Roy Orbison
Encyclopedia
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly
/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records
in Memphis
. His greatest success came with Monument Records
in the early to mid 1960s when 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard
Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely
", "Crying", "In Dreams
", and "Oh, Pretty Woman
". His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of one in a film by David Lynch
revived his career in the 1980s. In 1988, he joined the supergroup
Traveling Wilburys
with George Harrison
, Bob Dylan
, Tom Petty
, and Jeff Lynne
and also released a new solo album. He died of a heart attack
in December that year, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and two of his children in separate accidents.
Orbison was a natural baritone
, but music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. The combination of Orbison's powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many critics to refer to his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet "the Caruso of Rock".Comparisons of Orbison's music and voice to opera have been made by Bob Dylan
, Tom Waits
, and songwriter Will Jennings
among others. (Lehman, p. 21) Performers such as Elvis Presley
and Bono
have stated his voice was, respectively, the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard. While most men in rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability. He was known for performing while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses which lent an air of mystery to his persona.
Orbison was initiated into the second class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1987 by longtime admirer Bruce Springsteen
. The same year he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
. Rolling Stone
placed Orbison at number 37 in their list of The Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists. Rolling Stone rated Orbison number 13 in their list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008.
, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison—an oil well driller and car mechanic—and Nadine Shultz, a nurse. Both of Orbison's parents were unemployed during the Great Depression
, so the family moved to Fort Worth for several years to find work, until a polio scare prompted them to return to Vernon. To find work again, the family then moved to the town of Wink
in West Texas. Orbison would later describe the major components of life in Wink as "Football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand", and in later years expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.Ellis Amburn argues that Orbison was bullied and ostracized while in Wink and that after he became famous, he gave conflicting reports to local Texas newspapers claiming it was still home to him, while simultaneously maligning the town to Rolling Stone. (Amburn, pp. 11–20.) All the Orbison children were afflicted with poor eyesight; Roy used thick corrective lenses from an early age. A bout with jaundice
as a child gave him a sallow complexion, and his ears protruded prominently. Orbison was not particularly confident in his appearance; he began dyeing his nearly white hair black when he was young. He was quiet and self-effacing, remarkably polite and obliging—a product, biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing. However, Orbison was readily available to sing, and often became the focus of attention when he did. He considered his voice memorable if not great.
On his sixth birthday, Orbison's father gave him a guitar. Orbison later recalled that, by the age of seven, "I was finished, you know, for anything else"; music would be his life. Orbison's major musical influences as a youth were in country music. He was particularly moved by the way Lefty Frizzell
sang, slurring syllables. He also enjoyed Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers
. One of the first musicians he heard in person was Ernest Tubb
playing on the back of a flatbed truck in Fort Worth. In West Texas, however, he was exposed to many forms of music: "sepia"—a euphemism for what became known as rhythm and blues
(R&B); Tex-Mex
; orchestral Mantovani
, and zydeco
. The zydeco favorite "Joli Blon" was one of the first songs Orbison sang in public. At eight, Orbison began appearing on a local radio show. By the late 1940s, he was the host.
In high school, Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners, an informal band that played country standards and Glenn Miller
songs. When they were offered $400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music. Following high school, he enrolled at North Texas State College, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay. He formed another band called The Teen Kings, and sang at night while working in the oil fields or studying during the day. Orbison saw classmate Pat Boone
get signed for a record deal, further strengthening his resolve to become a professional musician. His geology grades dropping, he switched to Odessa Junior College
to consider becoming a teacher. While living in Odessa, Orbison drove 355 miles (571.3 km) to Dallas to see and be stunned by the on-stage antics of Elvis Presley
, then a rising star in the southern states. Johnny Cash
toured the area in 1955, playing on the same local radio show as the Teen Kings and suggested that Orbison approach Sam Phillips
at Sun Records
, home of rockabilly stars including Presley, Carl Perkins
, Jerry Lee Lewis
and Cash. In their conversation, Phillips told Orbison curtly, "Johnny Cash doesn't run my record company!"Although both Orbison and Cash mentioned this anecdote years later, Phillips denied that he was so abrupt on the phone with Orbison or that he hung up on him. One of the Teen Kings later stated that the band did not meet Cash until a week later while they were on tour with other Sun Records artists. (Amburn, pp. 42–43). but he was convinced to listen to a record on the Odessa Je-Wel label by the Teen Kings named "Ooby Dooby", a song composed by Dick Penner
and Wade Moore in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at North Texas State
. Phillips was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956.
, peaking at number 59 and selling 200,000 copies. The Teen Kings toured with Sonny James
, Johnny Horton
, and Cash. Much influenced by Elvis Presley, Orbison performed frenetically, doing "everything we could to get applause because we had only one hit record". The Teen Kings also began writing more material such as "Go! Go! Go!
" and "Rockhouse", generally in standard rockabilly style. The band ultimately split over disputed writing credits and royalties, but Orbison stayed in Memphis and asked his 16-year-old girlfriend, Claudette Frady, to join him.Alan Clayson's biography names Orbison's girlfriend Claudette Hestand. They stayed in Phillips' home, where they slept in separate rooms; in the studio Orbison concentrated on the mechanics of recording. Sam Phillips remembered being much more impressed with Orbison's mastery of the guitar than his voice; a ballad Orbison wrote called "The Clown" was met with lukewarm appreciation at best. Sun Records producer Jack Clement
told Orbison after hearing it that he would never make it as a ballad singer.
He found a modicum of success at Sun Records and found his way into Elvis Presley's social circle, once going to pick up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac. Orbison sold "Claudette", a song he wrote about Frady, whom he married in 1957, to The Everly Brothers
and it appeared on the B-side of their smash hit "All I Have To Do Is Dream
". The first and perhaps only royalties Orbison earned from Sun Records enabled him to make a down-payment on his own Cadillac. However, frustrated at Sun, Orbison gradually stopped recording, toured music circuits around Texas to make a living, and for seven months in 1958 quit performing completely. His car repossessed and in dire financial straits, he often depended on family and friends for funds.
For a brief period in the late 1950s Orbison made his living at Acuff-Rose
, a songwriting firm concentrating mainly on country music. After spending an entire day writing a song, he would make several demo tapes at a time and send them to Wesley Rose
, who would try to find the musical acts to record them. Orbison attempted to sell to RCA Victor songs he recorded that were written by other writers as well, working with and being completely in awe of Chet Atkins
who had played guitar with Presley. Orbison tried one song penned by Boudleaux Bryant
called "Seems to Me". Bryant's impression of Orbison was "a timid, shy kid who seemed to be rather befuddled by the whole music scene. I remember the way he sang then—softly, prettily but almost bashfully, as if someone might be disturbed by his efforts and reprimand him."
Playing shows late into the night, and living with his wife and young child in his tiny apartment, Orbison often sought refuge by taking his guitar to his car and writing songs there. Songwriter Joe Melson
, who had a passing acquaintance with Orbison, tapped on his car window one day in Texas in 1958 and the two decided to try to write some songs together. During three recording sessions in 1958 and 1959, Orbison and Melson recorded seven songs at RCA Nashville
, with Atkins producing, but only two songs were judged worthy of release by RCA; Wesley Rose maneuvered Orbison into the sights of producer Fred Foster
at Monument Records
.
, a trend of country and pop crossover music that used session musicians dubbed the A-Team
: guitarists Grady Martin
, Harold Bradley
, Ray Edenton, and Bob Moore
; pianists Floyd Cramer
or Hargus "Pig" Robbins; drummer Buddy Harman
; and backup vocals by the Jordanaires or the Anita Kerr Singers
. The Nashville Sound was developed by producers Atkins, Owen Bradley
—who worked closely with Patsy Cline
—Sam Phillips, and Fred Foster. In his first session for Monument in Nashville, Orbison took on a song that RCA had refused, "Paper Boy", backed by "With The Bug" as the B-side, but neither charted.
According to musician and author Albin Zak, the combination of the studio—engineered by Bill Porter, who experimented with close miking
the doo-wop
backup singers—production by Foster, and accompanying musicians, gave Orbison's music a "polished, professional sound...finally allow(ing) Orbison's stylistic inclinations free rein". In addition to the Nashville Sound's core components, Orbison requested strings in the studio. With this combination, Orbison recorded three new songs, the most notable of which was "Uptown", penned by himself and Melson. Impressed with the results, Melson later recalled, "We stood in the studio, listening to the playbacks and thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world". The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll states that the music Orbison made in Nashville "brought a new splendor to rock", and compared the melodramatic effects of the orchestral accompaniment to the music production of Phil Spector
.
"Uptown" earned a modest spot at number 72 on the Billboard Top 100 and Orbison set his goal on negotiating a contract with an upscale nightclub somewhere. Rock and roll itself, in its infancy in the late 1950s, was stalled. Elvis Presley was in the Army. Eddie Cochran
and fellow Texan Buddy Holly
—both of whom Orbison had previously toured with—had died, to Orbison's deep astonishment. Little Richard
had found religion and Chuck Berry
was in jail. Orbison's former Sun Records colleague Jerry Lee Lewis was disgraced when his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin was reported widely in the press. In their wake, pop music filled the radio waves, dominated by teen idol
crooners who sang cleansed formulas like those about the twist
dance craze and "death discs
" like "Teen Angel
" and "Endless Sleep".
that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, "came not from his throat but deeper within". The song was "Only the Lonely
"; Orbison and Melson had earlier tried to pitch it to Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers but were turned down. They instead recorded the song at RCA's Nashville studio with Porter trying a completely new strategy: building the mix from the top down rather from the bottom up, beginning with the close-miked background vocals in the foreground and ending with the rhythm section soft in the background. This combination became Orbison's trademark sound. The single shot to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 in the UK and Australia. According to Orbison, the subsequent songs he wrote with Melson during this period were constructed with his voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power. He told Rolling Stone in 1988: "I liked the sound of [my voice]. I liked making it sing, making the voice ring, and I just kept doing it. And I think that somewhere between the time of "Ooby Dooby" and "Only the Lonely", it kind of turned into a good voice."
Instantly Orbison was in high demand. He appeared on American Bandstand
and toured the US for three months non-stop with Patsy Cline. When Presley heard "Only the Lonely" for the first time, he bought a box of copies to pass to his friends. Melson and Orbison followed it with the more complex "Blue Angel" which peaked at US number 9/UK number 11, a self-performed version of "Claudette", and "I'm Hurtin'", which rose to number 27 but failed to chart in the UK.
