MOUNTAIN HOME — 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 centerpiece 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 during 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.
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 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.
Dees said in a 1970 interview with the Amarillo Globe-News 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, traveling 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.”ght at the Movies,” which includes songs he wrote with Orbison.
As a child, Dees lived with his family in Borger, Texas, where his father worked as a sand and gravel supplier, where Dees went on to work. Dees recalled listening to barrelhouse piano music at house parties and getting bit by the music bug, according to his biography.
Dees said many times that he and Orbison were lifelong friends. Orbison died in 1988.
Dees is survived by his wife, Nancy Decker-Dees of Kissee Mills, Mo.; four children and two stepchildren, a brother and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to the funeral home’s obituary.