Hollywood Rogue

Back to Proby’s Life Story

On arriving in Hollywood in 1957, Jim contacts his old friend from the Hitching Post, Tommy Sands. Tommy is now famous, because of his role on television in the play “Sing, Boy! Sing!” about a rock star like Elvis. It was written for Elvis, who turned it down. Tommy was with Colonel Parker before Elvis and the Colonel owed him one, so Tommy got the part.

Tommy suggests that Jim goes to see the leading vocal coach Lillian Goodman, who trained all the Hollywood Greats from MGM. Jim takes singing lessons with her. First Jim’s father is willing to pay, but that doesn’t last long.
To earn the money to pay Lillian, Jim has to take all kind of jobs,
like doing Lillian’s garden and washing all her cars. He becomes
her odd-job boy and in return she gives him free singing lessons.
Then Jim’s story really begins. And what a story!

In the beginning, Jim lives like a bum, sleeping in friends’
garages or as a hobo in the slums. He is pearl diving and hash
slinging in the daytime (meaning washing dishes and making
hamburgers) and singing or working as a drummer at night.
He even eats at the Midnight Mission sometimes, in return for
a prayer. One of the places where Jim works, slinging
hamburgers, is the Sea Witch on Sunset Boulevard next to
Dean Martin’s restaurant Dino’s. Another place is Mama La
Rosa’s, down the hill on Melrose Boulevard. Here he works
together with Timi Yuro, whose mother owns the place. Jim
and Timi become great friends! Timi is one of the first to get a
contract with Liberty. Through the years Jim always looks her
up in Mama la Rosa’s!

Some enchanted evening in 1958 Jim meets Sharon Sheeley
and Dotty Harmony in Sharon’s house on Fountain Avenue. Sharon Sheeley is already a well-known songwriter at the time (later with partner Jackie De Shannon). She is writing hits for Ricky Nelson (Poor Little Fool) and Eddie Cochran. She’s Eddie Cochran's girlfriend at the time. Jim meets Eddie the next day and they become great friends. They like pickin’ the guitar and having a beer together. Dotty Harmony used to date Elvis around 1956/1957 before he went in the Army. Jim starts dating Dotty the same week after they meet and they move into her trailer a week later. Jim and Dotty become engaged
to be married and write songs together.

Jim’s singing teacher Lillian Goodman introduces him to songwriting Oscar winner Ray Gilbert. Ray takes Jim to the big agents Gaby Lutz, Heller and Loeb, who have names such as Liberace, Kay Starr, Frankie Laine and many others on their books.
Jim is signed up and is named "Jett Powers". Jim takes the name “Jett” from the character Jett Rink in the James Dean film “Giant” and “Powers” comes
from the handsome and versatile actor Tyrone Power.

As Jett Powers, Jim records his own first single which appears on 17 March 1958: “Go, Girl Go!”/”Teenage Quarrel” for Design Label. He writes the
song himself. Listen to this single here on YouTube!
In September 1959 another single follows: Loud Perfume/My Trouble.
From 1958-1959 Jett has his own band The Moondogs, with Elliot Ingberg (who later played in The Mothers of Invention under the name of Elliot
Ingber or Ingbar) on lead guitar, Derry Weaver (rhythm guitar) ,
Larry Taylor (later bass player Canned Heat) and Marshall Lieb
(later to form the Teddy Bears with Phil Spector and later to play bass for
The Everly Brothers). They play in the local clubs. They record two local
hits called 'Moondog' (Powers/Weaver) and 'Mooncat' (Taylor/Weaver).

Jim tries every possibility. Jim also joins a group called “The Mellow Kings” for a while, who had recorded a hit single “Tonight, Tonight”. When the band goes on tour, the lead singer from the record is in jail in New York for assault. They pick Jim up in Hollywood. The guy’s brother Bobby sings lead and Jim’s one of the four doowops behind Bobby.

Jim takes on all kind of jobs. To be near where it is all happening,
he works as a bodyguard for the –mainly gay- movie stars like
Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and the entertainer Liberace. He is
hired by their manager, the Hollywood agent Henry Wilson.
Jim says about this job:
"If I ever heard accusations like ‘Rock is a homosexual’, I was to break
their ankles and kneecaps and I would meet my poor victims
again when they would come out of hospital to break their
limbs once more as a reminder."
Jim also plays a few rolls in B movies and TV westerns like
“Ghosts of Hot Rod Hollow”, “Gunsmoke”, “Wagon Train” and
“Cheyenne”. Sometimes he gets shot within the first five minutes.

