Work with Orbison defined his career

MOUNTAIN HOME, ARK. – Bill Dees emerged from his days as an out-of-cash young songwriter to pen tunes recorded by Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and other country music greats, but the centrepiece of his career was his work with Roy Orbison, including co-writing the classic rock hit, Oh, Pretty Woman.

Dees, who died in Arkansas last week at age 73, had said writing that song with Orbison in 1964 changed his life. In a 2008 interview with National Public Radio, Dees recalled that the night they penned the hit song, Orbison told him he wouldn’t need to go to work that Monday if he didn’t want to.

“He said, ‘Buy yourself an electric piano, and I’ll take you on the road with me.’ And he said, ‘I’ll pay you what the band’s getting,’ ” Dees said in the NPR interview, which is posted on his Dees’ website.

He went on to tour Europe and perform on the Ed Sullivan Show with Orbison, with whom he also co-wrote numerous other songs, including It’s Over, which also was a No. 1 hit.

The Texas native left home to seek work in Nashville, Tenn., where he went on to write songs recorded by performers who also included Glen Campbell. But working with Orbison defined his career.

Dees became embroiled in a lawsuit over Oh, Pretty Woman that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1990s, after rap group 2 Live Crew recorded a rewrite despite being refused permission by AcuffRose Music Inc., which owned the copyright.

Dees, who detested the ribald rewrite, explained: “It’s like if someone asks you if they could use the car,” he told The Associated Press in 1993. “We said no, but they take it and paint it all different colours.”

The high court sided with the raunchy rappers, saying the recording was a parody that could be considered fair use. Both sides later settled.

Dees eventually moved with his family to Arkansas, and he lived in the Ozarks region of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri for more than 20 years.

A memorial is planned Saturday in Mountain Home, the northern Arkansas city where he died on Oct. 24, according to the Kirby and Family funeral home, which didn’t release details about his death. Another gathering will be held next month in Branson, Mo., home to the late Andy Williams’ famous Moore River Theater.

Dees said in a 1970 interview that he first met Orbison when he performed in Amarillo, Texas. Dees went to Nashville twice in 1962 to work with Orbison, then decided to move his family there in 1964, travelling in a 1955 Pontiac.

“My wife and I decided that we would go as far as the car would take us,” Dees told the newspaper. “If it broke down before we got there, we would save money and move further on later.”

They made it to Nashville, where the car soon broke down. There he reconnected with Orbison, and together they crossed Europe and twice went to England. “I was shocked when we got off the plane in London, and there was like 10,000 people there at the airport meeting the plane,” Dees told NPR.