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 or Ooh Boy may refer to:
Film and television
TV
Books
Music
Albums
Songs
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
"Oh, Boy!" was written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty. The song was originally recorded by Sonny West in the late 1950s but failed to achieve any commercial success. It was later recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets between June 29 and July 1, 1957, at Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico, with Holly singing lead vocals and The Picks providing backing vocals. The song is in an A-A-B-A format with a 12-bar blues verse and an 8-bar bridge. (Holly also covered another West song, "Rave On".)
The song appeared on the album The "Chirping" Crickets, and was also released as the A-side of a single, with "Not Fade Away" as the B-side. The song peaked at #10 on the US Charts, and #3 on the UK Charts in early 1958. (See 1958 in music for more context.)
Mud version
"Oh Boy" was covered by British glam rock group Mud. It reached No. 1 for two weeks on the UK Singles Chart in May 1975. It was the band's third and final UK number one. It featured on their album Mud Rock Volume 2, which reached No. 6 in the UK Albums Chart.