Orbison was now able to move his wife and son to Nashville full-time. Back in the studio, seeking a change from the doo-wop styled pop sound of "Only the Lonely" and "I'm Hurtin'", Orbison worked on a new song, "Running Scared", based loosely on the rhythm of Ravel's Boléro
; the song was about a man on lookout for his girlfriend's previous boyfriend, who he feared would try to take her away. Orbison encountered difficulty when he found himself unable to hit the song's highest note without his voice breaking. He was backed by an orchestra in the studio and Porter told him he would have to sing louder than his accompaniment because the orchestra was unable to be softer than his voice. Fred Foster then put Orbison in the corner of the studio and surrounded him with coat racks in an improvised isolation booth to emphasize his voice. Orbison was unhappy with the first two takes, but in the third, he abandoned the idea of using falsetto and sang the final high G sharp naturally, so astonishing everyone present that the accompanying musicians stopped playing. On that third take, "Running Scared" was completed. Fred Foster later recalled, "He did it, and everybody looked around in amazement. Nobody had heard anything like it before."
. The rest of the year he charted with "The Crowd", "Leah", and "Workin' For the Man", which he wrote about working one summer in the oil fields near Wink. His relationship with Joe Melson, however, was deteriorating over Melson's growing concerns that his own solo career would never get off the ground.
Lacking the photogenic looks of many of his rock and roll contemporaries, Orbison eventually developed a persona that did not reflect his personality. He had no publicist in the early 1960s, no presence in fan magazines, and his single sleeves did not feature his picture. Life
magazine called him an "anonymous celebrity". After leaving his thick eyeglasses on an airplane in 1962 or 1963, Orbison was forced to wear his Ray-Ban Wayfarer prescription sunglasses on stage and found that he preferred them. His biographers suggest that although he had a good sense of humor and was never morose, Orbison was very shy and suffered from severe stage fright
; wearing sunglasses helped him hide somewhat from the attention. The black clothes and desperation in his songs led to an aura of mystery and introversion. Years later, Orbison said "I wasn't trying to be weird, you know? I didn't have a manager who told me to dress or how to present myself or anything. But the image developed of a man of mystery and a quiet man in black somewhat of a recluse, although I never was, really."
His dark and brooding persona, combined with his tremulous voice in lovelorn ballads marketed to teenagers, helped Orbison corner the pop market in the early 1960s. He had a string of hits in 1963 with "In Dreams
" (US number 7/UK number 5), "Falling" (US number 22/UK number 9), "Mean Woman Blues
" (US number 5/UK number 3) coupled with "Blue Bayou
" (US number 29/UK number 3). He finished the year with a Christmas song written by Willie Nelson
titled "Pretty Paper" (US number 15 in 1963/UK number 6 in 1964).
As "In Dreams" was released in April 1963, Orbison was asked to replace guitarist Duane Eddy
on a tour of the UK in top billing, with The Beatles
, whose popularity was on the rise. When he arrived in England, however, he saw the amount of advertising devoted to the quartet and realized he was no longer the main draw. He had never heard of them and, annoyed, asked hypothetically, "What's a Beatle anyway?" to which John Lennon
replied after tapping his shoulder, "I am." On opening night, Orbison opted to go onstage first although he was the more established act. Known for having raucous shows expressing an extraordinary amount of energy, Lennon, Paul McCartney
, George Harrison
, and Ringo Starr
stood dumbfounded backstage as Orbison performed completely still and simply sang through fourteen encores. Finally, when the audience began chanting "We want Roy!" again, Lennon and McCartney prevented Orbison from going on again by physically holding him back. Starr later said, "In Glasgow, we were all backstage listening to the tremendous applause he was getting. He was just standing there, not moving or anything." Through the tour, however, both acts quickly learned to get along, a process made easier by the fact that the Beatles admired his work. Orbison felt a kinship with Lennon, but it was Harrison with whom he would later form a strong friendship. The moniker of "The Big O" would eventually follow him back to the States, where it became an unofficial nickname for Orbison.
. Their friends and relatives attributed it to her youth and that she was unable to withstand being alone and bored; when Orbison toured England again in the fall of 1963, she joined him. He was immensely popular wherever he went, finishing the tour in Ireland and Canada. Almost immediately he toured Australia and New Zealand with The Beach Boys
and returned again to the UK and Ireland where he was so besieged by teenage girls that the Irish police had to halt his performances to pull the girls off him. He continued to tour, however, and visited Australia again, this time with The Rolling Stones
. Mick Jagger
later remarked of a snapshot he took of Orbison in New Zealand: "A fine figure of a man in the hot springs, he was."
Orbison also began collaborating with Bill Dees
, whom he had known in Texas. With Dees, he wrote "It's Over", a number 1 in the UK, and a song that would be one of his signature pieces for the rest of his career. When Claudette walked in while Dees and Orbison had begun writing to say she was heading for Nashville, Orbison asked if she had any money, and Dees said "Pretty woman never needs any money". Forty minutes later, "Oh, Pretty Woman
" was completed. A riff-laden masterpiece that employed a playful growl he got from a Bob Hope
movie, the epithet Orbison uttered when he was unable to hit a note ("Mercy!"), and a merging of his vulnerable and masculine sides, it rose to number 1 in the fall of 1964 in the US and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks; it hit number 1 in the UK as well, spending 18 weeks total on the charts. The single sold over seven million copies. Orbison's success was greater in Britain; as Billboard magazine noted, "In a 68-week period that began on August 8, 1963, Roy Orbison was the only American artist to have a number-one single in Britain. He did it twice, with 'It's Over' on June 25, 1964, and 'Oh, Pretty Woman' on October 8, 1964. The latter song also went to number one in America, making Orbison impervious to the current chart dominance of British artists on both sides of the Atlantic."
(MGM), for a million dollars and the understanding that Orbison would expand into television and films as Elvis Presley had done. Orbison was a film enthusiast, and when not touring, writing, or recording would dedicate time to seeing up to three films a day. However, Rose also began acting as Orbison's producer. Fred Foster later argued that Rose's takeover was responsible for the commercial failure of Orbison's work at MGM; engineer Bill Porter agreed that Orbison's best work could only be achieved with RCA Nashville's A Team. Orbison's first collection at MGM, an album titled Goodnight, sold fewer than 200,000 copies. The British Invasion
also occurred at the same time, changing the direction of rock music significantly.
While on tour again in the UK in 1965, Orbison broke his foot falling off a motorcycle in front of thousands of screaming fans at a race track, and performed his show that evening in a cast. His reconciliation with Claudette occurred when she went to visit him while he was recuperating from the accident. Orbison was fascinated with machines and vehicles, and was known to see a car he liked, follow the driver and offer him money to purchase the car on the spot. He had a collection worthy of a museum by the late 1960s. He and Claudette shared a love for motorcycles; she had grown up around them, but Orbison claimed Elvis Presley had introduced him to motorcycles. However, tragedy struck on June 6, 1966, when Orbison and Claudette were riding home from Bristol, Tennessee
. Claudette was struck by a semi-trailer truck
and died instantly.
A grieving Orbison threw himself into his work, collaborating with Bill Dees to write music for The Fastest Guitar Alive
, a film that MGM had scheduled for him to star in as well. It was initially planned as a dramatic Western, but was rewritten as a comedy. Orbison's character was a spy who stole and had to protect and deliver a cache of gold to the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War and was outfitted with a guitar that turned into a rifle. The prop allowed him to deliver the line "I could kill you with this and play your funeral march at the same time", with—according to biographer Colin Escott—"zero conviction". Orbison was pleased with the film, although it proved to be a critical and box office flop. While MGM had included five films in his contract, no more were made.
Orbison recorded an album dedicated to the songs of Don Gibson
and another of Hank Williams covers, but both sold poorly. As the psychedelic rock movement took hold in the late 1960s, Orbison felt lost, later saying "[I] didn't hear a lot I could relate to so I kind of stood there like a tree where the winds blow and the seasons change, and you're still there and you bloom again." He continued to tour, and had previously made some smart real estate investments, so money was never an issue for him again. It was during a tour in the Midlands of England that on September 16, 1968, Orbison received the news that his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, had burned down and his two eldest sons had died. The property was sold to Johnny Cash, who planted an orchard on it. On March 25, 1969, Orbison married a German teenager named Barbara Wellhöner Jakobs whom he had met a few days before his sons died. His youngest son with Claudette was raised by his parents. He and Barbara Orbison
had a son in 1970 and another in 1974.
" was remade by Gram Parsons
and Emmylou Harris
, and again by heavy metal
band Nazareth
. Sonny James sent "Only the Lonely" to number 1 on the country music charts. Bruce Springsteen
ended his concerts with Orbison songs and Glen Campbell
had a minor hit with a remake of "Dream Baby". A compilation LP of Orbison's greatest hits went to number 1 in the UK in 1977. The same year he began to open concerts for The Eagles, who started as Linda Ronstadt
's backup band. Ronstadt herself covered "Blue Bayou
" in 1977, her version reaching number 3 on the Billboard charts and remaining in the charts for 24 weeks. Orbison credited this cover in particular for reviving his memory in the popular mind, if not his career.
On 18 January 1978 Orbison underwent a triple heart bypass. He had suffered from duodenal ulcers as far back as 1960, and had been a chain smoker since adolescence. Although he felt revitalized following the triple bypass, he continued to smoke and his weight fluctuated for the rest of his life.
Don McLean
covered "Crying" in 1980 in a version which hit number 5 in the US and stayed on the charts for 15 weeks; it was number 1 in the UK for three weeks. Although he was all but forgotten in the US, Orbison took a chance and embarked on a tour of Bulgaria. He was astonished to find he was as popular there as he had been in 1964; he was forced to stay in his hotel room because he was mobbed on the streets of Sofia. Later that year, he and Emmylou Harris won a Grammy for their duet "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again". It was his first such award, and he felt more than ever that the time was ripe for his full return to popular music. However, it would be several more years until this came to fruition.
. A song he recorded named "Life Fades Away" was featured in the film Less Than Zero
. He and k. d. lang performed a duet of "Crying" and released it on the soundtrack to Hiding Out
, winning a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals
.
However, one film in which Orbison refused to allow his music was Blue Velvet. Director David Lynch
asked to use "In Dreams" and Orbison turned him down. Lynch used it anyway. The song served as one of several obsessions of a psychopathic character named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper
). It was lip-synched by an effeminate drug dealer played by Dean Stockwell
, after which Booth demanded the song be played over and over, once beating the protagonist while the song played. During filming, Lynch asked for the song to be played repeatedly to give the set a surreal atmosphere. Orbison was initially shocked at its use: he saw the film in a theater in Malibu and later said, "I was mortified because they were talking about the 'candy colored clown' in relation to a dope deal... I thought, 'What in the world...?' But later, when I was touring, we got the video out and I really got to appreciate what David gave to the song, and what the song gave to the movie—how it achieved this otherworldly quality that added a whole new dimension to 'In Dreams'."
