REsearch :: Wikki :: William "Bill" Dees \ Jack Pribek

Dees Pribek Unofficial PHOTO: Caption -- "[HERE] I’ve [Jack Pribek] been working on a duo thing with my old buddy Bill Dees and we are dipping our toes in the water this weekend with a couple of road gigs. [August 21 thru 22, 2009] (SOURCE)
Friday night in York, Nebraska and Saturday in Pella, Iowa.
Bill is a truly one of a kind and he has been putting in some serious work on this little “project”. I’ve been kind of hush hush about it but, it’s real cool. ..."

Go To More MooPig LINKS :: The Guitar ... , A Couple of Road Gigs ...
Following is latest Blurb "Bill Dees" available in Wikkipaedia [HERE] ::
retrieved in entirety by Pat Darnell

" ... Born in the small town of Borger in the Texas Panhandle, he played guitar and sang with a band called "The Five Bops," gaining enough recognition to perform on an Amarillo, Texas radio station. Dees eventually made his way to Nashville, Tennessee where his meeting 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.[1]

In 1967, Dees co-wrote all the songs for the Orbison album and MGM motion picture The Fastest Guitar Alive.[2]

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, Billy Joe Royal, Frank Ifield, Mark Dinning and Gene Pitney. In 2000, he recorded his own album titled "Saturday Night At The Movies," a compilation of songs previously sung by Orbison that had been written with Dees and some that Dees had written alone.

Dees now resides near Branson, Missouri, and continues to write songs with collaborator Jack Pribek. ..."

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Stimulus Bill

by Pat Darnell

I thought it was a new nickname for Bill Clinton. I realize after being president and all, there is some desire to go into other fields, if one still has his health, mental and otherwise. Jimmy Carter became a philanthropist of highest order, right up there with Mother Teresa; Habitat for Jimmy, a habit for Mother T.

We do have people we admire, and well Bill is most admired for tempting treason while he deflowered interns with his cigar in the Oval Office. Now that may be rampaging patriotic, and bold, and Jeffersonian... but it does lend a certain taint on a Philanthropic Career from the outset. Bill Clinton is second only to himself and the re-invention of the stimulus that will unlock the blockage up there in the colon of America, Washington, DC, that is. But really:

Stimulus Bill is actually a 2009 A.O., After Obama, law by Barry Obama, paced to bring the financial world back online after its collective vacation taking, eating rich food from foreign lands, and achieving swelling around the ankles not before seen in this hemisphere...

What Me Worry? ...comic relief glances by Bill Clinton are not warranted. Once a person is given the ignoble task of throwing around Solomon's wealth for eight years, long range is the dubious end to that. Long range gathers around the source of dismal planning like the storm of the century. In engineering... let's see we used to call it... Piss Poor Previous Planning, 4P, that is.

To keep bridges from falling, and cities from flooding, a bigger picture lies in waiting to be viewed if not by transient politicians. In USA it seems Americans plan for the 90 day cycle. In other places like the Orient, the plan is 50 years at a time. In Japan there has been recession since the late 1980's. How do you suppose they conquer almost twenty years of recession, and maintain 7 automobile manufacturers?

Japan as a collective culture has the mindset of a long term existence. While Americans are trying to find a way to sweep under the rug the extra 22% finance charges accruing in their credit card accounts every 25 days... Japanese practice a low tech method of saving 40% of their gross pay to bolster their high tech industry. That's how: forty centavos on the dollar e.

Not so much unlike living in a bubble like Japanese do, we Americans are trading off our self-respect, causing the bubble to surround us regardless, "distracted by a heavy bloated feeling."

Read this Article with me by Phil Harris, see if we can stimulate some packages: [Click HERE]

Saturday, August 16, 2008 | Phil Harris :: Townhall.com Columnist
The Constipation of the United States of America
by Phil Harris

We all have a picture in mind of how life ought to be. Perhaps it is not so much a picture; but rather, a strong inkling of what life in America should feel like if all was well and things were running along smoothly. In any case, no matter how each of us perceives that blissful state of being, it is obvious that we are not experiencing it.

Life moves on, of course, and by outward appearances we are living as we always have. The alarm goes off; we clean up and head for work or school, each with a uniquely personal measure of enthusiasm. There is lunch, some afternoon drowsiness, and soon another day is in the bag.

Yet, there is something different today. It is a feeling of not being quite right; not precisely on top of the game. Our daily grind is faced with a bit less energy, a little less bounce in our step, and an extra glance or two over the shoulder. When we sit back and ponder the future, we are distracted by a heavy bloated feeling that hinders us from reveling in our dreams.

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AND, Don't forget the comments too: Ron Jones Location: TN
Reply # 2
Date: Aug 17, 2008 - 1:25 PM EST

Government IS the blockage
If you support federally funded:
public schools
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Welfare
WIC
public roads
public housing
ad nauseum

Then YOU are to blame, not the marxist left, or the mercantilist right. But YOU.

