Pretty woman walkin' down the street

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

14/03/65 : Oh, Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison

Our second visit with Roy this year - last time it was very brief and mostly unexceptional, but he had a lovely voice and I've no reason to expect this isn't going to be the same.

Well, he starts off with the title track, which I'd argue probably counts as pretty exceptional, so we're already off to a good start - interestingly, the only place in the song he actually sings "oh, pretty woman" is right at the end. I actually also really liked "Evergreen" and "It's Over" - the rest of it didn't stand out for me but it was perfectly listenable. And at 34 minutes long, it certainly can't be accused of being a lengthy album.

We're at #16 in the chart this week on his last week of a decent sixteen week run, with it having peaked at #5 in its sixth week. The top five this week were The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, Val Doonican and Jim Reeves and we have two new entries for Gene Pitney (#18) and Frank Sinatra (#20 - somewhat surprisingly we've not seen him this year).

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry on the album because it was a UK only offering, so I'll treat you to some treats from his entry around this time - he had quite the eventful year! He was touring when he heard that his wife was having an affair with his house builder, so he headed home, fired the builder and finished the build himself! He then divorced his pregnant wife, who went on to have his third child - at which point they got back together and remarried. 

I'd like to say they lived happily ever after, but she died in a motorbike accident in '66 and then in '68 two of his sons died when his house burned down. He had a pretty rubbish 70s as well, but things picked up in the 80s with his involvement with The Travelling Wilburys - well, until his death in '88 at the relatively young age of 52, which was a bit of a downer for the lad. He was the first of the Wilburys to go, but we've also lost George Harrison and Tom Petty since - leaving us with Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan, both of whom are still very active out there.

"Customers also listened to" - well, this is annoying because it seems like Amazon have stopped offering this information. Yes, it was mostly useless but every so often if threw up something joyously random - but we're just gonna have to live without that in future, it seems. Of our two visits with Roy this year, I preferred this one but they've both been pretty decent.

07/03/65 - Some dreadful cover versions
21/03/65 - Annoyingly inconsistent