The same year, Orbison was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
and initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
by Bruce Springsteen, who concluded his speech with a reference to his own song "Thunder Road
": "I wanted a record with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector—but, most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison. Now everyone knows that no one sings like Roy Orbison." In response, Orbison asked Springsteen for a copy of the speech, and said of his induction that he felt "validated" by the honor. A few months later, Orbison and Springsteen paired again to film a concert at the Cocoanut Grove Ballroom in Los Angeles. They were joined by Jackson Browne
, T-Bone Burnett
, Elvis Costello
, Tom Waits
, Bonnie Raitt
, Jennifer Warnes
, and k. d. lang. Lang later recounted how humbled Orbison had been by the show of support from so many talented and busy musicians: "Roy looked at all of us and said, 'If there is anything I can ever do for you, please call on me.' He was very serious. It was his way of thanking us. It was very emotional." The concert was filmed in one take and aired on Cinemax
under the title Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night
; it was released on video by Virgin Records
, selling 50,000 copies.
frontman Jeff Lynne
on a new album. At the same time Lynne was completing production work on George Harrison's Cloud Nine
, and all three had lunch one day when Orbison accepted an invitation to sing on Harrison's album. They contacted Bob Dylan
, who allowed them to use a recording studio in his home. Along the way, Harrison had to stop by Tom Petty
's house to pick up his guitar; Petty and his band had backed Dylan on his last tour. By that evening, the group had written "Handle with Care
", which led to the concept of recording an entire album. They called themselves the Traveling Wilburys
, representing themselves as half-brothers from the same father. They gave themselves stage names; Orbison chose his from his musical hero, calling himself "Lefty Wilbury" after Lefty Frizzell. Expanding on the concept of a traveling band of raucous musicians, Orbison offered a quote about the group's foundation in honor: "Some people say Daddy was a cad and a bounder. I remember him as a Baptist minister."
Lynne later spoke of the recording sessions: "Everybody just sat there going, 'Wow, it's Roy Orbison!'... [E]ven though he's become your pal and you're hanging out and having a laugh and going to dinner, as soon as he gets behind that mike and he's doing his business, suddenly it's shudder time." Orbison was given one solo track on the album titled "Not Alone Anymore". His contributions were highly praised by the press. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
spent 53 weeks on the US charts, peaking at number 3. It hit number 1 in Australia and topped out at number 16 in the UK. The LP won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group
. Rolling Stone included it in the top 100 albums of the decade.
Orbison was in high demand for concerts and interviews once again, and was thrilled about it. He began writing songs and collaborating with many musicians from his past and newer fans to develop a solo album titled Mystery Girl
. U2
's lead singer Bono
had become aware of Orbison when he saw Blue Velvet and, with The Edge
wrote "She's a Mystery to Me
" for him. Bono witnessed the recording of the song and recalled:
Mystery Girl was produced by Jeff Lynne, whom Orbison considered the best producer he had ever worked with, while Bono, Elvis Costello, Orbison's son Wesley and others offered their songs to him. The biggest hit from the album was "You Got It
", written by Lynne and Tom Petty. It posthumously rose to number 9 in the US and number 3 in the UK.
at 52.
Orbison's death was an international news event. Author Peter Lehman suggests that had he died in the 1970s when his career was in the doldrums, it might have earned a minor mention in the obituary section of the newspaper. However, the response to his death reflected just how popular Orbison had again become. The Nashville Banner
put it on the front page across six columns. It also made the front page of the New York Times. The tabloid The National Enquirer
suggested on its cover that he had worked himself to death. A memorial was held in Nashville, and another in Los Angeles; he was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
. In January 1989 Orbison became the first musician since Elvis Presley to have two albums in the Top Five at the same time.
, heavy guitars, and lyrical themes that glorified youthful rebellion. However, very little of what Orbison recorded met these characteristics. The structure and themes of his songs defied convention, and his much-praised voice and performance style were unlike any other in rock and roll. Many of his contemporaries compared his music with that of classically trained musicians, although Orbison never mentioned any classical music influences. Author Peter Lehman summarized it, writing, "He achieved what he did not by copying classical music but by creating a unique form of popular music that drew upon a wide variety of music popular during his youth".
, specifically noting how they were "songs within songs". Music critic Dave Marsh also wrote that these compositions "define a world unto themselves more completely than any other body of work in pop music". Orbison's music, like the man himself, has been described as timeless, diverting from contemporary rock and roll and bordering on the eccentric, within a hair's breadth of being weird. New York Times writer Peter Watrous declared in a concert review: "He has perfected an odd vision of popular music, one in which eccentricity and imagination beat back all the pressures toward conformity".
In the 1960s, Orbison refused to splice edits of songs together, and insisted in recording them in single takes with all the instruments and singers together. The only convention Orbison followed in his most popular songs is the time limit for radio fare in pop songs. Otherwise, each seems to follow a separate structure. Using the standard thirty-two-bar form
for verses and choruses, normal pop songs followed the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus structure. Where A represents the first verse and B represents the chorus, most pop songs can be represented by A-B-A-B-C-A-B, like "Ooby Dooby" and "Claudette". Orbison's "In Dreams" was a song in seven movements that can be represented as Intro-A-B-C-D-E-F; no sections are repeated. In "Running Scared", however, the entire song repeats to build suspense to a final climax, to be represented as A-A-A-A-B. "Crying" is more complex, changing parts toward the end to be represented as A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B modified, C modified, D modified, E modified, F modified. Although Orbison recorded and wrote standard structure songs before "Only the Lonely", he claimed never to have learned how to write them:
Elton John
's writing partner Bernie Taupin
wrote that Orbison's songs always made "radical left turns", and k. d. lang declared that good songwriting comes from being constantly surprised, such as how the entirety of "Running Scared" eventually depends on the final note, one word. Some of the musicians who worked with Orbison were confounded by what he asked them to do. Nashville session guitarist Jerry Kennedy
stated, "Roy went against the grain. The first time you'd hear something, it wouldn't sound right. But after a few playbacks, it would start to grow on you."
In 1990, Colin Escott wrote an introduction to Orbison's biography published in a CD box set: "Orbison was the master of compression. Working the singles era, he could relate a short story, or establish a mood in under three minutes. If you think that's easy—try it. His greatest recordings were quite simply perfect; not a word or note surplus to intention." After attending a show in 1988, Peter Watrous of The New York Times wrote that Orbison's songs are "dreamlike claustrophobically intimate set pieces". Music critic Ken Emerson writes that the "apocalyptic romanticism" in Orbison's music was well-crafted for the films his songs appeared in in the 1980s because the music was "so over-the-top that dreams become delusions, and self-pity paranoia", striking "a postmodern nerve". Led Zeppelin
singer Robert Plant
favored American R&B music as a youth, but beyond the black musicians, he named Elvis and Orbison especially as foreshadowing the emotions he would experience: "The poignancy of the combination of lyric and voice was stunning. [Orbison] used drama to great effect and he wrote dramatically."
The loneliness in Orbison's songs that he became most famous for, he both explained and downplayed: "I don't think I've been any more lonely than anyone else... Although if you grow up in West Texas, there are a lot of ways to be lonely." His music offered an alternative to the postured masculinity that was pervasive in music and culture. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees stated, "He made emotion fashionable, that it was all right to talk about and sing about very emotional things. For men to sing about very emotional things... Before that no one would do it." Orbison acknowledged this in looking back on the era in which he became popular: "When ["Crying"] came out I don't think anyone had accepted the fact that a man should cry when he wants to cry." Peter Lehman, on the other hand, considered Orbison's theme of constant vulnerability an element of sexual masochism.
and Jeannette MacDonald standard "Indian Love Call
", and had the audience completely silenced, in awe. When compared to the Everly Brothers, who often used the same session musicians, Orbison is credited with "a passionate intensity" that, according to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, made "his love, his life, and, indeed, the whole world [seem] to be coming to an end—not with a whimper, but an agonized, beautiful bang".
Bruce Springsteen
and Billy Joel
both commented on the otherworldly quality of Orbison's voice. Dwight Yoakam
stated that Orbison's voice sounded like "the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window". Barry Gibb
of The Bee Gees went further to say that when he heard "Crying" for the first time, "That was it. To me that was the voice of God."
Bob Dylan marked Orbison as a specific influence, remarking that there was nothing like him on radio in the early 1960s:
Likewise, Tim Goodwin, who conducted the orchestra that backed Orbison in Bulgaria, had been told that Orbison's voice would be a singular experience to hear. When Orbison started with "Crying" and hit the high notes, Goodwin stated, "The strings were playing and the band had built up, and sure enough, the hair on the back of my neck just all started standing up. It was an incredible physical sensation."
Orbison's severe stage fright was particularly noticeable in the 1970s and early 1980s. During the first few songs in a concert, the vibrato
in his voice was almost uncontrollable, but afterwards, it became stronger and more dependable. This also happened with age. Orbison noticed that he was unable to control the tremor in the late afternoon and evenings, and chose to record in the mornings when it was possible.
K.d. lang compared Orbison to a tree, with passive but solid beauty. This image of Orbison as immovable was so associated with him it was parodied by John Belushi
on Saturday Night Live
, as Belushi dressed as Orbison falls over while singing "Oh, Pretty Woman", and continues to play as his bandmates set him upright again. However, lang quantified this style by saying, "It's so hard to explain what Roy's energy was like because he would fill a room with his energy and presence but not say a word. Being that he was so grounded and so strong and so gentle and quiet. He was just there."
Orbison attributed his own passion during his performances to the period when he grew up in Fort Worth while the US was mobilizing for World War II. His parents worked in a defense plant and his father would bring a guitar in the evenings and their friends and relatives who had just joined the military would gather, and drink and sing heartily. Orbison later reflected, "I guess that level of intensity made a big impression on me, because it's still there. That sense of 'do it for all it's worth and do it now and do it good.' Not to analyze it too much, but I think the verve and gusto that everybody felt and portrayed around me has stayed with me all this time."
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. His greatest success came with Monument Records
Monument Records
Monument Records was an American record label, Washington, D.C. named for the Washington Monument, founded in 1958, by Fred Foster and Buddy Deane . Buddy Deane soon left the company, and in the early 60's bought KOTN in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where he retired to until his death...
in the early to mid 1960s when 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely
Only the Lonely
"Only the Lonely " is a 1960 song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. Recorded by Orbison, it became his first major hit. As an operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, described by the New York Times as expressing "a clenched, driven urgency". It is seen as a seminal event...
", "Crying", "In Dreams
In Dreams (song)
Recorded in Monument's Nashville studios in early 1963, "In Dreams" peaked at number 7 on Billboards Hot 100 and spent 13 weeks on the charts in the U.S. During the five months the song was on the charts, Orbison replaced guitarist Duane Eddy on a tour of England. He was immensely popular in...
