Hitching Post Club Next To 8101 South Main St.

[brucesw]

Well dang, FS.  I was working on a long-winded rebuttal of this crock and here you go throwing cold water on the effort.  Actually, though, I agree.  That’s why I never weighed in on the hilarious Tinker’s tale earlier this year.

I would like to emphasize, however, a point made in passing by TilelsBetter - the restrictions on movement always applied to Blacks, not whites.  If there was a separate section for race records whites would have been free to go in there, restricted only by their fears of what their peers might think of them.  Blacks would have been prohibited from going into the White records section, if there were such a distinction.

Remember also that though there were still very tough civil rights battles to be fought, by the mid-50s, white kids were enthusiastically embracing black artists like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Big Joe Turner, Laverne Baker and others and their records would have to have been available for those white teens (including me) to purchase.  I could buy any of them at the little record shop in Lake Jackson by that time and they were not in a separate bin from the likes of Eddie Fisher, Steve and Edie, Pat Boone, Peggy Lee and Patti Page or the Andrews Sisters.

Oh, and if any of PJ Crock’s entourage is following this, remind the great one that he forgot to mention Main Street was just a dirt road and he had to slog through several miles of mud puddles just to get to the Woolworth’s

[FilioScotia]

Gee I'm sorry Brucie.  I didn't mean to steal your thunder.  Please share your "longwinded rebuttal" with us. I'm stepping aside and the floor is yours. Let us hope it will be the last word on this crock of pure you-know-what.

[brucesw]

No, what doesn't need to be said doesn't need to be said.

I will withdraw and rest my artillery for future battles.

[NotGivinUp]

FilioScotia,

I came here because I was looking for facts about Houston in the mid 20th century. I'm sorry you think this thread is stupid. I might be inclined to agree with you if it were about a 90 year old man's World War II fantasy. For me, even that would depend on whether his fantasy distorts the truth about the real WW2 heroes. Where the old man is telling his story and to whom would make a difference too.

P.J. Proby is a lot younger than 90. Ever since the mid sixties he's been telling his tales about Houston and the music scene there. Considering the number of interviews he's done in the UK in the last 10 years alone, he has quite an audience of ill-informed Brits.
 

[FilioScotia]

(crickets)

[brucesw]

Well I have a question (chirp, chirp). Neither Sands, Smith nor Elvis were 21 in 1954. I presume 21 was the legal drinking age and since this non-existent place was supposedly a bar, would they have been allowed in? (chirp, chirp).

[FilioScotia]

We're wasting our time here Bruce.  It's useless to try to explain things to someone who refuses to accept the fact that what he believes simply is not true. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time and it just annoys the pig.

 

We both need to find more productive ways to spend our time.  I think I'll go rearrange my sock drawer. loll

 

cue the crickets.

[TileIsBetter]

I refuse to believe this thread is a waste of time when there are still people in England who, out of sheer ignorance,  think John Wayne was a cowboy turned actor and most Texans are cowhands. All some Europeans seem to know about Texas is old Hollywood westerns and stories like the ones P.J. Proby is telling, which include that it's "normal" for men in Texas to marry their 13 year old cousins. If FilioScotia doesn't care about this I don't know why he's here. There are plenty of other topics on HAIF that should hold his interest.

Proby's website has several pages devoted to his life story. One page says:
 

 

The next years (1954-1956) Jim spends his free summers hanging out at places. where you can sing. The first place where Jim performs is The Hitching Post .... where his friend Tommy Sands is singing ..... Also George Jones and Elvis Presley (who's almost four years older than Jim) play here regularly. Jim is fourteen then and he starts to appreciate drinking alcohol with the guys.

I'm no expert on the history of city ordinances in Houston but they fell under the umbrella of Texas liquor laws. No way could alcohol in any form be legally served to a 14 year old boy back then. Texas honky-tonk owners with any sense didn't take chances serving someone who didn't look 21. Proby's site has pictures of him as a teenager. The only way he could have passed for 21 would be in drag.

[Dave W]

I agree with TielsBetter, this thread is useful, if for no other reason than to set the record straight.

 

A few observations:

 

There were never separate shopping sections anywhere in Houston, period. Separate restrooms and water fountains, yes. Separate lunch counters or restricted to whites only, yes. But absolutely no separate shopping areas.

 

Woolworth's record department was bigger than average, but If you wanted a good selection of records, you went to a record store. There were dozens of them. They had different selections depending on their neighborhood and clientele, but none of them were ever restricted by race. OTOH a popular record like LaVern Baker's "Jim Dandy" could be found on the rack at your neighborhood 7-Eleven. Rack jobbers had Top 40 singles and albums in lots of retail stores.

 

The term "race records" was obsolete long before the mid 50s.

