Praising PJ in the Daytime

Just when I thought Scott Walker and Lee Hazlewood were my two favorite male singers of the 1960s, I've lately been reassessing the work of PJ Proby whom I once dismissed as a light-weight equal to Bobby Sherman. But this amazing clip -- from German or Dutch TV (not clear from the mumbled intros) -- proves the range of Texan. From Motown to crooner, PJ and the visuals here give us mid- and late 1960s converging in a glorious way.

PJ was always more popular in Europe than the US, and maybe that's because you wouldn't expect someone who looks the way his does in this clip moving and sounding like that. To me, at least, that's what makes it so wonderful. That ballad that takes up the second half of the clip is an especially pleasantly bizarre mix for a soup. It as if Charles Manson is channeling Judy at Carnegie Hall with Phil Spector producing the whole beautiful mess.

Besides appearing with the Beatles and the Yardbirds, he was better known for how he managed to pour himself in tight pants that often split on stage as a part of his act.

It reminds me of some back and forth emails this week about entertainers in the 1960s, ranging from Mrs. Miller to Tiny Tim who are easily dismissed as novelty acts but were a wonderful mix of the weird, sublime, silly and prophetic. PJ was certainly more than a novelty act and not typically southern. I'll add him to my list with Scott, Lee and -- of course -- Tony Joe White who forever enriched our culture with "Polk Salad Annie" and the class line "gator got your granny".

Just When I Thought...

...I had all things Lee and Nancy at my fingertips, I discover this. While the tune itself has been in my library for decades, I'd never seen this video of it. Wonderfully sedate production values, and the walking down the street is just spot on. However, I'd have Lee hop in the convertible with Junior in my version. Unless I was behind the wheel, and then it would be hard to decide which one I'd want to drive off with. For very different reasons with both.

Autumn, Cake or Death

I began this year by discovering the increasingly obscure tracks of Scott Walker and am ending it by doing the same with Lee Hazlewood who died earlier this year. I am nearing the point of being a completist with both. After growing up drawn to almost any female songwriter or chanteuse, I seem to keep finding my influences to be increasingly male in recent years.

Though I've been vaguely aware of most of Lee's songs through the years and had a number of his discs, I'm not sure why I never heard this tune, perhaps because its near perfect lyric would not speak to me so directly as it now does and was ringing in my head as I snapped today's shots above:

Kiss all the pretty ones goodbye
Give everyone a penny that cry
You can throw all my tranquil' pills away
Let my blood pressure go on its way
For my autumn's done come
My autumn's done come. Done come

Let those 'I-don't-care-days' begin
I'm tired of holdin' my stomach in
No more slinky folk dollars for me
I'll take Sears & Roebuck dollars gladly
For my autumn's done come
My autumn's done come. Done come

Bring me water short and scotch tall
A big long black cigar that ain't all
Hang me a hammock between two big trees
Leave me alone, damned! Let me do as I please
For my autumn's done come
My autumn's done come. Done come