", and "Oh, Pretty Woman
Oh, Pretty Woman
"Oh, Pretty Woman" is a song, released in August 1964, which was a worldwide success for Roy Orbison. Recorded on the Monument Records label in Nashville, Tennessee, it was written by Roy Orbison and Bill Dees. The song spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100...
". His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of one in a film by David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
revived his career in the 1980s. In 1988, he joined the supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys were an English–American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner...
with George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
, and Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne
Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob...
and also released a new solo album. He died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in December that year, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and two of his children in separate accidents.
Orbison was a natural baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, but music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. The combination of Orbison's powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many critics to refer to his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet "the Caruso of Rock".Comparisons of Orbison's music and voice to opera have been made by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, and songwriter Will Jennings
Will Jennings
Wilbur H. "Will" Jennings is an American songwriter who is popularly known for writing the lyrics for "My Heart Will Go On", the theme for the film Titanic .-Life and education:...
among others. (Lehman, p. 21) Performers such as Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
and Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
have stated his voice was, respectively, the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard. While most men in rock and roll in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability. He was known for performing while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses which lent an air of mystery to his persona.
Orbison was initiated into the second class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
in 1987 by longtime admirer Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
. The same year he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with music community in the city of...
. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
placed Orbison at number 37 in their list of The Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists. Rolling Stone rated Orbison number 13 in their list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008.
Early life
Roy Orbison was born in Vernon, TexasVernon, Texas
Vernon is a city in Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the population was 11,660; it was 11,077 in the 2005 census estimate. Vernon is the county seat of Wilbarger County....
, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison—an oil well driller and car mechanic—and Nadine Shultz, a nurse. Both of Orbison's parents were unemployed during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, so the family moved to Fort Worth for several years to find work, until a polio scare prompted them to return to Vernon. To find work again, the family then moved to the town of Wink
Wink, Texas
Wink is a city in Winkler County, Texas, United States. The population was 919 at the 2000 census. By 2009, the population had reportedly crept up to 926.Wink was the hometown of singer and songwriter Roy Orbison, although he was born in Vernon, Texas....
in West Texas. Orbison would later describe the major components of life in Wink as "Football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand", and in later years expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.Ellis Amburn argues that Orbison was bullied and ostracized while in Wink and that after he became famous, he gave conflicting reports to local Texas newspapers claiming it was still home to him, while simultaneously maligning the town to Rolling Stone. (Amburn, pp. 11–20.) All the Orbison children were afflicted with poor eyesight; Roy used thick corrective lenses from an early age. A bout with jaundice
Jaundice
Jaundice is a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over the sclerae , and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia . This hyperbilirubinemia subsequently causes increased levels of bilirubin in the extracellular fluid...
as a child gave him a sallow complexion, and his ears protruded prominently. Orbison was not particularly confident in his appearance; he began dyeing his nearly white hair black when he was young. He was quiet and self-effacing, remarkably polite and obliging—a product, biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing. However, Orbison was readily available to sing, and often became the focus of attention when he did. He considered his voice memorable if not great.
On his sixth birthday, Orbison's father gave him a guitar. Orbison later recalled that, by the age of seven, "I was finished, you know, for anything else"; music would be his life. Orbison's major musical influences as a youth were in country music. He was particularly moved by the way Lefty Frizzell
Lefty Frizzell
Lefty Frizzell , born William Orville Frizzell, was an American country music singer and songwriter of the 1950s, and a proponent of honky tonk music. His relaxed style of singing was an influence on later stars Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, George Jones and John Fogerty...
sang, slurring syllables. He also enjoyed Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...
. One of the first musicians he heard in person was Ernest Tubb
Ernest Tubb
Ernest Dale Tubb , nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" , marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music...
playing on the back of a flatbed truck in Fort Worth. In West Texas, however, he was exposed to many forms of music: "sepia"—a euphemism for what became known as rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
(R&B); Tex-Mex
Tejano music
Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...
; orchestral Mantovani
Mantovani
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani known as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles .....
, and zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
. The zydeco favorite "Joli Blon" was one of the first songs Orbison sang in public. At eight, Orbison began appearing on a local radio show. By the late 1940s, he was the host.
In high school, Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners, an informal band that played country standards and Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
songs. When they were offered $400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music. Following high school, he enrolled at North Texas State College, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay. He formed another band called The Teen Kings, and sang at night while working in the oil fields or studying during the day. Orbison saw classmate Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
get signed for a record deal, further strengthening his resolve to become a professional musician. His geology grades dropping, he switched to Odessa Junior College
Odessa College
Odessa College is a public two-year junior college based in Odessa, Texas, USA serving the people of Ector County and the Permian Basin. It opened in 1952 and currently enrolls about 5,000 annually in its university-parallel and occupational/technical courses, and 11,000 students annually in its...
to consider becoming a teacher. While living in Odessa, Orbison drove 355 miles (571.3 km) to Dallas to see and be stunned by the on-stage antics of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, then a rising star in the southern states. Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
toured the area in 1955, playing on the same local radio show as the Teen Kings and suggested that Orbison approach Sam Phillips
Sam Phillips
Samuel Cornelius Phillips , better known as Sam Phillips, was an American businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ who played an important role in the emergence of rock and roll as the major form of popular music in the 1950s...
at Sun Records
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
, home of rockabilly stars including Presley, Carl Perkins
Carl Perkins
Carl Lee Perkins was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning during 1954...
, Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
and Cash. In their conversation, Phillips told Orbison curtly, "Johnny Cash doesn't run my record company!"Although both Orbison and Cash mentioned this anecdote years later, Phillips denied that he was so abrupt on the phone with Orbison or that he hung up on him. One of the Teen Kings later stated that the band did not meet Cash until a week later while they were on tour with other Sun Records artists. (Amburn, pp. 42–43). but he was convinced to listen to a record on the Odessa Je-Wel label by the Teen Kings named "Ooby Dooby", a song composed by Dick Penner
Dick Penner
Dick Penner is a retired professor of English, who, while in college in 1955, co-composed, with Wade Lee Moore , Ooby Dooby, Roy Orbison's rockabilly classic. Penner also had been a singer, guitar player, and recording artist.In 1957, Penner switched from country music to rock & roll...
and Wade Moore in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at North Texas State
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas is a public institution of higher education and research in Denton. Founded in 1890, UNT is part of the University of North Texas System. As of the fall of 2010, the University of North Texas, Denton campus, had a certified enrollment of 36,067...
. Phillips was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956.
Sun Records and Acuff-Rose: 1957–1959
The Teen Kings went to Memphis and although Orbison had grown weary of "Ooby Dooby", Phillips wanted to cut the record again in a better studio. Orbison rankled quietly at Phillips' dictating what the band would play and how Orbison was to sing it. However, with Phillips' production, the record broke into the Billboard Hot 100Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, peaking at number 59 and selling 200,000 copies. The Teen Kings toured with Sonny James
Sonny James
James Loden , known professionally as Sonny James, is an American country music singer and songwriter best known for his 1957 hit, "Young Love". Dubbed the Southern Gentleman, James had 72 country and pop chart hits from 1953 to 1983, including a five-year streak of 16 straight among his 23 No. 1...
, Johnny Horton
Johnny Horton
John Gale "Johnny" Horton was an American country music and rockabilly singer most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which began the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s...
, and Cash. Much influenced by Elvis Presley, Orbison performed frenetically, doing "everything we could to get applause because we had only one hit record". The Teen Kings also began writing more material such as "Go! Go! Go!
Go Go Go (Down the Line)
"Go Go Go " is a song by Roy Orbison, released in 1956.It has been covered by Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Hollies and Cliff Richard among others...
" and "Rockhouse", generally in standard rockabilly style. The band ultimately split over disputed writing credits and royalties, but Orbison stayed in Memphis and asked his 16-year-old girlfriend, Claudette Frady, to join him.Alan Clayson's biography names Orbison's girlfriend Claudette Hestand. They stayed in Phillips' home, where they slept in separate rooms; in the studio Orbison concentrated on the mechanics of recording. Sam Phillips remembered being much more impressed with Orbison's mastery of the guitar than his voice; a ballad Orbison wrote called "The Clown" was met with lukewarm appreciation at best. Sun Records producer Jack Clement
Jack Clement
Jack Henderson Clement is an American singer, songwriter, and a record and film producer.Raised and educated in Memphis, Jack Clement was performing at an early age...
told Orbison after hearing it that he would never make it as a ballad singer.
He found a modicum of success at Sun Records and found his way into Elvis Presley's social circle, once going to pick up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac. Orbison sold "Claudette", a song he wrote about Frady, whom he married in 1957, to The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...
and it appeared on the B-side of their smash hit "All I Have To Do Is Dream
All I Have to Do Is Dream
"All I Have to Do Is Dream" is a popular song made famous by the Everly Brothers, written by the husband and wife songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and published in 1958. The song is ranked No...
". The first and perhaps only royalties Orbison earned from Sun Records enabled him to make a down-payment on his own Cadillac. However, frustrated at Sun, Orbison gradually stopped recording, toured music circuits around Texas to make a living, and for seven months in 1958 quit performing completely. His car repossessed and in dire financial straits, he often depended on family and friends for funds.
For a brief period in the late 1950s Orbison made his living at Acuff-Rose
Acuff-Rose Music
Acuff-Rose Music was an American music publishing firm formed by Roy Acuff and Fred Rose in Nashville, Tennessee. Acuff-Rose's honest behavior towards their writers set them apart from other music publishing firms at the time and lead them to fame throughout the 50's, 60's, 70's.-History:Acuff-Rose...
, a songwriting firm concentrating mainly on country music. After spending an entire day writing a song, he would make several demo tapes at a time and send them to Wesley Rose
Wesley Rose
Wesley Rose was an American music industry executive and record producer.The son of songwriter Fred Rose, he was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied to become a Chartered Accountant...
, who would try to find the musical acts to record them. Orbison attempted to sell to RCA Victor songs he recorded that were written by other writers as well, working with and being completely in awe of Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...
who had played guitar with Presley. Orbison tried one song penned by Boudleaux Bryant
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant
Felice Bryant and Boudleaux Bryant were an American husband-and-wife country music and pop songwriting team best known for songs such as "Rocky Top," "Love Hurts" and numerous Everly Brothers hits, including "All I Have to Do Is Dream" and "Bye Bye Love".-Beginnings:Boudleaux was born Diadorius...
called "Seems to Me". Bryant's impression of Orbison was "a timid, shy kid who seemed to be rather befuddled by the whole music scene. I remember the way he sang then—softly, prettily but almost bashfully, as if someone might be disturbed by his efforts and reprimand him."
Playing shows late into the night, and living with his wife and young child in his tiny apartment, Orbison often sought refuge by taking his guitar to his car and writing songs there. Songwriter Joe Melson
Joe Melson
Joe Melson , is an American singer and a BMI Award–winning songwriter.Melson was born in Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in northeast Texas. He was reared on a farm until he was sixteen. He attended high school in Gore, Oklahoma, and in Chicago before he returned to Texas to study at the two-year...
