Caird Hall, Dundee, November 2

Next month, PJ Proby will turn 80, and the birthday signals not just the opportunity to look back on an extraordinary career, but the continuing ambitions of a man who has tried it all and just keeps on going.

This month, he’s coming to the Caird Hall with the Sixties Gold Tour, alongside old friends The Searchers and others, and next up, he plans to record a jazz record.

“I record and put out records on my own label, and sell them at concerts,” says Proby, in his purring Texan drawl.

Despite gaining a reputation as a rock ’n’ roller – who had half a dozen big UK hits in the 1960s and once recorded an album with the session musicians who became Led Zeppelin – he still doesn’t want to become typecast.

“What a lot of people don’t realise about me is that I can sing all sorts,” he says.

“Blues, redneck country... I want to record a jazz EP so I can show to Van Morrison that I really can sing jazz, and hopefully impress him and he can take me on tour.”

Van is another old friend, who once recorded a song called Whatever Happened to PJ Proby?

Born in Houston in 1938 and, schooled at military academies, Proby, whose real name is James Marcus Smith, moved to California in the 1950s to become a film star.

After some bit parts, he made the move into music – unsuccessfully at first, until he came to the UK in the early 1960s and appeared on The Beatles’ 1964 television special.

His biggest burst of fame was in the mid-60s, but he’s stayed in the country ever since – in the 1970s, he made an album with the psych-rock group Focus and in 1997, he sang alongside Billy Idol in The Who’s re-staged production of Quadrophenia.

That his solo career is still going strong among followers who have been with him for decades really is a miracle.

“I dropped dead in 93,” he says, in a matter-of-fact manner.

“I’d had small heart attacks before that, but I had a big one in Florida and died. They brought me back, and I haven’t had a drink since. I’m in better shape now, because I didn’t realise how out of shape I was before.”

He describes his career as a continual struggle to get somewhere or to stay where he is: “within the music industry, and fighting to stay in the country, because I’m American. It’s like being in the army – it’s the done thing to give PJ Proby s***”.

PJ Proby is one of a number of artists appearing on the Sixties Gold Tour 2018 at the Caird Hall, which also features The Searchers, The Merseybeats, The Fortunes, Love Affair’s Steve Ellis and Vanity Fare.