Jim’s best friend in those days is Sharon’s boyfriend, rock ‘n’ roller Eddie Cochran, who has already had a lot of hits. On the night of Saturday April 16th 1960, while on tour in the United Kingdom, Cochran dies in a traffic accident in a taxi travelling through Chippenham on the A4. He is 21. The taxi crashes into a lamp post. There is no other car involved. Sharon Sheeley and singer Gene Vincent survive the crash.
This is a terrible shock for the friends.

Despite all the hardship Jim has learned never to give up. He’s got fighting spirit! After his sport training at school, Jim has become very strong. He also enjoys boxing. He likes to have fun and drinks a lot.

Jim has always excelled in sports and loves to play American touch football.
After Elvis comes back from the army and starts filming again in Hollywood, he puts together his own football team in the summer of 1960. They play in the Bel Air park against Ricky Nelson’s Team. Jim plays in Ricky’s team.
They all play rough in jeans and T-shirts. Elvis never wears jeans, since he thinks that’s for poor people. In Elvis’s team are Red West and Sunny West, his bodyguards. On Ricky’s team are
Dan Blocker, the actor that played Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza. (You could always duck behind him.)
Michael Langdon, the guy from Little House On The Prairie and Little Joe in Bonanza.
Jimmy Darren from Time Tunnel,
Jimmy Burton, then Ricky’s and later Elvis guitar player,
Robert Conrad (Jim didn't get along very well with him)
Troy Donahue from Teenage films
Jody Mcrea (son of actor Jim Mcrea)
and Jimmy Mitchum (son of Robert)

Jim is madly in love with Dotty, but then she leaves him for the man who was to become her husband. By the way, Elvis never forgave Jim for stealing his (ex-) girlfriend, when he heard that from Joe Esposito. During the long hot summer of 1961 Dotty marries Bob Colbert of the TV series “Time Tunnel”.

Sharon visits Jim in his appartment room and takes him to producer Dick Glasser at Liberty Records on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She gets
him signed up to Metric Music, the songwriters’ department of Liberty Records. They give Jim a double contract: as a singer and as a songwriter.
He now gets paid 50 dollar a week as an “in house” writer for the songs he writes and has written under his own name James Marcus Smith. He doesn’t write the songs down but he sings them, including the backing instruments. The songs are recorded as demos. In the beginning the songs are too heavy as he writes in the vein of Frank Sinatra. Jim has to learn to lighten up and he learns that from Shari Sheeley. He starts to write songs that are more simple and that even make Elvis sound complicated.

The first commercial song he writes is
a simple three chord song
Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya,
first released by the Ribbons.

In 1963 it’s a big hit for The Searchers in the UK and is then also recorded by Simone Jackson in the UK. (later re-released as The Breakaways and Friends).

Other songs Jim writes are:
- Handsome Guy (1958) for producer Dick Glasser, who
recorded it under the name of Dick Lory.

- In My Dreams (written together
with Dotty Harmony, Cathy Temen and Chuck Fain), a
demo meant for Elvis. Elvis liked it, but turned it down after
he found out who’d written it!
It became a hit for Ricky Nelson.

- I Only Came To Dance With You (1963 Dalton Brothers,
who were later to become the Walker Brothers and the song
was even translated into Dutch and German)

- After Last Night, for the Rev-lons.

- Clown Shoes (1962) for Johnny Burnette
- The Life You Offered Me (for Leroy van Dyke)
Wicked Woman, meant for Ray Charles but performed by himself
In A Moment, which was recorded by the famous country singer
and fiddler Gordon Terry and later by Katy Moffatt.

At Liberty publishers Metric Music, he works alongside
Glen Campbell, Leon Russell and David Gates.
Jim says:
"Every demo I ever did for them had David on bass,
Leon on piano and Glen on guitar. We all did falsetto
backing vocals 'cos Liberty wouldn't hire girls!
You can certainly do a good falsetto, when they pay you.
You'd be surprised how high that voice can go for money!"

At the same time Jim is introduced to Kim Fowley who uses
him in his new group The Hollywood Argyles who score a big
hit with the 1960 Alley Oop. It is said Jim plays the triangle
on that one! Jim takes on every job that brings in some money.

