"It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world". The line may have come from a song 6 years in the future but it aptly describes the state of pop music in '64. Pop/rock was certainly flexing it's muscle but old school songs ( Orbison, Dino, Armstrong and soon to come Lorne Greene ) were still a force. Maybe less potent but still hanging on by it's fingernails.
I've always figured Orbison could have weathered the British Invasion if he'd stuck with Monument Records. Moving to MGM was a huge mistake. "Pretty Woman" has never been a favorite of mine, but I do love that bassline.
House of the Rising Sun: The Animals were pretty much my least favourite British Invasion band, mostly because I'm not really a fan of the bluesy style. So I didn't like this track when it was current. By now, I don't mind it but still am not a big fan. But I do understand that it's a great song on its own artistic merits, including performance.
I really LOVE that song! If they had had a dozen more like it, they should have been as big as the Stones! I don't know when I first heard it but it certainly wasn't in the '60s.
Billy J. Kramer and co. had a number of hits. Do You Want to Know a Secret was no. 1 in the U. K., then Bad to Me followed it high in the charts (I heard it in the cab on the way to the airport the day we left England). Over here, From a Window (the best of the lot IMHO) went up the charts in '64, then Little Children and Trains and Boats and Planes made it too. So that's at least a five-hit wonder ... Not to mention Cruel Sea by the Dakotas, which was featured on the same pop show as the first Rolling Stones appearance in 1963 (that on the day before we left England).
Oh Pretty Woman: Another one I like. I was very fond of it at the time, then for years I dismissed it somewhat, probably because I thought some of his other hits were much better (Blue Angel, In Dreams), and other songs too (Indian Wedding, Evergreen, Shahadaroba, Lana). Among others! In retrospect, it's a fine song on its own merits, and I'm kinda getting around to liking it again ... But I generally call it Pretty Woman without the 'Oh', which seems superfluous.
As I recollect, this tune had the almost individually unique ability to get big crowds onto the dance floors of the country's watering holes and meat markets like no other — and for many years after it was a hit. Not my favorite Roy either, but I recognize that many people out there may not be able to name any other Oribison hit except this one.
Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas also did "I'll Be on My Way", another Lennon & McCartney song on the flip side of their first single, "Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret." Produced by George Martin, it reached #2 in the UK. You can hear the Beatles do it on "Live at the BBC". It's a delightful Buddy Holly style tune.
Definitely - it clearly has an "afterlife" none of the other Roy tunes can boast. It's gotten prominent cover versions - like Van Halen's - to keep it alive, and obviously the movie helped a lot!
I've never seen that movie, Colin, but I do know who Julia Roberts is. I did a little checking, and I see that the movie came out in 1990; long after I stopped going to movies but FAR LATER than the continuous popularity I was thinking of. I don't doubt that the movie helped a lot, only that the movie was preceded by the Orbison hit by some 25+ years. And the song's popularity among dancers in bars hadn't waned much during that time.
1964 sure had a crapton of songs that were monotonous and stupid, and this was one. I like "Pretty Flamingo" and "Mighty Quinn" much better, although the latter's lyrics are even more stupid. But at least it's a great tune musically.
Catchy as heck, and dumb as a rock. Somehow manages to sound both older and newer than 1964, if that makes any sort of sense. Maybe it's the combination of instruments. The organ sounds a little later-'60s to me (like '65 or '66), but the doo wop influence is more late-'50s to early-'60s.
And what is even more maddening, is the amazing song that was lodged behind it at #2. OF course, I think this one has stood the test of time far better, and has acquired "anthem" status.
Yeah, that's another example of how the #1 records just as often as not don't even come close to being the best pop song in the Top 10 at any given time.
I know. I was using the term "one hit wonder" loosely. While you're correct that technically they weren't one, in the US at least, they're pretty much remembered for "Bad to Me" and nothing else. A lot of #2 hits from the '60s were and are better than the songs that blocked them from the top. Just ask any CCR fan!
See my above comment on Billy J. Kramer. In the US, the Honeycombs were a one-hit wonder in the accepted definition of the term: "Have I the Right" was their only top-40 hit.
Not sure that the 1989 hit had anything at all to do with the popularity of "Pretty Woman," just a coincidence, IMHO. BTW, "Do Wah Diddy" and "Dancing in the Street" were both deserving of #1, IMO, it's just that "Baby Love" kept Martha from making it to the top.
The Dakotas were extra cool and very nearly totally overlooked. George Martin produced The Cruel Sea (retitled The Cruel Surf in the US in 1964) and utilised the same technique of shadowing the lead guitar melody with a keyboard and he would in The Beatles A Hard Days Night. The Ventures covered The Cruel Sea on their Fabulous Ventures album in 1964 and often played it live -- so much so that they used it as their live opener throughout the first half of the '70s. Love the song, as well as the four tunes on their great UK 1963 EP Meet The Dakotas. They deserved a lot more attention than they ever got IMO.
I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it, but it's really atypical for the band's sound -- which was first-rate British RNB, although they would continue to do a poppy tune for a single release and do the LP rnb. Their debut UK HMV Records LP The Five Faces Of Manfred Mann is a stone classic of the genre, one of the best debut LPs ever, and something I never tire of. "The thinking man's Rolling Stones" I think someone wrote about it somewhere I read. Jazzy, bluesy and unlike so many groups of the day clearly a group of experienced musicians. Check out the AllMusic review of the above LP: The Five Faces of Manfred Mann - Manfred Mann | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic » "The debut album by Manfred Mann holds up even better 40 years on than it did in 1964. It's also one of the longest LPs of its era, clocking in at 39 minutes, and there's not a wasted note or a song extended too far among its 14 tracks. The Manfreds never had the reputation that the Rolling Stones enjoyed, which is a shame, because The Five Faces of Manfred Mann is one of the great blues-based British invasion albums; it's a hot, rocking record that benefits from some virtuoso playing as well, and some of the best singing of its era, courtesy of Paul Jones, who blew most of his rivals out of the competition with his magnificently impassioned, soulful performance on "Untie Me," and his simmering, lusty renditions of "Smokestack Lightning" and "Bring It to Jerome." The stereo mix of the album, which never surfaced officially in England until this 1997 EMI anniversary reissue (remastered in 24-bit digital sound), holds up very nicely, with sharp separation between the channels yet -- apart from a few moments on "Untie Me" -- few moments of artificiality." The stereo mix was never released on vinyl in the day and I've never heard it, but I own several copies of the original album in mono(I love it so much anytime so saw a NM copy for a reasonable price I bought it) and I can say it sounds very cool. It was reissued (don't know if in mono or stereo) in the UK in the early '80s with a different cover and maybe a different title. Seen it but can't remember much about it.
Late to the party, but I have to add a trivia note on this rock 'n roll classic. The sound of the guitars all playing the riff in unison (and each slightly out of tune with each other) was based on another tune using the same technique a few years earlier in 1960 by The Everly Brothers on their cover of Little Richard's Lucille.
