Roy Orbison!
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Two common misconceptions about his appearance stubbornly continue to surface about Orbison: one, that Roy Orbison was an albino, and two, that Roy Orbison wore his trademark dark glasses because Roy Orbison was blind or nearly so. Neither is correct, although his poor vision required Roy Orbison to wear thick corrective lenses (He suffered from childhood from a combination of hyperopia, severe astigmatism, presbyopia, anisometropia, and strabismus). Orbison's trademark sunglasses were a fashion statement arising from an accident early in his career. Due to go onstage in a few minutes, Orbison left his regular glasses in an airplane. Unable to see without corrective lenses, the only other pair of glasses Roy Orbison had available were darkly tinted prescription sunglasses. "I had to see to get onstage," so Roy Orbison wore the glasses throughout his tour with the Beatles, and Roy Orbison carried on with it for the rest of his professional career. "I'll just do this and look cool."
Roy Orbison Early life and career
Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, the second son of Nadine and Orbie Lee. After moving to Fort Worth around 1943 to find work in the munitions and aircraft factories expanded as a result of the Second World War, the family moved to the tiny oil town of Wink in late 1946. Music was an important part of his family life.In 1949, at age 13, Roy Orbison organized his first band, "The Wink Westerners", and when not singing with the band Roy Orbison spent his time playing guitar and writing songs. The band appeared weekly on KERB radio in Kermit, Texas. Orbison graduated from Wink High School in 1954. Roy Orbison attended North Texas State College in Denton, Texas for a year, and enrolled at Odessa Junior College in 1955 to study history and English. The Wink Westerners had some success on local television, being given 30 minute weekly shows on KMID and then KOSA. One of the guests on their show was Johnny Cash, who advised them to seek a contract with his record producer, Sam Phillips, of Sun Records. Having renamed The Wink Westerners as "The Teen Kings", Orbison left college in March 1956, determined to give music a serious try, and headed for Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.
Many of the earliest songs Roy Orbison recorded were produced by Sam Phillips, who also produced Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. Orbison achieved his first commercial success in June 1956 with "Ooby Dooby", a song written by friends of Orbison from college. Roy Orbison's song "Claudette", named after his first wife, was recorded by the Everly Brothers as the B-side to their Number 1 hit "All I Have To Do Is Dream". However, the rockabilly and blues sounds of Sun's artists did not bring Orbison much success and his career seemed over, although fans of rockabilly music count his records among the best that this kind of music has to offer. For a time, Roy Orbison worked at Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville, Tennessee as a songwriter, and then was given a contract by RCA, but eventually Chet Atkins referred Roy Orbison to Fred Foster, the owner of Monument Records, where Roy Orbison moved after his contract with RCA ended in 1959.
Roy Orbison Breakthrough and sudden decline
At Monument, Foster encouraged Roy Orbison to break from his established style. Under Foster's guidance, Roy Orbison began writing his own songs alone or in collaboration with Joe Melson and later Bill Dees, developing his signature operatic voice, and creating a sound unheard of in rock and roll at the time. his first record, "Uptown" was moderately successful. With the release of "Only The Lonely" and its immediate rise to the top of the charts (#2 in the US, #1 in the UK), Roy Orbison went on to become an international rock and roll star. Roy Orbisons follow-up single, "Running Scared" became a US #1. Throughout his stay at Monument Records, his backup band was a group of outstanding studio musicians led by Bob Moore. The play of Orbison's voice against the dynamic yet uncluttered sound of the band gave Orbison's records a unique, identifiable sound.A powerful influence on his contemporaries such as The Rolling Stones, in 1963, Roy Orbison headlined a European tour with The Beatles, becoming lifelong friends with the band, in particular with John Lennon and George Harrison. Orbison would later record with Harrison as part of the Traveling Wilburys. During their tour of Europe, an impressed Roy Orbison encouraged The Beatles to come to the United States. When they finally decided to try America, they asked Orbison to manage their first tour but his own schedule forced Roy Orbison to turn down what was to become an astounding success.
Unlike many artists, Orbison maintained his success as the British Invasion swept America in 1964. his single "Oh, Pretty Woman" broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the Top 10, soaring to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The record sold more copies in its first ten days of release than any 45rpm up to that time and would go on to sell more than seven million copies. The song later became the signature tune for the film Pretty Woman, named for his song, which brought fame to actress Julia Roberts.
