On This Day In Music History

[jpkansas]

October 30, 1964 - Roy Orbison's "Oh! Pretty Woman" becomes a gold record. His ninth and last Top Ten single, the song entered the Hot 100 on August 29th. The song stays on the charts for 15 weeks.

[Dawn]

Great song! My parents had his greatest hits album when I was little, and this was one of my favorites from it.

[55dodger]

Great song JP, it's always been a favorite of mine.

[H2IZCOOL]

This song, along with Louis Armstrong's Hello Dolly were the two songs that had the biggest impact in the US - outside of the British Invasion that year.

Now, you probably know that I am the Click's resident Roy Orbison supporter. -- and back in The Day, I used to absolutely love that song! -and I continued to love it up until about 12 or so years ago, when the oldies stations decided that this was nearly the only song Roy ever recorded. They'd play Only The Lonely once in a while. Ditto for Crying. Basically nothing else. Just Oh, Pretty Woman over and over again anytime they wanted to play a Roy Orbison song. It would particualrly gall me when there was a request show and someone would call in and ask for "any Roy Orbison song" - the "any" song was Oh Pretty Woman ALL THE TIME. The straw that broke the camel's back was about 5-6 years ago when I called in to a request line myself - on a show that prided themselves on playing less heard songs. I remember that the DJ himself took my call (not on the air) between records. I said "I've got a tough one for you" He replied, "I'm a pretty tough guy". I replied, "could you play Our Summer Song by Roy Orbison. "Sure will", he said. About 10 minutes later, guess what comes on? Oh, Pretty Woman.

That just about did it for me with oldies shows, and more unfortunately, bounced Oh Pretty Woman down to near the bottom of my Roy Orbision songs.

[SAT-I need more room!!]

H2IZCOOL said:

This song, along with Louis Armstrong's Hello Dolly were the two songs that had the biggest impact in the US - outside of the British Invasion that year.

Now, you probably know that I am the Click's resident Roy Orbison supporter. -- and back in The Day, I used to absolutely love that song! -and I continued to love it up until about 12 or so years ago, when the oldies stations decided that this was nearly the only song Roy ever recorded. They'd play Only The Lonely once in a while. Ditto for Crying. Basically nothing else. Just Oh, Pretty Woman over and over again anytime they wanted to play a Roy Orbison song. It would particualrly gall me when there was a request show and someone would call in and ask for "any Roy Orbison song" - the "any" song was Oh Pretty Woman ALL THE TIME. The straw that broke the camel's back was about 5-6 years ago when I called in to a request line myself - on a show that prided themselves on playing less heard songs. I remember that the DJ himself took my call (not on the air) between records. I said "I've got a tough one for you" He replied, "I'm a pretty tough guy". I replied, "could you play Our Summer Song by Roy Orbison. "Sure will", he said. About 10 minutes later, guess what comes on? Oh, Pretty Woman.

That just about did it for me with oldies shows, and more unfortunately, bounced Oh Pretty Woman down to near the bottom of my Roy Orbision songs.

Had a similiar thing happen to me, this was almost worse.

This was when I was in college. Two classic rock radio stations ago. They were slowly starting to add some different artists to their setlists. One was Bryan Adams, but I wasn't hearing him too much.

Anyway, I called, and I was vague enough, saying "You know, Run to You, Cuts Like a Knife, one of those", giving them some leeway.

So the whole lunchtime request hour comes and goes and I heard nothing from BA. They recap the set and say, "You Might Think from the Cars for Adam in Westchester..." WHAT??!!??

And to make things worse, it was a song I hate.......

[H2IZCOOL]

SAT-Laney's said:

Had a similiar thing happen to me, this was almost worse.

This was when I was in college. Two classic rock radio stations ago. They were slowly starting to add some different artists to their setlists. One was Bryan Adams, but I wasn't hearing him too much.

Anyway, I called, and I was vague enough, saying "You know, Run to You, Cuts Like a Knife, one of those", giving them some leeway.

So the whole lunchtime request hour comes and goes and I heard nothing from BA. They recap the set and say, "You Might Think from the Cars for Adam in Westchester..." WHAT??!!??

And to make things worse, it was a song I hate.......

So...let me get this straight, they substituted a Cars song for a Bryan Adams song, didn't even announce it when they played it, and then used your name later on as a promotional tool for themselves as if you were one of the fans whose requests they play.

[SAT-I need more room!!]

H2IZCOOL said:

So...let me get this straight, they substituted a Cars song for a Bryan Adams song, didn't even announce it when they played it, and then used your name later on as a promotional tool for themselves as if you were one of the fans whose requests they play.

Right. What it basically comes down to is, I'm a tool.

[H2IZCOOL]

SAT-Laney's said:

Right. What it basically comes down to is, I'm a tool.

Yeah! (I was hoping you'd pick up on that!)

[Ken]

It was the first tune of Roy's I ever heard. It's still a huge fave today.