 

No, of course he wouldn't have been served alcohol at age 14. Curious that he used the term alcohol instead of beer. Liquor by the drink didn't exist in Texas until the late 70s (and still doesn't in some counties). Bars served beer and "setups." You brought your own bottle. [sarcasm] But who knows, maybe PJ stopped at the liquor store on his way to the non-existent bar where he never performed [/sarcasm].

 

Maybe the most ridiculous claim in the RegionalMag article is how he had a little crystal set radio that could get a special station in Pecos. With a crystal radio? Riiiight. Lucky if he could receive anything further than 5 miles away.

[musicman]

I would like to emphasize, however, a point made in passing by TilelsBetter - the restrictions on movement always applied to Blacks, not whites.

Mexicans were banned as well. on nance where currently is a law office was previously was a café and the sign on the door read "no dogs or Mexicans allowed" in that order.

[oldpaint]

It seems P.J. Proby has read too many Elvis bios and fantasized what his teenage years might have been like if he hadn't been shipped off to military school.  He's complained in various interviews that he was in the military school system from the age of 9 to 18 except for holiday breaks.  He even said that during the summers of 1953-55 he was enrolled in 3-month long programs at a military school in Indiana. By my calculation not much time was left to hang around non-existent Houston bars drinking and learning how to dress like black folk.

I have a bunch of old British music magazines from the 1960's and 70's and I started looking through them when I saw this topic. Lo and behold, there are lots of Proby pictures and interviews beginning in the summer of 1964 and running through the first half of 1966. I didn't spot anything after that so his popularity must have fizzled out. From the very beginning he talked about his association with Elvis in Houston, doing demos of songs used in the Elvis movies, and even mentioned doing a Country-Western tour with Andy Williams. This P.J. Proby character had the Brits so snowed they believed Andy Williams did C&W tours in the 50's and 60's!

P.J. Proby is produced and promoted by a company called Dutchbrand. From another forum I learned that the owners of Dutchbrand have a dog named Tinker. Unless the "tinker" here is a dog, perhaps he or she would like to return to this topic and explain why they are posting on a public forum without clarifying their ties to Proby. Saying only that they are "in contact with" him isn't ethical business practice.

Perhaps Tinker could also offer some insight into why anyone in Britain is interested in Proby's crock stories. It's obvious from the interviews in old magazines and continuing up until the recent ones discussed here, Proby's version of American entertainment history is taken at face value by British "journalists". Proby clearly enjoys spewing racist slurs while hiding behind the guise of the way things "were" and quoting (misquoting that is) American celebrities.

The Dutchbrand Facebook page touts the Kevin Cooper interview as "another great interview". It seems they endorse that piece of garbage about Sonny West calling somebody named Joyce Bezetto a wop. Who? If Sonny reads that he won't know whether to laugh or sue.

Of particular interest though is the part about Sonny picking "Joyce" up by the collar and holding him against the wall. Proby told a similar story in a BBC interview last year but in that interview he said Elvis was holding Johnny Rivers up by the collar against the side of a house. I guess Proby assumes audiences don't have access to his earlier interviews so why not recycle a story and change the cast of characters.

I heard Proby sells a booklet of his Elvis stories at his shows in Britain. P.T. Barnum got it right!

[FilioScotia]

I don't know who you are oldpaint, but your posting says all that needs to be said about PJ Proby.

 

I'm convinced that Proby himself is the one who keeps logging in here under different names praising himself to high heaven, in second person of course. Nobody else would do it, so he has to do it himself.

 

I expect him to respond to oldpaint any time now with one of those laments about getting no respect in his home state.

[SeeTheLegend]

P.J. Proby is a living legend and people should show him more respect. He's entitled to a mistake here and there with places and events 60 years ago. He was there! Besides why would he lie??? He has many fans but there have always been a few anti Proby people who don't believe anything he says.

Tommy Sands and his mother were interviewed in 1957 in a magazine called TV Radio Mirror. One of them talked about a school chum from Houston who visited Tommy in Hollywood. They didn't give the name of Tommy's chum but I believe it has to be Jimmy Smith (later to become P.J. Proby).

P.J. turned down a football scholarship to the University of Missouri when he graduated from Western Military Academy in 1957 and went to Hollywood to seek his fortune in show business. He had known Tommy Sands in Houston when Tommy and P.J.'s sister Betty Moers were a couple. P.J. often talks about Betty dating Tommy and Elvis at the same time and how he had to tell Elvis she was with her mother when she was really with Tommy. Then later P.J. became engaged to Dotty Harmony who had been one of Elvis' girlfriends. He did demos for Elvis and even wrote a song for him. Elvis loved the song but refused to record it when he found out who wrote it.

P.J. has written a 16 page booklet of stories about himself and Elvis in the good ole days. It's available from his web site. P.J. is still going strong and will be part of the massive 60's Gold Tour later this year in the UK.  One day P.J. Proby will get the recognition he really deserves. At 75 he is still soooo versatile and unique and his voice is better than ever!

[acamarillo]

Hi P.J. How ya been?