, who had a passing acquaintance with Orbison, tapped on his car window one day in Texas in 1958 and the two decided to try to write some songs together. During three recording sessions in 1958 and 1959, Orbison and Melson recorded seven songs at RCA Nashville
RCA Studio B
RCA Studio B is a noted recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Situated at 30 Music Square W and originally known simply as RCA Studios, it became famous in the 1960s for being a part of what many refer to as the Nashville Sound...
, with Atkins producing, but only two songs were judged worthy of release by RCA; Wesley Rose maneuvered Orbison into the sights of producer Fred Foster
Fred Foster
Fred Foster is an American songwriter, record producer, and founder of Monument Records.-Biography:...
at Monument Records
Monument Records
Monument Records was an American record label, Washington, D.C. named for the Washington Monument, founded in 1958, by Fred Foster and Buddy Deane . Buddy Deane soon left the company, and in the early 60's bought KOTN in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where he retired to until his death...
.
Arrival: 1960–1964
Orbison became one of the first recording artists to popularize the Nashville SoundNashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the late 1950s as a sub-genre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s...
, a trend of country and pop crossover music that used session musicians dubbed the A-Team
The Nashville A-Team
The Nashville A-Team was a nickname given to a group of session musicians in Nashville, Tennessee, who earned wide acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s. They backed dozens of popular singers, including Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Bob Dylan and others.The Nashville A-Team's...
: guitarists Grady Martin
Grady Martin
Thomas Grady Martin was one of the most renowned, inventive and historically significant American session musicians in country music and rockabilly....
, Harold Bradley
Harold Bradley
Harold Bradley is a pop guitarist and an American country guitarist.Harold played banjo as a child but switched to guitar on the advice of his elder brother, Owen Bradley. Owen arranged for Harold to tour with Ernest Tubb while Harold was still in high school. After graduation, Harold joined the...
, Ray Edenton, and Bob Moore
Bob Moore
Bob Loyce Moore is an American session musician, orchestra leader, and bassist who was a member of the legendary Nashville A-Team during the 1950s and 60s.-Biography:...
; pianists Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound." He popularized the "slip note" piano style where an out-of-tune note slides effortlessly into the correct note...
or Hargus "Pig" Robbins; drummer Buddy Harman
Buddy Harman
Buddy Harman was an American session musician.-Career:Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he played drums on over 18,000 sessions for artists such as Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, Connie Francis, Chet Atkins, Marty Robbins, Roger Miller,...
; and backup vocals by the Jordanaires or the Anita Kerr Singers
Anita Kerr
Anita Jean Grilli , known profesioanlly as Anita Kerr, is an American singer, arranger, composer, conductor, pianist, and music producer. She recorded and performed successfully with her vocal harmony groups in Nashville, Los Angeles, and Europe.-Nashville:Kerr was born in Memphis, Tennessee...
. The Nashville Sound was developed by producers Atkins, Owen Bradley
Owen Bradley
Owen Bradley was an American record producer who, along with Chet Atkins and Bob Ferguson, was one of the chief architects of the 1950s and 1960s Nashville sound in country music and rockabilly.-Before the fame:...
—who worked closely with Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
—Sam Phillips, and Fred Foster. In his first session for Monument in Nashville, Orbison took on a song that RCA had refused, "Paper Boy", backed by "With The Bug" as the B-side, but neither charted.
According to musician and author Albin Zak, the combination of the studio—engineered by Bill Porter, who experimented with close miking
Microphone practice
There exist a number of well-developed microphone techniques used for miking musical, film, or voice sources. Choice of technique depends on a number of factors, including:...
the doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
backup singers—production by Foster, and accompanying musicians, gave Orbison's music a "polished, professional sound...finally allow(ing) Orbison's stylistic inclinations free rein". In addition to the Nashville Sound's core components, Orbison requested strings in the studio. With this combination, Orbison recorded three new songs, the most notable of which was "Uptown", penned by himself and Melson. Impressed with the results, Melson later recalled, "We stood in the studio, listening to the playbacks and thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world". The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll states that the music Orbison made in Nashville "brought a new splendor to rock", and compared the melodramatic effects of the orchestral accompaniment to the music production of Phil Spector
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....
.
"Uptown" earned a modest spot at number 72 on the Billboard Top 100 and Orbison set his goal on negotiating a contract with an upscale nightclub somewhere. Rock and roll itself, in its infancy in the late 1950s, was stalled. Elvis Presley was in the Army. Eddie Cochran
Eddie Cochran
Eddie Cochran , was an American rock and roll pioneer who in his brief career had a small but lasting influence on rock music through his guitar playing. Cochran's rockabilly songs, such as "C'mon Everybody", "Somethin' Else", and "Summertime Blues", captured teenage frustration and desire in the...
and fellow Texan Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
—both of whom Orbison had previously toured with—had died, to Orbison's deep astonishment. Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
had found religion and Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
was in jail. Orbison's former Sun Records colleague Jerry Lee Lewis was disgraced when his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin was reported widely in the press. In their wake, pop music filled the radio waves, dominated by teen idol
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
crooners who sang cleansed formulas like those about the twist
Twist (dance)
The Twist was a dance inspired by rock and roll music. It became the first worldwide dance craze in the early 1960s, enjoying immense popularity among young people and drawing fire from critics who felt it was too provocative. It inspired dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed...
dance craze and "death discs
Teenage tragedy song
The "teenage tragedy song", also known as death rock, "tear jerker" or a "splatter platter", is a style of ballad that was most popular between the late 1950s and early 1960s...
" like "Teen Angel
Teen Angel (song)
"Teen Angel" is a teenage tragedy song written by Jean Dinning and her husband, Red Surrey, and performed by both Jean's brother, Mark Dinning, and Alex Murray in 1959....
" and "Endless Sleep".
Writing for the voice
Influenced by contemporaneous hits such as "Come Back to Me (My Love)" and "Come Softly to Me", Orbison and Melson wrote a song in early 1960 which, using elements from "Uptown" employed strings and the Anita Kerr doo-wop backup singers. It also featured an astounding note hit by Orbison in falsettoFalsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, "came not from his throat but deeper within". The song was "Only the Lonely
Only the Lonely
"Only the Lonely " is a 1960 song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. Recorded by Orbison, it became his first major hit. As an operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, described by the New York Times as expressing "a clenched, driven urgency". It is seen as a seminal event...
"; Orbison and Melson had earlier tried to pitch it to Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers but were turned down. They instead recorded the song at RCA's Nashville studio with Porter trying a completely new strategy: building the mix from the top down rather from the bottom up, beginning with the close-miked background vocals in the foreground and ending with the rhythm section soft in the background. This combination became Orbison's trademark sound. The single shot to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 in the UK and Australia. According to Orbison, the subsequent songs he wrote with Melson during this period were constructed with his voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power. He told Rolling Stone in 1988: "I liked the sound of [my voice]. I liked making it sing, making the voice ring, and I just kept doing it. And I think that somewhere between the time of "Ooby Dooby" and "Only the Lonely", it kind of turned into a good voice."
Instantly Orbison was in high demand. He appeared on American Bandstand
American Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
and toured the US for three months non-stop with Patsy Cline. When Presley heard "Only the Lonely" for the first time, he bought a box of copies to pass to his friends. Melson and Orbison followed it with the more complex "Blue Angel" which peaked at US number 9/UK number 11, a self-performed version of "Claudette", and "I'm Hurtin'", which rose to number 27 but failed to chart in the UK.
Orbison was now able to move his wife and son to Nashville full-time. Back in the studio, seeking a change from the doo-wop styled pop sound of "Only the Lonely" and "I'm Hurtin'", Orbison worked on a new song, "Running Scared", based loosely on the rhythm of Ravel's Boléro
Boléro
Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel . Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, the piece, which premiered in 1928, is Ravel's most famous musical composition....
; the song was about a man on lookout for his girlfriend's previous boyfriend, who he feared would try to take her away. Orbison encountered difficulty when he found himself unable to hit the song's highest note without his voice breaking. He was backed by an orchestra in the studio and Porter told him he would have to sing louder than his accompaniment because the orchestra was unable to be softer than his voice. Fred Foster then put Orbison in the corner of the studio and surrounded him with coat racks in an improvised isolation booth to emphasize his voice. Orbison was unhappy with the first two takes, but in the third, he abandoned the idea of using falsetto and sang the final high G sharp naturally, so astonishing everyone present that the accompanying musicians stopped playing. On that third take, "Running Scared" was completed. Fred Foster later recalled, "He did it, and everybody looked around in amazement. Nobody had heard anything like it before."
Developing the image
Just weeks later "Running Scared" reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 9 in the UK. The composition of Orbison's following hits reflected "Running Scared": a story about an emotionally vulnerable man facing loss or grief, culminating with a surprise ending in a crescendo that employed Orbison's dynamic voice. "Crying" followed in July 1961 and reached number 2; it was coupled with an R&B up-tempo song titled "Candy Man" written by Fred Neil and Beverley Ross, which reached the Billboard Top 30, staying on the charts for two months. Orbison's second son was born in 1962, and Orbison hit number 4 in the US and number 2 in the UK with "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?)", an upbeat song written by country songwriter Cindy WalkerCindy Walker
Cindy Walker was a prolific American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. As a songwriter Walker was responsible for a large number of popular and enduring songs recorded by many different artists. She adopted a craftsman-like approach to her songwriting, often tailoring...
. The rest of the year he charted with "The Crowd", "Leah", and "Workin' For the Man", which he wrote about working one summer in the oil fields near Wink. His relationship with Joe Melson, however, was deteriorating over Melson's growing concerns that his own solo career would never get off the ground.
Lacking the photogenic looks of many of his rock and roll contemporaries, Orbison eventually developed a persona that did not reflect his personality. He had no publicist in the early 1960s, no presence in fan magazines, and his single sleeves did not feature his picture. Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine called him an "anonymous celebrity". After leaving his thick eyeglasses on an airplane in 1962 or 1963, Orbison was forced to wear his Ray-Ban Wayfarer prescription sunglasses on stage and found that he preferred them. His biographers suggest that although he had a good sense of humor and was never morose, Orbison was very shy and suffered from severe stage fright
Stage fright
Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, whether actually or potentially . In the context of public speaking, this fear is termed glossophobia, one of the most common...
; wearing sunglasses helped him hide somewhat from the attention. The black clothes and desperation in his songs led to an aura of mystery and introversion. Years later, Orbison said "I wasn't trying to be weird, you know? I didn't have a manager who told me to dress or how to present myself or anything. But the image developed of a man of mystery and a quiet man in black somewhat of a recluse, although I never was, really."
