IT happened in a split second but it was enough to banish him to the pop wilderness.

Singer PJ Proby’s career literally hung by a thread when he ripped his velvet trousers during his trademark knee slide on stage.

PJ, who made demo discs for Elvis Presley, drove his army of girl fans wild with his raunchy hip swivelling movements on stage.

His act was so hot that he was the original sex bomb long before Tom Jones claimed the title.

Even in those anything goes sixties it was not everyone’s cup of tea and it raised establishment eyebrows.

Among them was the late Mary Whitehouse, self styled guardian of British morals, who spearheaded a campaign which led to Proby being blacklisted from theatres and TV companies.

After the trouser split drama the curtain came down on his relatively short lived teen idol career. He spent the rest of the sixties as a sophisticated supper club crooner on the tough northern circuit.

It was a pop exile which was to last for more 40 years and it was only a phone call from sixties band The Searchers which rescued PJ’s career.

“They invited me join them on their sixties show,” recalled PJ whose links with the band goes back before they found stardom.

A prolific songwriter, he penned The Searchers’ hit Ain’t Gonna Kiss Ya and he will be linking up again with the legendary Liverpool band for the latest 60s Gold tour which stops off at Southampton’s Mayflower on Thursday.

The 77 year-old Texan crooner says he is too old to bear grudges but it is clear that the much documented theatre and TV ban still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

It also cost him a rock ‘n roll fortune which would have put him in the same bracket as mega stars like Engelbert Humperdink.

Proby says that if Mary Whitehouse was still alive and they came face to face he would say to her: “Shame on you!”

He added: “It cost me my career and my life.”

He explained how the split pants accident was blown out of proportion and exposed no more than a hairy knee.

The singer is angry with the way that he was stitched up by the showbiz establishment and has vowed that the whole truth will come out.

He is still hoping to get a publisher for his autobiography which will be chronicle his rollercoaster pop career.

Two years ago he celebrated his 50th anniversary in the UK. Yet it was a different story In the early nineties when he was clinging to his life after a cardiac arrest, the toll of his hard living rock ‘n roll lifestyle.

He is a born survivor and he says that he managed to grab the second chance that God gave him.

His career was given a new lease of life through appearing in Bill Kenwright musicals and touring with The Who as the Godfather in Quadrophenia.

Today in between touring PJ enjoys the quiet life in rural Worcestershire. A country boy at heart, he is surrounded by fields and a big orchard.

“It is like living on a farm in 1945”, says the singer who has lived in the area since the late nineties.

In his American drawl the pop star says he keeps himself fit by “looking after the yard,” cutting the grass and trimming the trees.

His trademark pony tail has been consigned to pop history. He still has a good head of hair and raises a laugh during his act by pinning on a pony tail.

His audience ranges from eight to 80 and in a scene reminiscent of the sixties they rush the stage at his concerts.

PJ who has his own recording studio has cut a new version of his sixties hit, Somewhere.

The tune opens with the line - Somewhere there is a place for us.

And the amazing PJ Proby will always have a place in the hearts of sixties fans.

DUNCAN EATON

Sixties Gold Oct 13 at The Mayflower Theatre, Southampton. Box office 02380 711811 or mayflower.org.uk