Oh Boy Records

Oh Boy Records is an independent American record label founded in 1981 by singer John Prine, his manager Al Bunetta and their friend Dan Einstein. The label has released more than 40 audio and video recordings by singer-songwriters Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Daniel "Slick" Ballinger, Shawn Camp, Dan Reeder and Todd Snider, along with a dozen reissues of classic country music artists. Oh Boy Records also manages two subsidiary labels, Steve Goodman's Red Pajamas Records and speciality label Blue Plate Music. Oh Boy is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

History

Al Bunetta was a talent manager with Paul Anka's management company CMA, working with artists like Bette Midler, Al Green and The Manhattan Transfer. When Anka signed John Prine and Steve Goodman to management contracts in 1971, Bunetta became the manager for both of them. In 1980, Prine finished his recording contract with Asylum and moved to Nashville. Rather than sign with another major label, he decided to start one of his own, and was joined by Bunetta and associate Dan Einstein. The new Oh Boy label's first release was a red vinyl Christmas single with Prine singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" on the A-side and "Silver Bells" on the B-side. The first full-length release was Prine's Aimless Love in 1984. Around 1989, Sony offered to buy Oh Boy Records, but Prine decided to keep the label independent and turned down the offer.

Oh Boy

Oh Boy or Ooh Boy may refer to:

Film and television

TV

Books

Music

Albums

Songs

Oh, Boy! (musical)

Oh, Boy! is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. The story concerns befuddled George, who elopes with Lou Ellen, the daughter of Judge Carter. He must win over her parents and his Quaker aunt. His dapper polo champion friend Jim is in love with madcap actress Jackie, but George must hide her while she extricates herself from a scrape with a bumbling constable whom she punched at a party raid.

The piece was the most successful of the "Princess Theatre Musicals", opening in February 1917 and transferring to the Casino Theatre in November 1917 to finish its Broadway run of 463 performances. A London production, under the title Oh, Joy! opened in January 1919 at the Kingsway Theatre, where it ran for 167 performances. A silent film version was also produced in 1919.

Background

Early in the 20th century, American musical theatre consisted of a mix of elaborate European operettas, like The Merry Widow (1907), British musical comedy imports, likeThe Arcadians (1910), George M. Cohan's shows, American operettas, like those of Victor Herbert, ragtime-infused American musicals, and the spectacular revues of Florenz Ziegfeld and others. But as Cohan's and Herbert's creative output waned, new creative talent was being nurtured on Broadway, including Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Sigmund Romberg. Kern began by revising British musicals to suit American audiences, adding songs that "have a timeless, distinctly American sound that redefined the Broadway showtune."

Oh Boy! (TV series)

Oh Boy! was the first teenage all-music show on British TV airing in 1958 and 1959. It was produced by Jack Good for ITV.

Good had previously produced Six-Five Special for the BBC Television, but wanted to drop the sport and public-service content from this show, and concentrate on the music. The BBC would not accept this, so Good resigned.

ABC allowed Good to make two pilot all-music shows, which were only broadcast in the Midlands. These pilots were successful, so the programme was given a national ITV slot on Saturday evenings, from 6.00pm – 6.30pm, in direct competition with 6.5 Special, but starting slightly earlier.

The hosts were Tony Hall, a jazz record producer and critic, and Jimmy Henney, and the artists covered a broad spectrum of music including ballads, jazz, skiffle and rock and roll. The show was broadcast live from the Hackney Empire.

Each week Oh Boy! featured resident artists plus a selection of special guests. The residents included Cuddly Dudley, who sang on 21 shows, Cliff Richard (20 shows), the Drifters (Later to become the Shadows) (17 shows), Marty Wilde (17 shows) and the Dallas Boys (10 shows). Guests included Billy Fury, Tony Sheridan, Shirley Bassey and Lonnie Donegan; with occasional US stars, such as the Inkspots, Conway Twitty and Brenda Lee. The solo artists were supported by a specially created house band Lord Rockingham's XI, who went on to have hits in their own right, including a No 1 single "Hoots Mon". Performers were also supported by the singing and dancing of the Vernons Girls, the Dallas Boys and Neville Taylor's Cutters