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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Somewhere |
| 2. I Apologise |
| 3. No Other Love |
| 4. Some Enchanted Evening (1998 Digital Remaster) |
| 5. That Means A Lot |
| 6. Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) |
| 7. Maria=duplicate |
| 8. Hold Me=duplicate |
| 9. Together |
| 10. Don't Worry Baby |
| 11. You've Come Back |
| 12. To Make A Big Man Cry (1998 Digital Remaster) |
| 13. I Can't Make It Alone (2003 Digital Remaster) |
| 14. You Can't Come Home Again (If You Leave Me Now) |
| 15. Question |
| 16. It's Your Day Today |
| 17. Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu |
Product Description
1-Somewhere 2-I Apologise 3-Let The Water Run Down 4-No Other Love 5-Some Enchanted Evening 6-That Means A Lot 7-Whatever Will Be Will Be 8-Maria 9-Hold Me 10-Together 11-Don't Worry Baby 12-You've Come Back 13-Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart 14-To Make A Big Man Cry 15-I Can#t Make It Alone 16-You Can't Come Home Again 17-Question 18-It's Your Day Today 19-The Day That Lorraine Came Down 20-Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (1998/EMI) 20 tracks 1964-68
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
P J Proby (born James Marcus Smith) had the raw talent to be hailed as a megastar across the world but he also had an uncanny knack of creating problems for himself. After failing to establish himself in his American homeland, Jack Good of Liberty records took him to the UK, where he had a string of hits, some of which also charted in America though he never made any real impact there. P J is generally remembered as a balladeer but he could rock too.
Following three UK top ten hits (all covers of old songs) beginning in the summer of 1964, he looked set for a long run of success when he did a live show in which his trousers split. In view of this episode, it is slightly amusing to read the titles of his first five UK hits in sequence. The first three (Hold me, Together, Somewhere) were followed by another cover (I apologise), which just missed the UK top ten. Next came another top twenty hit (Let the water run down) followed by a top thirty hit (That means a lot). Of these singles, Hold me was his biggest hit but Somewhere (a cover of the West side story classic) is the song the P J is best remembered for.
Following those singles, P J covered another West side story song (Maria), which became his fourth and last UK top ten hit. His UK chart history is completed by four lesser hits (You've come back, To make a big man cry, I can't make it alone, It's your day today), the last of these being in early 1968.
All these hits are here together with several other songs that show just how talented P J was. I should just warn those unfamiliar with his music that his covers were sometimes a bit over the top - not everybody will appreciate his versions of Somewhere and Maria - but this was the sixties, remember. Think of Phil Spector's Christmas album, in which classic songs were given a sixties production. After a slow start, that collection is now regarded as a classic. P J's music has not achieved the same status, for whatever reason, but he should have done. If only he hadn't split those trousers - we can just wonder what might have been.
P J has continued to perform, sometimes in musicals, more recently touring with the Troggs and Herman's Hermits. He also continues to record albums but you must check his official website for those.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Jim Proby lies somewhere between the 2nd & 3rd Divisions of rock history, and that's one darn tootlin' shame. He should have been much bigger.
Proby was always a major image star, but, music first, virtually every hit he had is on here & some remain excellent. There's a few album tracks, too, and no remixes, thank God. It's as it was in the 60's.
Jim Proby dripped style,languid grace and arrogance. Until he got on stage! Then he flowed all that & more! Unlike a number of 60's beat era stars, Proby was usually white-hot on stage.
There was little point being either an upcoming act or another established star on his tour packages. If Jim was on form,as he usually was,the rest might as well have adjourned to the snug of the Red Lion for two halves of bitter & a packet of crisps for all the audience reaction they would get!
So, why did Jim not become a God of rock? Not because all his major hits were old tunes, Maria & Somewhere were only 6/7 years old,Let the Water Run Down was no more than 3, and his radical reinterpretation of 30's Big Crosby tunes Hold Me & I Apologize still sound fresh and exciting 43 and 42 years on respectively.
He also did have trouble at one stage getting correctly-fitting strides,of course. But, as everyone will tell you,even in 1964/5,the ONLY bad publicity was NO publicity!
There were two reasons Jim comparatively faded away, undeservedly or not. One was the fact he always did covers & never wrote his own songs. In that era,only the Walker Brothers & Dusty Springfield were the same, but Scott "I'm a moody bastard/God's Gift and don't I know it" Engel and his poetic voice and black sweaters, and Dusty's eyelashes were handy gimmicks, as was Mr Engel's later-revealed solo songwriting abilities, and Dusty's real feel for soul, blues and folk. By not writing his own songs, Jim just never quite moved on in what he could perform.
The other reason-that first single-Hold Me. It is still as mental now as the first time I heard it, aged 12, in 1964. Intense and classy, threatening to burst from excess of one of those, if not excess of both, as Jim so often was-but HOW could you adequately follow it?
For all the flaws, or not, finally, add this to your collection, I urge you-that melifluous and epic voice and attitude are shot right through this. It's never too late to give true class it's due recognition.
Proby was always a major image star, but, music first, virtually every hit he had is on here & some remain excellent. There's a few album tracks, too, and no remixes, thank God. It's as it was in the 60's.
Jim Proby dripped style,languid grace and arrogance. Until he got on stage! Then he flowed all that & more! Unlike a number of 60's beat era stars, Proby was usually white-hot on stage.
There was little point being either an upcoming act or another established star on his tour packages. If Jim was on form,as he usually was,the rest might as well have adjourned to the snug of the Red Lion for two halves of bitter & a packet of crisps for all the audience reaction they would get!
So, why did Jim not become a God of rock? Not because all his major hits were old tunes, Maria & Somewhere were only 6/7 years old,Let the Water Run Down was no more than 3, and his radical reinterpretation of 30's Big Crosby tunes Hold Me & I Apologize still sound fresh and exciting 43 and 42 years on respectively.