He toured with The Beach Boys in 1964, and with The Rolling Stones in Australia in 1965. Roy Orbison was very successful in England, logging three No.1 hit singles and was several times voted top male vocalist of the year.
Orbison signed a contract with MGM Records in 1966, and starred in MGM Studios' western-musical motion picture The Fastest Guitar Alive in which Roy Orbison would perform several songs from an album of the same name. However, due to changes in musical taste, Roy Orbison suddenly ceased to have hits in the United States after 1967, and although Roy Orbison would remain popular elsewhere, his American popularity did not recover until the 1980s.
He also suffered problems in his personal life, with the death of his first wife, Claudette (Frady), in a motorcycle accident in 1966 after 11 years of marriage. Two years later, the family home at Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee burned to the ground while Orbison was touring in England, and two of his three young sons, Anthony and Roy Jr., died in the fire. The youngest boy, Wesley, at the time only three, was saved by Orbison's parents. Roy Orbison met his second wife, Barbara, in August 1968, in Leeds, England, and they were married in Nashville on May 25, 1969.
His contract with MGM ended in 1973, and Roy Orbison signed for Mercury Records. Songs that had only reasonable success in North America, such as "Penny Arcade" and "Working for the Man," would go to Number 1 on the Australian charts, and "Too Soon to Know" was Number 3 in England. Roy Orbison's popularity extended to Germany, and Roy Orbison recorded his hit song "Mama" in German. Roy Orbison's records were in great demand on the "black market" behind the Iron Curtain. In France, Roy Orbison was viewed as the master of the ballad of lost love in the vein of that country's most popular singer 'dith Piaf, and a cover version of Orbison's "Blue Bayou" sung in French by Mireille Mathieu went to the top of France's record charts. Fans in the Netherlands founded his largest world-wide fan club. Roy Orbison continued to perform in Ireland, despite the constant terrorist activities in Northern Ireland. A rendition of the popular ballad "Danny Boy" on the 1972 Memphis album is considered one of the best recordings ever made of this much-recorded song.
He re-signed with Monument in 1976, but his career remained in the doldrums until the late 1980s.
Roy Orbison Resurgence in the 1980s
In 1980, Orbison teamed up with Emmylou Harris to win the 1981 Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for their song, "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again." In 1985, Orbison recorded Wild Hearts for the Nic Roeg film Insignificance, released on the ZTT Records label, produced by David Briggs and Will Jennings. The inclusion of "In Dreams" in the 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet also aided Orbison's popular resurrection. Roy Orbison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the induction speech made by Bruce Springsteen. Roy Orbison's pioneering contribution was also recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Having signed a recording contract for the first time in 10 years, with Virgin Records, Roy Orbison re-recorded his 1961 hit song, "Crying," as a duet with k.d. lang in 1987 for the soundtrack of the motion picture, "Hiding Out". The song would earn the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night, a black and white Cinemax television special recorded at the Coconut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1988, brought Orbison to the attention of a younger generation. Orbison was accompanied by a who's-who supporting cast, organized by musical director T-Bone Burnett, all fans and all volunteers who lobbied to participate: on piano was Glen Hardin, who had played for Buddy Holly as well as working with Elvis Presley for a number of years; lead guitarist James Burton had also played with Presley; male background vocals, with some also playing the guitar, came from Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and Steven Soles; and k.d. lang, Jennifer Warnes, and Bonnie Raitt provided female background vocals.
Shortly after this critically acclaimed performance, whilst working with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra on tracks for a new album, Orbison joined Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty to form the Traveling Wilburys, achieving substantial commercial and critical success. Roy Orbison subsequently recorded a new solo album, Mystery Girl, produced by Orbison, Mike Campbell (of the Heartbreakers), and Jeff Lynne. It included one track by U2's Bono (who also wears trademark dark glasses and co-wrote the track She's A Mystery to Me with the Edge specifically for Orbison). At an awards ceremony in Antwerp, a few days before his death, Roy Orbison gave his only public rendition of the hit "You Got It" to the applause of a huge crowd.
Roy Orbison Death
Orbison had triple heart bypass surgery on January 18, 1978 and enjoyed smoking most of his life. On December 6, 1988, at the age of 52, Roy Orbison suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting his mother in the Nashville, Tennessee suburb of Hendersonville. At the direction of his second wife, Barbara, Roy Orbison was interred on December 15, 1988, in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. Roy Orbison's two sons and their mother, Claudette, who predeceased him, had been laid to rest at his request in the Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.His new album, Mystery Girl, and the single from it, "You Got It", were posthumous hits, and are generally regarded as Orbison's best work since his success of the 1960s. Roy Orbison was the posthumous winner of the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and in 1992, the popular "I Drove All Night" and "Heartbreak Radio" appeared on the posthumous album, King of Hearts, produced by Jeff Lynne.