His dark and brooding persona, combined with his tremulous voice in lovelorn ballads marketed to teenagers, helped Orbison corner the pop market in the early 1960s. He had a string of hits in 1963 with "In Dreams
In Dreams (song)
Recorded in Monument's Nashville studios in early 1963, "In Dreams" peaked at number 7 on Billboards Hot 100 and spent 13 weeks on the charts in the U.S. During the five months the song was on the charts, Orbison replaced guitarist Duane Eddy on a tour of England. He was immensely popular in...
" (US number 7/UK number 5), "Falling" (US number 22/UK number 9), "Mean Woman Blues
Mean Woman Blues
"Mean Woman Blues" is a 12-bar blues song written by Claude Demetrius. It was recorded by Elvis Presley as part of the soundtrack for his 1957 motion picture, Loving You. Presley also released the song on Side 2 of a four-song EP record...
" (US number 5/UK number 3) coupled with "Blue Bayou
Blue Bayou
"Blue Bayou" is the title of a song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and sung by Orbison.-Roy Orbison version:A plaintive ballad, it was originally released by Orbison as a 45rpm single on the Monument Records label in August 1963 ."Blue Bayou" also appears on Orbison's 1963 album, In Dreams...
" (US number 29/UK number 3). He finished the year with a Christmas song written by Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
titled "Pretty Paper" (US number 15 in 1963/UK number 6 in 1964).
As "In Dreams" was released in April 1963, Orbison was asked to replace guitarist Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he had a string of hit records, produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young"...
on a tour of the UK in top billing, with The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, whose popularity was on the rise. When he arrived in England, however, he saw the amount of advertising devoted to the quartet and realized he was no longer the main draw. He had never heard of them and, annoyed, asked hypothetically, "What's a Beatle anyway?" to which John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
replied after tapping his shoulder, "I am." On opening night, Orbison opted to go onstage first although he was the more established act. Known for having raucous shows expressing an extraordinary amount of energy, Lennon, Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, and Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
stood dumbfounded backstage as Orbison performed completely still and simply sang through fourteen encores. Finally, when the audience began chanting "We want Roy!" again, Lennon and McCartney prevented Orbison from going on again by physically holding him back. Starr later said, "In Glasgow, we were all backstage listening to the tremendous applause he was getting. He was just standing there, not moving or anything." Through the tour, however, both acts quickly learned to get along, a process made easier by the fact that the Beatles admired his work. Orbison felt a kinship with Lennon, but it was Harrison with whom he would later form a strong friendship. The moniker of "The Big O" would eventually follow him back to the States, where it became an unofficial nickname for Orbison.
Riding the success
Touring in 1963 took a toll on Orbison's personal life. His wife Claudette began having an affair with the contractor who built their home in Hendersonville, TennesseeHendersonville, Tennessee
Hendersonville is a city in Sumner County, Tennessee, United States, on Old Hickory Lake. The population was 51,372 at the 2010 census. Hendersonville is part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located 18 miles northeast of downtown Nashville. The city was settled around 1784 by...
. Their friends and relatives attributed it to her youth and that she was unable to withstand being alone and bored; when Orbison toured England again in the fall of 1963, she joined him. He was immensely popular wherever he went, finishing the tour in Ireland and Canada. Almost immediately he toured Australia and New Zealand with The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
and returned again to the UK and Ireland where he was so besieged by teenage girls that the Irish police had to halt his performances to pull the girls off him. He continued to tour, however, and visited Australia again, this time with The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
. Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
later remarked of a snapshot he took of Orbison in New Zealand: "A fine figure of a man in the hot springs, he was."
Orbison also began collaborating with Bill Dees
Bill Dees
William "Bill" Dees is an American musician most famous for his song writing collaborations with singer Roy Orbison.-Career:...
, whom he had known in Texas. With Dees, he wrote "It's Over", a number 1 in the UK, and a song that would be one of his signature pieces for the rest of his career. When Claudette walked in while Dees and Orbison had begun writing to say she was heading for Nashville, Orbison asked if she had any money, and Dees said "Pretty woman never needs any money". Forty minutes later, "Oh, Pretty Woman
Oh, Pretty Woman
"Oh, Pretty Woman" is a song, released in August 1964, which was a worldwide success for Roy Orbison. Recorded on the Monument Records label in Nashville, Tennessee, it was written by Roy Orbison and Bill Dees. The song spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100...
" was completed. A riff-laden masterpiece that employed a playful growl he got from a Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
movie, the epithet Orbison uttered when he was unable to hit a note ("Mercy!"), and a merging of his vulnerable and masculine sides, it rose to number 1 in the fall of 1964 in the US and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks; it hit number 1 in the UK as well, spending 18 weeks total on the charts. The single sold over seven million copies. Orbison's success was greater in Britain; as Billboard magazine noted, "In a 68-week period that began on August 8, 1963, Roy Orbison was the only American artist to have a number-one single in Britain. He did it twice, with 'It's Over' on June 25, 1964, and 'Oh, Pretty Woman' on October 8, 1964. The latter song also went to number one in America, making Orbison impervious to the current chart dominance of British artists on both sides of the Atlantic."
Career decline and personal tragedies, 1965–1969
"Oh, Pretty Woman" proved the pinnacle of Orbison's career in the 1960s. Following its release, he endured some upheavals. He and Claudette divorced in November 1964 over her infidelities, though they remarried in August 1965. Wesley Rose, who was acting as Orbison's agent, moved him from Monument Records to Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(MGM), for a million dollars and the understanding that Orbison would expand into television and films as Elvis Presley had done. Orbison was a film enthusiast, and when not touring, writing, or recording would dedicate time to seeing up to three films a day. However, Rose also began acting as Orbison's producer. Fred Foster later argued that Rose's takeover was responsible for the commercial failure of Orbison's work at MGM; engineer Bill Porter agreed that Orbison's best work could only be achieved with RCA Nashville's A Team. Orbison's first collection at MGM, an album titled Goodnight, sold fewer than 200,000 copies. The British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
also occurred at the same time, changing the direction of rock music significantly.
While on tour again in the UK in 1965, Orbison broke his foot falling off a motorcycle in front of thousands of screaming fans at a race track, and performed his show that evening in a cast. His reconciliation with Claudette occurred when she went to visit him while he was recuperating from the accident. Orbison was fascinated with machines and vehicles, and was known to see a car he liked, follow the driver and offer him money to purchase the car on the spot. He had a collection worthy of a museum by the late 1960s. He and Claudette shared a love for motorcycles; she had grown up around them, but Orbison claimed Elvis Presley had introduced him to motorcycles. However, tragedy struck on June 6, 1966, when Orbison and Claudette were riding home from Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 26,702 at the 2010 census. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. The boundaries of both cities run parallel to each other along State...
. Claudette was struck by a semi-trailer truck
Semi-trailer truck
A semi-trailer truck, also known as a semi, tractor-trailer, or articulated truck or articulated lorry, is an articulated vehicle consisting of a towing engine , and a semi-trailer A semi-trailer truck, also known as a semi, tractor-trailer, or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) articulated truck...
and died instantly.
A grieving Orbison threw himself into his work, collaborating with Bill Dees to write music for The Fastest Guitar Alive
The Fastest Guitar Alive
The Fastest Guitar Alive is the soundtrack title for the 33 record album from MGM Records released in June 1967.-Track listing:All songs written by Roy Orbison and Bill DeesSide one# "Whirlwind"# "Medicine Man, Medicine Man"# "River"...
, a film that MGM had scheduled for him to star in as well. It was initially planned as a dramatic Western, but was rewritten as a comedy. Orbison's character was a spy who stole and had to protect and deliver a cache of gold to the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War and was outfitted with a guitar that turned into a rifle. The prop allowed him to deliver the line "I could kill you with this and play your funeral march at the same time", with—according to biographer Colin Escott—"zero conviction". Orbison was pleased with the film, although it proved to be a critical and box office flop. While MGM had included five films in his contract, no more were made.
Orbison recorded an album dedicated to the songs of Don Gibson
Don Gibson
Donald Eugene "Don" Gibson was an American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s.-Biography:Don Gibson was...
and another of Hank Williams covers, but both sold poorly. As the psychedelic rock movement took hold in the late 1960s, Orbison felt lost, later saying "[I] didn't hear a lot I could relate to so I kind of stood there like a tree where the winds blow and the seasons change, and you're still there and you bloom again." He continued to tour, and had previously made some smart real estate investments, so money was never an issue for him again. It was during a tour in the Midlands of England that on September 16, 1968, Orbison received the news that his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, had burned down and his two eldest sons had died. The property was sold to Johnny Cash, who planted an orchard on it. On March 25, 1969, Orbison married a German teenager named Barbara Wellhöner Jakobs whom he had met a few days before his sons died. His youngest son with Claudette was raised by his parents. He and Barbara Orbison
Barbara Orbison
Barbara Orbison is an entrepreneur, music producer/publisher and the widow of American Rock and Roll legend, Roy Orbison....
had a son in 1970 and another in 1974.
Covers: 1970s
Orbison recorded in the 1970s, but his albums performed so poorly that he began to doubt his talents. Author Peter Lehman would later observe that his absence was a part of the mystery of his persona: "Since it was never clear where he had come from, no one seemed to pay much mind to where he had gone; he was just gone." His influence was apparent, however, as several artists released covers of his songs that performed very well. "Love HurtsLove Hurts
"Love Hurts" is the name of a song, written and composed by Boudleaux Bryant. First recorded by The Everly Brothers in July 1960, the song is also well known from a 1975 international hit version by the rock band Nazareth and in the UK by a top 5 hit in 1975 by Jim Capaldi.The song was introduced...
" was remade by Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
and Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, and again by heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
band Nazareth
Nazareth (band)
Nazareth is a Scottish hard rock band, founded in 1968, that had several hits in the UK in the early 1970s, and established an international audience with their 1975 album Hair of the Dog. Perhaps their best-known hit single was a cover of the ballad "Love Hurts", in 1975...
. Sonny James sent "Only the Lonely" to number 1 on the country music charts. Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
ended his concerts with Orbison songs and Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
had a minor hit with a remake of "Dream Baby". A compilation LP of Orbison's greatest hits went to number 1 in the UK in 1977. The same year he began to open concerts for The Eagles, who started as Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
's backup band. Ronstadt herself covered "Blue Bayou
Blue Bayou
"Blue Bayou" is the title of a song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and sung by Orbison.-Roy Orbison version:A plaintive ballad, it was originally released by Orbison as a 45rpm single on the Monument Records label in August 1963 ."Blue Bayou" also appears on Orbison's 1963 album, In Dreams...
" in 1977, her version reaching number 3 on the Billboard charts and remaining in the charts for 24 weeks. Orbison credited this cover in particular for reviving his memory in the popular mind, if not his career.