Sharon Sheeley comes up with a better name for Jett Powers:
“P.J. Proby”, after an old boyfriend from Junior High School.
She gets P.J. his first recording contract, in 1960, with Dick Glasser
at Liberty Records.

In 1961 Liberty releases the first P.J.Proby single "Try To Forget
Her" and "There Stands The One" produced by Dick Glasser
with vocal backing by the Johnny Mann singers. Glen Campbell
on guitar, Leon Russell on keyboards, David Gates on bass,
Hal Blane on drums plus a string section.

Jim starts making demos for Ben Weisman and
Ruth Batchelor. They write a lot of songs for Elvis
and the movies and Jim sings them first, so that Elvis can
learn them more easily. He also does a lot of other demos for
other stars like Bobby Vee: The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, etc.
He gets paid 10 dollar for doing a demo.

P.J. Proby starts doing demos for Elvis’ movies at the end of 1961, starting with Kid Galahad. While Elvis is busy shooting his films on set, P.J. is hired to sing the demos of the songs, chosen for Elvis to learn and later record for his films. P.J. sings the songs with real passion. Elvis, when he sings the same numbers, tends to be more laid back. Elvis used to remark to P.J., when on a small club on Sunset
Boulevard together with the rest of the boys, and the singer was putting everything he had into one of his songs: “Chuckle,chuckle... The guy’s tryin’ too hard!” P.J. says: “And ya know somethin’? Lookin’ back at it all now, he was right!” Two P.J. Proby demos of Ben Weisman songs, from the shoots from the movie Fun In Acapulco have been preserved: Fun in Acapulco and Slowly But Surely. Have a look on the Elvis Demo page.
For Ruth Batchelor alone P.J. did 75 demos including 20 demos for Elvis.
For Ben Weisman he did even more. Where have all these treasures gone to?
Ruth Batchelor remembered P.J. as a perfectionist, who could do any voice
he liked. “The man with the Thousand Voices”. She even said he sounded more like Elvis than Elvis himself! You could read the interview with Ruth Batchelor from around 1964/1965 on the Ruth Batchelor Interview Page:

In 1962 Jim decides he will get married. He proposes to Marianne Adams, a schoolgirl he has met at Mama La Rosa’s and they get married in the long hot summer of 1962.
She spends most of the three years they are together, running back and forth to her mother. Jim is very jealous and possessive and won't allow her to dance with other men or go out with her friends.

In 1962, Sharon Sheeley and Jackie de Shannon compose a number and give it to P.J., entitled The Other Side of Town, which is coupled with Watch Me Walk Away, composed by their friend and producer Dick Glasser. The production is very good but Liberty doesn’t do any promotion work on it for P.J.. This is a pattern that will be repeated until P.J. starts his recording career in England.

Jim has a very versatile character and tries everything. He sees the success of the black music and he can do that as well. The black radio stations won’t play white man’s music, so he takes on the name Orville Woods in 1963 and pretends to be black. His single Darlin’/ Wicked Woman does rather good for a while, till Liberty publishes a photo of him and he then gets boycotted!

Around this time PJ drives a Triumph 650cc Bonneville motorbike, that’s customised to look like a Harley Davidson, and he cruises up and down Sunset Boulevard and the streets of Hollywood in his free time. Sometimes he goes together with his friend James Burton, who backed Ricky Nelson - and later Elvis - on guitar. PJ also races the figure 8 Cinder Track in Hollywood Park on his own. PJ likes to impress the girls.

There is a big ‘to do’ about the song Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya, that Jim writes. When Jim first wrote the song he presented it to Metric Music and they turned it down. Jim then gives it to the Ribbons, who record it.
After that, the Metric Music songwriters department sues Lute Records for releasing the song by the Ribbons. Jim refuses to side with Liberty and they stop his cheques, stating he had no right to give the song to someone else.

After making this pilot, not much happens regarding the overseas business. Jim works very hard throughout 1963 doing constant demo work for many top artists. Marianne and Jim are living apart and Jim is now living alone in the Highland Hotel. One night there, he gets the phonecall that is to turn around everything for ever........

When Jack Good went to England in 1963 to produce The Beatles' TV special, he had brought some P.J. demos which impressed Brian Epstein and the Fab Four to the extent that Mrs Moynahan, the head of Redefusion Television, invited P.J. over. He is to participate in the show, which is broadcast world-wide via Telstar satellite. The program is to be named "Around The Beatles", with a few newcomers at the time: Cilla Black, Long John Baldry and a little black girl called Millie.