Roy Orbison Legacy
Orbison is most remembered for his ballads of lost love, and within the music community Roy Orbison is revered for his song-writing abilities. Record producer and Orbison fan Don Was, commenting on Orbison's writing skills, said: "He defied the rules of modern composition." Songwriter Bernie Taupin, composer of many lyrics for Elton John, and others referred to Orbison as far ahead of the times, creating lyrics and music in a manner that broke with all traditions. Roy Orbison's vocal range was impressive (three octaves) and his songs were melodically and rhythmically advanced and lyrically sophisticated. Three songs written and recorded by Orbison, "Only The Lonely," "Oh, Pretty Woman," and "Crying," are in the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone named those three songs plus "In Dreams" on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." In 1989, Roy Orbison was inducted posthumously into the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame.From the stage in Las Vegas in 1976, Elvis Presley called Orbison "the greatest singer in the world", and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees referred to Roy Orbison as the "Voice of God." Multiple Academy Award winning songwriter Will Jennings ("My Heart Will Go On," from the Titanic soundtrack) called Roy Orbison a "poet, a songwriter, a vision," after working with Roy Orbison and co-writing "Wild Hearts." Bob Dylan, later a bandmate of Orbison's in the Traveling Wilburys, wrote "Orbison transcended all the genres. With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. Roy Orbison kept you on your toes. Roy Orbison sang his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. Roy Orbison sang like a professional criminal. Roy Orbison's voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, 'Man, I don't believe it.' Roy Orbison's songs had songs within songs. Orbison was deadly serious no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him."
Roy Orbison Trivia
According to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, at a press conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sam Orbison said that his brother Roy Orbison was always "saddened by the sordid treatment of Elvis Presley in the aftermath of his death in 1977."The well-known Spider-Man villain Doctor Octopus is supposedly based on Orbison, especially his thick glasses and multiple vision disorders.
He was also well known in the much smaller world of radio controlled model aircraft as a champion modeler and flier.
His song "In Dreams" was used extensively in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet, and Lynch would later feature a Spanish version of "Crying" in his film, Mulholland Drive.
His early Sun side, "Domino", was used repeatedly in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train.
Orbison was portrayed by Johnathan Rice in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.
The character Roy Koopa from Super Mario Bros. 3 was named after Roy Orbison. The game also includes characters that are named after classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven, Mot'rhead bassist/singer Lemmy Kilmister, and talk show host Larry King, among others. Koopalings
In the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy Coach Klein (Henry Winkler) has a tattoo of Orbison on his rear end.
Roy Orbison Discography
Ooby Dooby (1956)Only the Lonely (1960)
Blue Angel (1960)
I'm Hurtin' (1960)
Running Scared (1961)
Love Hurts (1961)
Crying (1961)
Candy Man (1961)
Leah (1962)
Summer Song (1962)
Dream (1963)
Blue Bayou (1963)
Mean Woman Blues (1963)
In Dreams (1963)
Distant Drums (1963)
Oh, Pretty Woman (1964)
"Yo Te Amo Maria" (1964)
It's Over (1964)
"Sleepy Hollow" (1965)
"The Actress" (1962)
"Crawling Back" (1965)
"Lana" (1966)
"Communication Breakdown" (1966)
"Cry Softly, Lonely One" (1967)
"The Fastest Guitar Alive" (1967)
"Southbound Jericho Parkway" (1969)
"Walk On" (1968)
"Penny Arcade" (1969)
"Harlem Woman" (1972)
"Indian Summer" - with Larry Gatlin
"Not Alone Anymore" (1988) (Traveling Wilburys)
"Real World" (1989) (the answer to "In Dreams" written with Will Jennings)
"A Love So Beautiful" (1989)
"Careless Heart" (1989)
"My Friend"
"I Drove All Night" (1988)
"After the Love Has Gone"
"Harlem Woman" (1972)
"Shadaroba" (1963)
"Life Fades Away" - Roy Orbison/Glenn Danzig Less Than Zero Soundtrack 1987
You Got It (1989)
End Of The Line (1989)
Handle With Care (1989)