On 18 January 1978 Orbison underwent a triple heart bypass. He had suffered from duodenal ulcers as far back as 1960, and had been a chain smoker since adolescence. Although he felt revitalized following the triple bypass, he continued to smoke and his weight fluctuated for the rest of his life.
Don McLean
Don McLean
Donald "Don" McLean is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".-Musical roots:...
covered "Crying" in 1980 in a version which hit number 5 in the US and stayed on the charts for 15 weeks; it was number 1 in the UK for three weeks. Although he was all but forgotten in the US, Orbison took a chance and embarked on a tour of Bulgaria. He was astonished to find he was as popular there as he had been in 1964; he was forced to stay in his hotel room because he was mobbed on the streets of Sofia. Later that year, he and Emmylou Harris won a Grammy for their duet "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again". It was his first such award, and he felt more than ever that the time was ripe for his full return to popular music. However, it would be several more years until this came to fruition.
Revival: 1987–88
Orbison's career was fully revived in 1987. He released an album of his re-recorded hits titled In Dreams: The Greatest HitsIn Dreams: The Greatest Hits
In Dreams: The Greatest Hits is a music album of Roy Orbison songs released in 1987 on Virgin Records. The two-record set was produced by Roy Orbison and Mike Utley except for the song "In Dreams" which was produced by Orbison with T Bone Burnett and film director, David Lynch...
. A song he recorded named "Life Fades Away" was featured in the film Less Than Zero
Less Than Zero (film)
Less Than Zero is a 1987 American drama film loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair and his friend Julian , who is also a drug addict...
. He and k. d. lang performed a duet of "Crying" and released it on the soundtrack to Hiding Out
Hiding Out
Hiding Out is a 1987 movie starring Jon Cryer as a Wall Street broker "hiding out" as a high-school student as the mob tries to kill him.- Plot :...
, winning a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals
Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals
The Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to quality country music collaborations for artists who do not normally perform together...
.
However, one film in which Orbison refused to allow his music was Blue Velvet. Director David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
asked to use "In Dreams" and Orbison turned him down. Lynch used it anyway. The song served as one of several obsessions of a psychopathic character named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
). It was lip-synched by an effeminate drug dealer played by Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and...
, after which Booth demanded the song be played over and over, once beating the protagonist while the song played. During filming, Lynch asked for the song to be played repeatedly to give the set a surreal atmosphere. Orbison was initially shocked at its use: he saw the film in a theater in Malibu and later said, "I was mortified because they were talking about the 'candy colored clown' in relation to a dope deal... I thought, 'What in the world...?' But later, when I was touring, we got the video out and I really got to appreciate what David gave to the song, and what the song gave to the movie—how it achieved this otherworldly quality that added a whole new dimension to 'In Dreams'."
The same year, Orbison was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with music community in the city of...
and initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
by Bruce Springsteen, who concluded his speech with a reference to his own song "Thunder Road
Thunder Road (song)
"Thunder Road" is a song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, and the opening track on his 1975 breakthrough album Born to Run. It is ranked as one of Springsteen's greatest songs, and often appears on lists of the top rock songs of all time.Rolling Stone magazine placed it as #86 on its...
": "I wanted a record with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector—but, most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison. Now everyone knows that no one sings like Roy Orbison." In response, Orbison asked Springsteen for a copy of the speech, and said of his induction that he felt "validated" by the honor. A few months later, Orbison and Springsteen paired again to film a concert at the Cocoanut Grove Ballroom in Los Angeles. They were joined by Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
, T-Bone Burnett
T-Bone Burnett
Joseph Henry Burnett , widely known as T-Bone Burnett, is an American musician, songwriter, and soundtrack and record producer.He was a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band on the Rolling Thunder Revue...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, Jennifer Warnes
Jennifer Warnes
Jennifer Jean Warnes is an American singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer. She is known for her interpretations of compositions written by herself and many others, as well as an extensive playlist as a vocalist on movie soundtracks.Between 1979 and 1987 Warnes surpassed Frank Sinatra as...
, and k. d. lang. Lang later recounted how humbled Orbison had been by the show of support from so many talented and busy musicians: "Roy looked at all of us and said, 'If there is anything I can ever do for you, please call on me.' He was very serious. It was his way of thanking us. It was very emotional." The concert was filmed in one take and aired on Cinemax
Cinemax
Cinemax, sometimes abbreviated as simply "Max", is a collection of premium television networks that broadcasts primarily feature films, along with softcore erotica, original action series, documentaries and special behind-the-scenes features. Cinemax is operated by Home Box Office, Inc., a...
under the title Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night
Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night
Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night is a 1988 Cinemax television special originally broadcast on January 3, 1988 starring Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Roy Orbison. The special was filmed entirely in black and white...
; it was released on video by Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
, selling 50,000 copies.
Traveling Wilburys and Mystery Girl: 1988
In 1987, Orbison had begun collaborating with Electric Light OrchestraElectric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra were a British rock group from Birmingham who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones...
frontman Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne
Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob...
on a new album. At the same time Lynne was completing production work on George Harrison's Cloud Nine
Cloud Nine (George Harrison album)
-Personnel:The following personnel was credited in the liner notes.*George Harrison – vocals, guitars, keyboards, sitar*Jeff Lynne – guitars, bass, vocals, keyboards*Eric Clapton – guitar*Elton John – piano*Gary Wright – piano*Ringo Starr – drums...
, and all three had lunch one day when Orbison accepted an invitation to sing on Harrison's album. They contacted Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, who allowed them to use a recording studio in his home. Along the way, Harrison had to stop by Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
's house to pick up his guitar; Petty and his band had backed Dylan on his last tour. By that evening, the group had written "Handle with Care
Handle with Care (song)
"Handle with Care" is the first track from the Traveling Wilburys 1988 album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, and the group's biggest hit. Writing credits are shared by all five band members, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan....
", which led to the concept of recording an entire album. They called themselves the Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys were an English–American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner...
, representing themselves as half-brothers from the same father. They gave themselves stage names; Orbison chose his from his musical hero, calling himself "Lefty Wilbury" after Lefty Frizzell. Expanding on the concept of a traveling band of raucous musicians, Orbison offered a quote about the group's foundation in honor: "Some people say Daddy was a cad and a bounder. I remember him as a Baptist minister."
Lynne later spoke of the recording sessions: "Everybody just sat there going, 'Wow, it's Roy Orbison!'... [E]ven though he's become your pal and you're hanging out and having a laugh and going to dinner, as soon as he gets behind that mike and he's doing his business, suddenly it's shudder time." Orbison was given one solo track on the album titled "Not Alone Anymore". His contributions were highly praised by the press. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is the debut album by the supergroup Traveling Wilburys and was recorded and released in 1988 to commercial success and critical acclaim.- Background :...
spent 53 weeks on the US charts, peaking at number 3. It hit number 1 in Australia and topped out at number 16 in the UK. The LP won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group
Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
The Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal was awarded between 1980 and 2011.The award was discontinued after the 2011 award season in a major overhaul of Grammy categories...
. Rolling Stone included it in the top 100 albums of the decade.
Orbison was in high demand for concerts and interviews once again, and was thrilled about it. He began writing songs and collaborating with many musicians from his past and newer fans to develop a solo album titled Mystery Girl
Mystery Girl
-Core:*Roy Orbison – vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, guitar*Jeff Lynne – guitars on 1 5, acoustic guitar on 4, keyboards on 1 4 5, piano on 1, bass on 1 4 5, backing vocals on 1 4 5 9*Tom Petty – acoustic guitar on 1 5, backing vocals on 1 2 5...
. U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
's lead singer Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
had become aware of Orbison when he saw Blue Velvet and, with The Edge
The Edge
David Howell Evans , more widely known by his stage name The Edge , is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record...
wrote "She's a Mystery to Me
She's a Mystery to Me
"She's a Mystery to Me" is the sixth track and the lead single from Roy Orbison's 1989 album, Mystery Girl. The track was written for Orbison by Bono and The Edge of U2. The album Mystery Girl received its name from the song...
" for him. Bono witnessed the recording of the song and recalled:
I stood beside him and sang with him. He didn't seem to be singing. So I thought, 'He'll sing it the next take. He's just reading the words.' And then we went in to listen to the take, and there was this voice, which was the loudest whisper I've ever heard. He had been singing it. But he hardly moved his lips. And the voice was louder than the band in its own way. I don't know how he did that. It was like sleight of hand.
Mystery Girl was produced by Jeff Lynne, whom Orbison considered the best producer he had ever worked with, while Bono, Elvis Costello, Orbison's son Wesley and others offered their songs to him. The biggest hit from the album was "You Got It
You Got It
"You Got It" is a song from Roy Orbison's album, Mystery Girl . The song reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the adult contemporary chart , returning Orbison to the Top 40 for the first time in 24 years. It also hit number three on the UK Singles Chart in the spring of 1989...
", written by Lynne and Tom Petty. It posthumously rose to number 9 in the US and number 3 in the UK.
Death
While Orbison determinedly pursued his second chance at stardom, he reacted to his success in constant surprise, confessing "It's very nice to be wanted again, but I still can't quite believe it." He lost some weight to fit his new image and the constant demand of touring, as well as the newer demands of making videos. In November 1988 Mystery Girl was completed and Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 was rising up the charts. Orbison went to Europe where he was presented with an award and played a show in Antwerp where footage for the video for "You Got It" was filmed. He gave multiple interviews a day in a hectic schedule. A few days later a manager at a club in Boston was concerned that he looked ill, but Orbison played the show to another standing ovation. Finally, exhausted, he returned to his home in Hendersonville to rest for a few days before flying again to London to film two more videos for the Traveling Wilburys. On December 6, 1988, he spent the day flying model airplanes with his sons. After having dinner at his mother's home in Tennessee, Orbison died of a heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at 52.
Orbison's death was an international news event. Author Peter Lehman suggests that had he died in the 1970s when his career was in the doldrums, it might have earned a minor mention in the obituary section of the newspaper. However, the response to his death reflected just how popular Orbison had again become. The Nashville Banner
Nashville Banner
The Nashville Banner is a defunct daily newspaper of Nashville, Tennessee, United States, which published from April 10, 1876 until February 20, 1998...
put it on the front page across six columns. It also made the front page of the New York Times. The tabloid The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....
suggested on its cover that he had worked himself to death. A memorial was held in Nashville, and another in Los Angeles; he was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
The Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is a cemetery in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California. It is located at 1218 Glendon Avenue in Westwood....
. In January 1989 Orbison became the first musician since Elvis Presley to have two albums in the Top Five at the same time.
