She'll Grow Back: Stagger Lee Saturdays - P. J. Proby

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Stagger Lee Saturdays - P. J. Proby

P. J. Proby is a Texas-born musician who never hit it big in the US, but had a pretty sizable career in the UK. He had a unique (some say daring) vocal style, and worked with The Beatles. His sister dated Elvis Presley, and since his heyday, P. J. has performed shows in tribute to Elvis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. Sadly, these days he's in some legal trouble with the British authorities, for making money on tour though he was also receiving government benefits.

In 1965, at the height of his fame, he released his balls-out (no pun intended) version of Stag as a B-side. He's also recorded it live since then, but I don't have it so I'm not uploading it. The buy link is, once again, more wishful thinking.




2 comments:

CD said...

He sounds like a male Tina Turner to me for some reason.

Mark H. Besotted said...

He has the same rock-n-roll attitude, yeah. While I was researching this, I came across a big torrent that contained all his covers, plus the originals that inspired them. Whoever put it together didn't do their homework, since they used Ike and Tina's version to illustrate the "original" of this song. Granted, I can see the vocal resemblance, but their "classic" version of the song, the one where Stag shoots Billy, wasn't released in '65.

Sorry bout the "no-new-post" thing this week. In the long run, it'll be worth it though.