The Big O (album)
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The Big O (album)
''The Big O'' is the fifteenth music album recorded by Roy Orbison, and according to the authorised Roy Orbison biography, his second for London Records in the United Kingdom. The music and backing vocals were provided by English group, the Art Movement on all tracks except for "Penny Arcade", which was a studio recording and was released as a single in 1969, peaking at #27 in the UK and would be Orbison's last UK chart success during his lifetime. "Penny Arcade" was also his biggest hit in Australia, spending four weeks at Number One around Christmas, 1969. The second single, "Break My Mind", was Orbison's last Australian chart success during his lifetime, reaching #24 in March 1970. The album was released in Europe in early 1970. History In May 1969, Roy Orbison had plans for a live album while he was on tour in the UK. The project was to be called ''Roy Orbison Live in England''. MGM Records were not happy with his plan, however, and Orbison had to compromise. Orbison and the A ...
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Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. His music was described by critics as operatic, earning him the nicknames "The Caruso of Rock" and "The Big O." Many of Orbison's songs conveyed vulnerability at a time when most male rock-and-roll performers chose to project machismo. He performed while standing motionless and wearing black clothes to match his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses, which he wore to counter his shyness and stage fright. Born in Texas, Orbison began singing in a rockabilly and country-and-western band as a teenager. He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, but enjoyed his greatest success with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, 22 of Orbison's singles reached the ''Billboard'' Top 40. He wrote or co-wrote almost all of his own Top 10 hits, including "Only the Lonely" (1960), " R ...
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Money (That's What I Want)
"Money (That's What I Want)" is a rhythm and blues song written by Tamla founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, which was the first hit record for Gordy's Motown enterprise. Barrett Strong recorded it in 1959 as a single for the Tamla label, distributed nationally on Anna Records. Many artists later recorded the tune, including the Beatles in 1963, the Rolling Stones in 1964, and the Flying Lizards in 1979. Composition and recording The song developed out of a spontaneous recording session at the Hitsville studio A in Detroit. Gordy and Strong began by improvising on piano and vocals and were joined by Benny Benjamin on drums and Brian Holland on tambourine. Authors Jim Cogan and William Clark only identify the guitarist and bass guitarist as "two white kids walking home from high school hoheard the music out on the street and wandered in to Hitsville ndasked if they could play along." They add "Strong claimed he never saw the two boys who played bass and guitar again." Howev ...
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Wesley Rose
Wesley Rose (born February 11, 1918 – April 26, 1990) was an American music industry executive and record producer. Biography The son of songwriter Fred Rose, he was born in Chicago and studied to become a chartered accountant. He eventually moved to Nashville and in 1945 he became involved in Acuff-Rose Music, a music publishing house established by his father and his father's partner, Roy Acuff. Following his father's death in 1954, Rose served as the company's president. He proved to be a capable businessman, expanding the business significantly and establishing Acuff-Rose affiliate offices around the world. Rose was an important part of the development of the country music industry. He was a driving force behind the creation of the Country Music Association (CMA) and was the first Nashville publisher to serve on the board of directors of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and the Music Publishers Association. In 1985, he and partner R ...
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Al "Carnival Time" Johnson
Al "Carnival Time" Johnson (born June 20, 1939, in New Orleans, LouisianaClassic Songs of Louisiana "Carnival Time", OffBeat Magazine, February 2007) is an American singer and piano player best known for the Mardi Gras song " Carnival Time". History Early life and career After spending his early years in Houston, Johnson returned to New Orleans at the age of ten settling in the Lower Ninth Ward. His father bought him a trumpet, also a piano for his sisters and a trombone for his brother. Johnson took interest in the piano and learned the basic chord changes in different keys. His early musical influences included Sugar Boy Crawford, Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis, to name a few. In 1956, at seventeen, he recorded his first songs, "Ole Time Talkin" and "I've Done Wrong"" for Aladdin Records. Johnson subsequently signed with Ric records and recorded series of songs at Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans recording studio starting with "Lena" in 1958. " Carnival Time" was recorded for the ...
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Bill Dees
William Marvin Dees (January 24, 1939 – October 24, 2012) was an American musician known for his songwriting collaborations with singer Roy Orbison. Career Born and based out of Borger, Texas, United States, Dees played guitar and sang with a band called The Five Bops doing his first recordings with Norman Petty at his Clovis, New Mexico studio in May 1958. They later became The Whirlwinds, gaining enough recognition to perform on an Amarillo, Texas radio station. Dees eventually made his way to Nashville, Tennessee, where his meeting with Roy Orbison led to a collaboration that produced a string of successful songs for Monument Records, including the hits "Oh, Pretty Woman" and " It's Over". In 1967, Dees co-wrote all the songs for the Orbison album and MGM motion picture '' The Fastest Guitar Alive''. Beyond his work with Orbison, Bill Dees wrote hundreds of songs, a number of which were recorded by performers such as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Skeeter Davis, Glen Campbell, ...
