Bucks County Courier Times

Jay’s career took a tragic turn when a nightclub arson fire claimed the lives of nine friends, and left Jay hospitalized for months.  According to an article in Allentown’s daily newspaper,  “The Morning Call”,  it was March Madness and basketball fever gripped sports fans on this sunny Saturday afternoon.

But inside the Caboose Tavern, watching basketball was secondary for 18 people trying to escape a blazing fire that ignited in the front of the bar.  The fatal fire gutted the Caboose Tavern on March 23, 1974, killing nine and injuring nine.  One of the survivors was Jay Proctor.

Proctor remembers the terror that swept the tavern as horrified patrons attempted to break down the boarded door that stood between life and death.  Then the room turned black and Proctor lost consciousness.  When he woke up, he was lying outside of the building under the bright sunlight.

Following years of recovery, Jay put a new group together and began to perform regularly on the oldies circuit.

When asked about his fear concerning the fire and his near-death experience, the adversity produced by the record company politics and bad timing, Jay explained that “If it isn’t something that I was responsible for, if it was someone else that made the decision, you just deal with it and get through it.  Life is too short to be concerned with things that have affected you in the past which were out of your control.  I just don’t think about them.”