Looking to government to cure whatever social ills or needs that exist is like empowering a thief in the name of stopping thievery.

Read the Constitution; Article 1, Section 8. If you can find a specifically enumerated (that means 'written down' for you public school kids) power, then Congress has the right to get involved.

Your kids are already obligated for trillions and trillions of unfunded future obligations. If they're not yet old enough to vote, it seems like a case of "taxation without representation" to me.

I think it's time to do some house cleaning...bring your pitchforks, torches and a guillotine and we'll get started on the Mall in D.C.

The Guitar may be Mightier than the Pen is !!

Guitarists reminisce on early days

[Retrieved today at: http://www.bransondailynews.com/story.php?storyID=7281 ]
By Dave Abner / Copyright © 2006 The Branson Daily News. All Rights Reserved.

BDN Staff Writer dabner@bransondailynews.com (Note: The following is the first in a three-part series of stories.)

There’s a cliché about the Branson music scene: You can’t throw a rock 30 yards in Branson without hitting 12 guitar players.

Maybe there’s some truth in the statement.

Music meccas like Branson, Nashville, Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles always attract musicians.

Lots of them.

And there are always a lot of guitarists in the mix.

How many? Nobody knows.

Some figures – likely largely underestimated – state that 15 million guitarists dot the globe.

But with hard numbers tough to come by – and some sales figures showing several million new electric guitars sold each year in the U.S. alone, many of those low-end models sold to novice players – the number is quite likely much higher.

Maybe the important question is not “how many,” but rather “why so many?”

Some simple answers.

Guitars are relatively small. You can pack one in a small car for a trip to the park or to take on a picnic.

They can be relatively inexpensive, with a number of decent models hanging off music store shelves for a couple hundred dollars a pop.

But, beyond the expected answers, why do so many musicians choose guitar over harmonica, trombone, piano, drums, tuba?

The answers are as varied as the musicians who offer them.

FORMATIVE YEARS

Larry Holiday plays guitar and sings for “Take it to the Limit,” an Eagles tribute show at RFD TV The Theatre in town.

Holiday’s almost half-century guitar odyssey began in a dream.

He said, “I had a dream when I was five years old I wanted to be a guitar player.”

When he was eight, Holiday inherited his father’s Stella guitar.

“My brother had dropped it down a flight of steps and it was a bit bashed up,” Holiday said.

Jack Pribek has earned a living playing guitar all over America. He landed some years back in southwest Missouri and served as business manager, bandleader and guitarist for Bill Dees. Dees gained notoriety in part for penning a number of hits with rock legend Roy Orbison, including the Orbison-Dees classic, “Oh, Pretty Woman.”

"Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press," (Posted on 29 Apr 2008 at 11:31 am Under: Guitar, Media, Music) ...And, I know who it is too; musician/journalist Dave Abner. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I did an interview for a guitar story with the Branson Daily News. It’s going to be a three part deal and the first part hit the streets this morning. Part 1 can be found here.

Pribek got his first guitar at 14.

His parents weren’t thrilled by the idea.

Pribek said, “They wanted me to study a legit instrument... but said they would pay for the lessons if I saved up for a guitar.”

With a classically-trained pianist for a mother, Pribek’s parents insisted he learned to read music – a skill not held by all working musicians.

Holiday had a similar story.

“My dad made a deal with me. He said he would buy me an electric guitar and amp(lifier) if I would join band in school and play a horn.”

Holiday said he took up trombone. “The (teacher) goes, ‘You’re going to be a trombone player,’” Holiday said.

And Holiday was on the road to guitar ownership.

“(My dad) went to Montgomery Ward’s and bought me a Tesco Del Ray (guitar) and a matching amp.

“He got all of that for like eighty-nine bucks.”

Holiday’s first guitar lessons came in the form of what he heard coming out of a transistor radio during his formative years growing up in Indiana.

Raised near Chicago, Holiday said he went to sleep each night “with a transistor radio under my pillow.”

It’s where he learned about rock and pop, on radio station WLS out of Chicago, or what he heard on a late-night blues-soul broadcast on a station “out of Gary or Calumet City.

“I got pop music from WLS, and blues and soul from this other station.”

Pribek remembers an old Johnny Carson broadcast.

“I was about eight or nine and I remember seeing B.B. King on ‘The Tonight Show.’ He was making his guitar sing like a voice.

“Something about that grabbed me.”

Holiday remembers Elvis films that caught his eye years ago.

He said, “When I was a kid, I remember watching Elvis movies.

“He played guitar and it seemed like he was getting a lot of chicks.”

Pribek’s first gig – a real playing job, for money – is different than the $5-a-night tale told by many of today’s Branson musicians when recounting “first gig” stories.

In his early teens, Pribek and his young bandmates rented a community hall and hosted a Valentine’s Day dance.

They charged an admission and “made like four or five hundred dollars,” Pribek said.

Thus are guitar players – and concert promoters – born.

(Coming in Part Two: Becoming a professional guitar slinger.)