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Jack Segal
Jack Segal (October 19, 1918 – February 10, 2005) was a pianist and composer of popular American songs, known for writing the lyrics to '' Scarlet Ribbons''. His composition '' May I Come In?'' was the title track for a Blossom Dearie album. Other songs he authored or co-authored are ''When Sunny Gets Blue'', ''That's the Kind of Girl I Dream Of'', ''I Keep Going Back to Joe's'' (with Marvin Fisher), ''A Boy from Texas, a Girl from Tennessee'' (with John Benson Brooks & Joseph Allan McCarthy), ''After Me'' (with Blossom Dearie) and ''When Joanna Loved Me'' (with Robert Wells). It has been estimated that his songs have helped sell 65 million records. Lyrics for the ballad that was perhaps Segal's greatest hit, Scarlet Ribbons (with music composed by Evelyn Danzig Levine), were written in just 15 minutes in 1949, but the song languished until Segal presented it to Harry Belafonte five years later. Belafonte's recording was responsible for making the song a hit. At least 30 ot ...
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Evelyn Danzig
Evelyn Danzig Levine (January 16, 1902 – July 26, 1996) was an American Tin Pan Alley songwriter, who was a one hit wonder best known for co-writing the music for the folk style ballad popular song " Scarlet Ribbons", published in 1949, with lyrics by her collaborator Jack Segal. Biography Danzig, the youngest of six children born to Ethel and Morris Danzig (from Danzig), was born in Waco, Texas, the sister of Allison Danzig, a noted sports writer for ''The New York Times'' from 1923 through 1967. She studied at the Academy of Holy Name Conservatory at Albany, New York, then piano and composition in New York under the tutorship of Sigismund Stojowski. She became a professional pianist and played on many radio stations - in the 1930s, she had her own radio program out of New York City called ''Treble and Clef'' - and she composed music for theatrical purposes. "Scarlet Ribbons" was written in only 15 minutes in 1949 at Danzig's home in Port Washington New York after she invite ...
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Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)
"Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)" is a popular folk style ballad. The music was written by Evelyn Danzig and the lyrics by Jack Segal. The song has become a standard with many recorded versions and has appeared on several Christmas albums. Background and lyrics "Scarlet Ribbons" was written in only 15 minutes in 1949 at Danzig's home in Port Washington, New York after she invited lyricist Segal to hear her music. The song tells a miraculous tale: a father hears his small daughter pray before she goes to bed for "scarlet ribbons for her hair". It is late, no stores are open in their town, nor is there anywhere the dad can obtain the ribbons so he is distraught throughout the night. At dawn he again peeps in and is amazed to see beautiful "scarlet ribbons" in "gay profusion lying there." He says that if he lives to be two hundred, he will never know from where the ribbons came. Renditions Jo Stafford "Scarlet Ribbons" was first released by Jo Stafford in 1949. In January 1950, S ...
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Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single " The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold. Domino was shy and modest by nature but made a significant contribution to the rock and roll genre. Elvis Presley declared Domino a "h ...
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Chris Kenner
Christophe Kenner (December 25, 1929 – January 25, 1976) was an American, New Orleans-based Rhythm and blues, R&B singer and songwriter, best known for two hit singles in the early 1960s, "I Like It Like That (Chris Kenner song), I Like It Like That" and "Land of a Thousand Dances, Land of 1000 Dances", which became staples in the repertoires of many other musicians. Biography Born in the farming community of Kenner, Louisiana, upriver from New Orleans, Kenner sang gospel music with his church choir. He moved to New Orleans when he was in his teens, to work as a stevedore. In 1955 he made his first recordings, for a small label, Baton Records, without success. In 1957, he recorded his "Sick and Tired (Chris Kenner song), Sick and Tired" for Imperial Records. Kenner's recording reached No. 13 on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, R&B chart. Fats Domino covered it the next year, and his version became a hit on the pop chart. "Rocket to the Moon" and ...
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Land Of A Thousand Dances
"Land of a Thousand Dances" (or "Land of 1000 Dances") is a song written and first recorded by American rhythm and blues singer Chris Kenner in 1962. It later became a bigger hit in versions by Cannibal & the Headhunters and Wilson Pickett. A version by Thee Midniters reached #27 in Canada on March 22, 1965. The song references a number of dance styles/moves including the Twist, the Alligator, the Mashed Potato, the Watusi and the Pony. Background The original Chris Kenner recording, which peaked at No. 77 on the ''Billboard'' chart in 1963, mentions 16 dances: the Pony, the Chicken, the Mashed Potato, the Alligator, the Watusi, the Twist, the Fly, the Jerk, the Tango, the Yo-Yo, the Sweet Pea, the Hand Jive, the Slop, the Bop, the Fish, and the Popeye. Kenner's original recording included a brief, gospel-influenced, a capella introduction with the words: "Children, go where I send you / (Where will you send me?) / I'm gon' send you to that land / the land of a thousand dance ...
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Charlie Louvin
Charles Elzer Loudermilk (July 7, 1927 – January 26, 2011), known professionally as Charlie Louvin, was an American country music singer and songwriter. He is best known as one of the Louvin Brothers, and was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1955. Biography Born in Section, Alabama, Louvin was one of seven children and grew up working on the family farm in nearby Henagar. He started singing when he was eight years old. Louvin began singing professionally with his brother Ira as a teenager on local radio programs in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The boys sang traditional and gospel music in the harmony style they had learned while performing in their church's choir. After Charlie left the act briefly in 1945 to serve in the Army Air Forces during World War II, the brothers moved first to Knoxville and later to Memphis, working as postal clerks by day, while making appearances in the evening. Another brief disbandment due to Charlie's service in the Korean War led to the br ...
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