby-interview-part-two.html

As to P.J., Steve Huey tells us:

Born and mostly raised in Texas, rock & roller P.J. Proby never really hit it big in his homeland, but his trouser-busting stage antics helped make him a genuine pop star in England at the height of the British Invasion. . . . [I]n late 1963, Proby met British producer Jack Good, who happened to be putting together a TV special on the Beatles that was to feature several other up-and-coming artists. Proby’s demo tape impressed . . . Brian Epstein enough for him to make the cut, and Good outfitted Proby as an aristocratic fop, complete with ponytail, frilly shirt, tight velvet pants, and buckled shoes. After the special aired worldwide, Proby’s first British single, “Hold Me” . . . rocketed into the U.K. Top Five in early 1964. Proby’s next two singles, “Together” and West Side Story’s “Somewhere,” took a similar tack, and both reached the British Top Ten as well. In early 1965, Proby was booked as part of a package tour, and on one of the London dates in late January, his pants ripped open from the knee all the way up. Proby claimed it was an accident, but when the same thing happened at the next show (much to the audience’s delight), the censors descended and banned Proby from performing on television or in theaters. . . . Proby . . . scor[ed] another Top Ten hit with another West Side Story cover, “Maria,” in late 1965. . . . The lack of promotional opportunities began to hurt Proby’s chart placements, though, and he was also beset with financial problems. He attempted to crack the American market in 1967 and actually did land a Top 40 hit with “Niki Hoeky[.]” . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/pj-proby-mn0000000674#biography

Spencer Leigh adds:

P.J. Proby had his run of hits and had wrecked his career by ripping his velvet trousers, perhaps deliberately, on stage. . . . [H]e attributes his wild behaviour as a reaction to the discipline he endured in a military school. He moved to Hollywood and hung out with Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Eddie Cochran. He cut scores of demos and wrote “Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya'” . . . on a hit EP by the Searchers, and “Clown Shoes” for Johnny Burnette. He had had problems with the police and the Revenue in the US [going bankrupt] and he was gratified when Jack Good offered him a guest spot in his UK TV spectacular, Around The Beatles, which was screened in May 1964. Eddie Cochran’s fiancee, Sharon Sheeley, gave him a new name for the show – P.J.Proby, but apart from that, “I created P.J. Proby totally alone. The ponytail, the buckle shoes, the big-sleeved shirts were all me[”] . . . . The TV special drew 8 millions viewers and “Hold Me” which Proby had cut in the UK with . . . Jimmy Page on lead [g]uitar, soared to N.3. Page played a distinctive [g]uitar solo on his follow-up hit, “Together” and he can be heard on several other Proby recordings – “Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart”, “Stagger Lee”, “Linda Lu”, “Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu”, “Let The Water Run Down” and “Hanging From Your Loving Tree”. . . . Proby says that the campaign against him was spearheaded by Mary Whitehouse and that showbusiness moguls wanted him deported as he was an American earning good English money. P.J. Proby’s conspiracy theories are second only to those following Kennedy’s assassination.

https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/06/pj-proby-three-weeks-hero-1969-uk.html

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