Style and influence
Although Orbison is counted as a rock and roll pioneer, and has been cited by numerous critics as one of the genre's most influential musicians, his style was noted for how it departed from the norm. Rock and roll in the 1950s was defined by a driving backbeatBeat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
, heavy guitars, and lyrical themes that glorified youthful rebellion. However, very little of what Orbison recorded met these characteristics. The structure and themes of his songs defied convention, and his much-praised voice and performance style were unlike any other in rock and roll. Many of his contemporaries compared his music with that of classically trained musicians, although Orbison never mentioned any classical music influences. Author Peter Lehman summarized it, writing, "He achieved what he did not by copying classical music but by creating a unique form of popular music that drew upon a wide variety of music popular during his youth".
Song structures
U2 frontman Bono holds Orbison as a standard in musical creativity, commenting in 1999, "The thing people don't talk about enough as far as I'm concerned is how innovative this music was, how radical in terms of its songwriting. As I become more interested in songwriting, you hit a wall where Roy Orbison is standing." Bob Dylan highlighted Orbison's song structures in his book Chronicles: Volume OneChronicles: Volume One
Chronicles, Volume One is the first part of Bob Dylan's planned 3-volume memoir. Published on October 5, 2004, by Simon & Schuster, the 304-page volume covers selected points from Dylan's long career. The book spent 19 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction books...
, specifically noting how they were "songs within songs". Music critic Dave Marsh also wrote that these compositions "define a world unto themselves more completely than any other body of work in pop music". Orbison's music, like the man himself, has been described as timeless, diverting from contemporary rock and roll and bordering on the eccentric, within a hair's breadth of being weird. New York Times writer Peter Watrous declared in a concert review: "He has perfected an odd vision of popular music, one in which eccentricity and imagination beat back all the pressures toward conformity".
In the 1960s, Orbison refused to splice edits of songs together, and insisted in recording them in single takes with all the instruments and singers together. The only convention Orbison followed in his most popular songs is the time limit for radio fare in pop songs. Otherwise, each seems to follow a separate structure. Using the standard thirty-two-bar form
Thirty-two-bar form
The thirty-two-bar form, often called AABA from the musical form or order in which its melodies occur, is common in Tin Pan Alley songs and later popular music including rock, pop and jazz...
for verses and choruses, normal pop songs followed the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus structure. Where A represents the first verse and B represents the chorus, most pop songs can be represented by A-B-A-B-C-A-B, like "Ooby Dooby" and "Claudette". Orbison's "In Dreams" was a song in seven movements that can be represented as Intro-A-B-C-D-E-F; no sections are repeated. In "Running Scared", however, the entire song repeats to build suspense to a final climax, to be represented as A-A-A-A-B. "Crying" is more complex, changing parts toward the end to be represented as A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B modified, C modified, D modified, E modified, F modified. Although Orbison recorded and wrote standard structure songs before "Only the Lonely", he claimed never to have learned how to write them:
"I'm sure we had to study composition or something like that at school, and they'd say 'This is the way you do it,' and that's the way I would have done it, so being blessed again with not knowing what was wrong or what was right, I went on my own way....So the structure sometimes has the chorus at the end of the song, and sometimes there is no chorus, it just goes...But that's always after the fact—as I'm writing, it all sounds natural and in sequence to me."
Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
's writing partner Bernie Taupin
Bernie Taupin
Bernard John "Bernie" Taupin is an English lyricist, poet, and singer, best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, writing the lyrics for the majority of the star's songs, making his lyrics some of the best known in pop-rock's history.In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement in...
wrote that Orbison's songs always made "radical left turns", and k. d. lang declared that good songwriting comes from being constantly surprised, such as how the entirety of "Running Scared" eventually depends on the final note, one word. Some of the musicians who worked with Orbison were confounded by what he asked them to do. Nashville session guitarist Jerry Kennedy
Jerry Kennedy
Jerry Glenn Kennedy is an American record producer, songwriter and guitar player.-Early years:Kennedy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. As a child, he recalls "beating on broomsticks and other things" as his initial forays into music-making...
stated, "Roy went against the grain. The first time you'd hear something, it wouldn't sound right. But after a few playbacks, it would start to grow on you."
Themes of songs
Critic Dave Marsh categorizes Orbison's ballads into themes reflecting pain and loss, and dreaming. A third category is his uptempo rockabilly songs such as "Go! Go! Go!" and "Mean Woman Blues" that are more thematically simple, addressing his feelings and intentions in a masculine braggadocio. In concert, Orbison placed the uptempo songs between the ballads to keep from being too consistently dark or grim.In 1990, Colin Escott wrote an introduction to Orbison's biography published in a CD box set: "Orbison was the master of compression. Working the singles era, he could relate a short story, or establish a mood in under three minutes. If you think that's easy—try it. His greatest recordings were quite simply perfect; not a word or note surplus to intention." After attending a show in 1988, Peter Watrous of The New York Times wrote that Orbison's songs are "dreamlike claustrophobically intimate set pieces". Music critic Ken Emerson writes that the "apocalyptic romanticism" in Orbison's music was well-crafted for the films his songs appeared in in the 1980s because the music was "so over-the-top that dreams become delusions, and self-pity paranoia", striking "a postmodern nerve". Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
singer Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
favored American R&B music as a youth, but beyond the black musicians, he named Elvis and Orbison especially as foreshadowing the emotions he would experience: "The poignancy of the combination of lyric and voice was stunning. [Orbison] used drama to great effect and he wrote dramatically."
The loneliness in Orbison's songs that he became most famous for, he both explained and downplayed: "I don't think I've been any more lonely than anyone else... Although if you grow up in West Texas, there are a lot of ways to be lonely." His music offered an alternative to the postured masculinity that was pervasive in music and culture. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees stated, "He made emotion fashionable, that it was all right to talk about and sing about very emotional things. For men to sing about very emotional things... Before that no one would do it." Orbison acknowledged this in looking back on the era in which he became popular: "When ["Crying"] came out I don't think anyone had accepted the fact that a man should cry when he wants to cry." Peter Lehman, on the other hand, considered Orbison's theme of constant vulnerability an element of sexual masochism.
Voice quality
Orbison admitted that he did not think his voice was put to appropriate use until "Only the Lonely" in 1960, when it was able, in his words, to allow its "flowering". Carl Perkins, however, toured with Orbison while they were both signed with Sun Records and recalled a specific concert when Orbison covered the Nelson EddyNelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
and Jeannette MacDonald standard "Indian Love Call
Indian Love Call
"Indian Love Call" is a song from Rose-Marie, a 1924 operetta-style Broadway musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II...
", and had the audience completely silenced, in awe. When compared to the Everly Brothers, who often used the same session musicians, Orbison is credited with "a passionate intensity" that, according to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, made "his love, his life, and, indeed, the whole world [seem] to be coming to an end—not with a whimper, but an agonized, beautiful bang".
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
both commented on the otherworldly quality of Orbison's voice. Dwight Yoakam
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music...
stated that Orbison's voice sounded like "the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window". Barry Gibb
Barry Gibb
Barry Alan Crompton Gibb, CBE , is a singer, songwriter and producer. He was born in the Isle of Man to English parents. With his brothers Robin and Maurice, he formed The Bee Gees, one of the most successful pop groups of all time. The trio got their start in Australia, and found their major...
of The Bee Gees went further to say that when he heard "Crying" for the first time, "That was it. To me that was the voice of God."
Bob Dylan marked Orbison as a specific influence, remarking that there was nothing like him on radio in the early 1960s:
With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop. [After "Ooby Dooby"] (h)e was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal... His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, 'Man, I don't believe it'.
Likewise, Tim Goodwin, who conducted the orchestra that backed Orbison in Bulgaria, had been told that Orbison's voice would be a singular experience to hear. When Orbison started with "Crying" and hit the high notes, Goodwin stated, "The strings were playing and the band had built up, and sure enough, the hair on the back of my neck just all started standing up. It was an incredible physical sensation."
Orbison's severe stage fright was particularly noticeable in the 1970s and early 1980s. During the first few songs in a concert, the vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
in his voice was almost uncontrollable, but afterwards, it became stronger and more dependable. This also happened with age. Orbison noticed that he was unable to control the tremor in the late afternoon and evenings, and chose to record in the mornings when it was possible.
Performance
Orbison often excused his motionless performances by saying that his songs did not allow instrumental sections so he could move or dance on stage, although songs like "Mean Woman Blues" did offer that. He was aware of his unique performance style even in the early 1960s when he commented, "I'm not a super personality—on stage or off. I mean, you could put workers like Chubby Checker or Bobby Rydell in second-rate shows and they'd still shine through, but not me. I'd have to be prepared. People come to hear my music, my songs. That's what I have to give them."K.d. lang compared Orbison to a tree, with passive but solid beauty. This image of Orbison as immovable was so associated with him it was parodied by John Belushi
John Belushi
John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...
on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, as Belushi dressed as Orbison falls over while singing "Oh, Pretty Woman", and continues to play as his bandmates set him upright again. However, lang quantified this style by saying, "It's so hard to explain what Roy's energy was like because he would fill a room with his energy and presence but not say a word. Being that he was so grounded and so strong and so gentle and quiet. He was just there."
Orbison attributed his own passion during his performances to the period when he grew up in Fort Worth while the US was mobilizing for World War II. His parents worked in a defense plant and his father would bring a guitar in the evenings and their friends and relatives who had just joined the military would gather, and drink and sing heartily. Orbison later reflected, "I guess that level of intensity made a big impression on me, because it's still there. That sense of 'do it for all it's worth and do it now and do it good.' Not to analyze it too much, but I think the verve and gusto that everybody felt and portrayed around me has stayed with me all this time."
Honors
- Grammys
- Best Country Performance Duo Or Group (1980) with Emmylou Harris
- Best Spoken Word Or Non-Musical Recording (1986) with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Phillips, Rick Nelson and Chips Moman
- Best Country Vocal Collaboration (1988) with k. d. lang
- Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal (1989) as part of The Traveling Wilburys
- Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male (1990)
- Lifetime Achievement Award (1998)
- Rock and Roll Hall of FameRock and Roll Hall of FameThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
(1987) - Nashville Songwriters Hall of FameNashville Songwriters Hall of FameThe Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with music community in the city of...
(1987) - Songwriters Hall of FameSongwriters Hall of FameThe Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
(1989) - Star on the Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of FameThe Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
(2010)
See also
Video and televised feature performances:- 1972: Roy Orbison – Live from Australia
- 1982: Live at Austin City Limits
- 1987: Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White NightRoy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White NightRoy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night is a 1988 Cinemax television special originally broadcast on January 3, 1988 starring Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Roy Orbison. The special was filmed entirely in black and white...
- 1999: In Dreams: The Roy Orbison Story
External links
- Roy Orbison website
- CMT's tribute to Orbison Contains a music video section that contains the entire "Diamond Career Awards" from 11-18-88, and also several rare videos "Heartbreak Radio" and "Walk On"
- Roy Orbison: The Big O life story by Marie Claire Magazine Australia
- 1975 Roy Orbison private phone interview with Ronnie Allen (researcher for Casey Kasem)