He also did have trouble at one stage getting correctly-fitting strides,of course. But, as everyone will tell you,even in 1964/5,the ONLY bad publicity was NO publicity!
There were two reasons Jim comparatively faded away, undeservedly or not. One was the fact he always did covers & never wrote his own songs. In that era,only the Walker Brothers & Dusty Springfield were the same, but Scott "I'm a moody bastard/God's Gift and don't I know it" Engel and his poetic voice and black sweaters, and Dusty's eyelashes were handy gimmicks, as was Mr Engel's later-revealed solo songwriting abilities, and Dusty's real feel for soul, blues and folk. By not writing his own songs, Jim just never quite moved on in what he could perform.
The other reason-that first single-Hold Me. It is still as mental now as the first time I heard it, aged 12, in 1964. Intense and classy, threatening to burst from excess of one of those, if not excess of both, as Jim so often was-but HOW could you adequately follow it?
For all the flaws, or not, finally, add this to your collection, I urge you-that melifluous and epic voice and attitude are shot right through this. It's never too late to give true class it's due recognition.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
That was a joke-R.I P in his case stands for "Ripped 'Is Pants"! Or just plain RIP!
The man who once challenged Tom Jones to a Vocal Battle on stage-which the Welshman ignored-probably had every right to do.After all removing Proby from the ABC circuit left it wide open for Jones to become a star!
The American singer made his own rules.His first recordings were made in the States for the Design label under the name of Jett Powers his next for Liberty including a song called Wicked Women which Jack Good played to the Beatles when he brought the man over for the TV show Around the Beatles.For this disc the recently christened P J Proby-courtesy of songwroter Sharon Sheeley-became Orville Woods and passed himself off as a black singer.John Lennon apparantly believed it WAS a black singer!
So after his appearance on the Beatles show he signed to Decca conveniently forgetting he was signed to Liberty (mainly as a songwriter).
This was another side of Proby-he had at least middling success with songs like Ain't gonna kiss you-which had about 6 versions out the biggest of which was the one by the Searchers-and Clown Shoes recorded by Johnny Burnette a fellow Liberty artist.
For Decca he decided to copy the Beatles and why not? Hold me-a song previously made by Dick Haymes-began the run of hits into at least 1967 when Proby recorded a string of covers-some of which were straight versions rather than Merseybeat stylings like his 2 Decca singles.Which is the proof he made his own rules but whether his version of I apologise had anything to do with the pant splitting episode depends on what his idea was in choosing this title!
Because of Proby's success in the U K the Walker Brothers were next to arrive and begin a few years of hit making
He cut a number of albums all on Liberty and during this time had just one hit in the States-Niki Hoeky,written by the guys who would become Redbone in the 70s and were said to be genuine Red Indians.
Proby was of course his own worst enemy and his biggest problem was drink as well as a number of marital disasters.
A wonder a book hasn't been written by now
The man who once challenged Tom Jones to a Vocal Battle on stage-which the Welshman ignored-probably had every right to do.After all removing Proby from the ABC circuit left it wide open for Jones to become a star!
The American singer made his own rules.His first recordings were made in the States for the Design label under the name of Jett Powers his next for Liberty including a song called Wicked Women which Jack Good played to the Beatles when he brought the man over for the TV show Around the Beatles.For this disc the recently christened P J Proby-courtesy of songwroter Sharon Sheeley-became Orville Woods and passed himself off as a black singer.John Lennon apparantly believed it WAS a black singer!
So after his appearance on the Beatles show he signed to Decca conveniently forgetting he was signed to Liberty (mainly as a songwriter).
This was another side of Proby-he had at least middling success with songs like Ain't gonna kiss you-which had about 6 versions out the biggest of which was the one by the Searchers-and Clown Shoes recorded by Johnny Burnette a fellow Liberty artist.
For Decca he decided to copy the Beatles and why not? Hold me-a song previously made by Dick Haymes-began the run of hits into at least 1967 when Proby recorded a string of covers-some of which were straight versions rather than Merseybeat stylings like his 2 Decca singles.Which is the proof he made his own rules but whether his version of I apologise had anything to do with the pant splitting episode depends on what his idea was in choosing this title!
Because of Proby's success in the U K the Walker Brothers were next to arrive and begin a few years of hit making
He cut a number of albums all on Liberty and during this time had just one hit in the States-Niki Hoeky,written by the guys who would become Redbone in the 70s and were said to be genuine Red Indians.
Proby was of course his own worst enemy and his biggest problem was drink as well as a number of marital disasters.
A wonder a book hasn't been written by now
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
WHAT A GREAT CD!!!!
I LOVE THIS CD. IT TAKES ME BACK AND THE SONGS ARE STILL GOOD TO LISTEN TO.
P.J. PROBY IS APPRENTLY STILL PERFORMING. ALL SONGS ARE MIXTURE OF TEMPO. Read more
P.J. PROBY IS APPRENTLY STILL PERFORMING. ALL SONGS ARE MIXTURE OF TEMPO. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sandi
An Introduction to PJ
Great overview but EMI need to reissue the earlier double CD anthology or issue a box set
Published on 16 Dec 2007 by Mr Frank Lee Bland
'The Man With The Unique Style'
P.J. Proby is not the kind of singer that will appeal to everyone. His rather dramatic and at time overblown style of singing is likely to lead listeners into either the love or... Read more
Published on 29 Nov 2007 by Antony May
The Man Who Would be "The King" - music from Proby
P.J. Proby, the man who outsung but never came close to outselling Elvis, has a selection of songs presented here from his "classic years" with Liberty. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2000
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