It’s safe to say that with
PJ’s performance in
Around The Beatles
and his following
discovery in England
he’s on the road to success
and a whole new chapter
starts:

Life At The Top!

Sources:

The P.J. Proby Story http://home.planet.nl/~pjproby/pjstory.htm

Ron Tennant The Elvis Connection Now Dig This 223 October 2001
For sale at: http://e.dominohosting.biz/dca/NDT.nsf/WebCategoryY!OpenView&RestrictToCategory=NDT2001

Spencer Leigh P.J. Proby Interview Record Collector 180 August 1994
for sale at: http://www.recordcollectormag.com/site/sections/back_issues/default.asp

Pat Hailey Interview Select DVD 2004
for sale at this site on the DVD page

Ron Ellis Go, Jett, Go! Now Dig This 90 September 1990
for sale at: http://e.dominohosting.biz/dca/NDT.nsf/WebCategoryY!OpenView&RestrictToCategory=NDT2001

Catherine O’Brien Love etc Interview Times April 25th 2006

Hollywood Rogue

A Story About Elvis:

During the games Elvis always worries how to stop Jim from scoring. Jim is very quick and the only one that can make the touch downs. Elvis used to call out all the time: “Watch the barefoot boy, watch the barefoot boy!” Jim always plays in bare feet.
Elvis can’t quite place him, because Jim was still very young when Elvis dated his step-sister Betty.

After one of the games Elvis’ curiosity finally gets the better of him. While Jim is sitting under a tree, waiting for a ride back into Hollywood, a hand appears over his shoulder and a familiar voice says: “Wanna stick of gum, boy? I’m having a little party up at my house later, why don’t you come on up? I’ll have one of the boys pick ya up. See ya later!”
Jim brings his own beer and attends Elvis’ parties a couple of times. Elvis doesn’t want alcohol in his house however,
as he’s seen his mother being ruined by alcohol and Jim stops attending the parties.

Meeting Jack Good:

Jim and his wife Marianne are in their house in Laurel
Canyon and are wondering how they’re going to get their
next meal, now that Metric Music has stopped their cheques.
While their electricity is turned off and their car re-possessed that very same day, there’s a knock on the door.
Jim says to Marianne: “Get the door, baby!” as he gets hold of his pistol and holds it behind the bar. The door opens and there stand Sharon and Jackie.
“We brought someone to see ya, honey”, says Sharon and with that, out of the shadow steps this figure of a man. He strides over to Jim, stops and grabs a lock of his shoulder-length hair. Jim had no money to have it cut, not even by Jackie’s father who was a barber!
The gentleman pulls hard on his shoulder-lenght hair, stating as he does:
“My god, it’s real!”, “You’re hired, dear boy! Be at CBS studios tomorrow morning at ten!” With that he gently releases Jim’s hair and vanishes into the night behind the two girls...
“What was that Shari?” Jim asked in total surprise....
“That’s the man I’ve been telling you about, that Eddie and I worked with in England, Jack Good. Now be at CBS at ten. He wants you for his new pilot that he’s shooting “Young America Swings The World”!
“Well, Shari, how in the hell am I gonna get there, they’ve just taken my car away, we’re broke!!!!”
“I thought so”, said Sharon, “You just want me to come here and pick ya up! Marianne, take that beer out of his hand and put him straight ta bed; I’ll be here at nine on the dot. If he’s not standing on top of the drive, I’m leaving without him! Nite, nite, you guys!” And with that they were gone...
And that’s how Jim came to meet Jack Good. The rest, as they say, is history!
Oh yeah....

Ringring!!! Ringring!!!

“Yes, this is P.J. Proby”

“This is who? Lilian Moynahan?”

“Would I like to come to England? And do what?? Film a tv special with The Beatles?”

“Oh yes, I believe I would!”

“You what?” “Oh, you thought so ...”

“A ticket is awaiting me at Los Angeles Airport! And you’ll see me where???’

“Oh, you’ll see me around! Yea, OK!”

“Thank you Mrs Moynahan! Thank you! See ya there! Bye now!”

Jim Smith goes to Hollywood to become a movie star!

In order to survive, he takes all kind of jobs and regularly finds himself in trouble.

As Jett Powers, he makes some records and also he finds work as a songwriter and demo singer. He later starts recording as P.J. Proby and suddenly he is discovered big time in England!