ROY ORBISON
1936 - 1988
G'day folks,
Today, I feature one of my favourite singers. And, as I write this, he is singing in the background. Born on April 23, 1936, in Vernon, Texas, Roy
Orbison formed his first band at age 13. The singer-songwriter dropped out of
college to pursue music. He signed with Monument Records and recorded such
ballads as "Only the Lonely" and "It's Over." Orbison was
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Nearly one year later, in
December 1988, he died of a heart attack.
Roy Kelton Orbison was born on April 23, 1936, in
Vernon, Texas. A year before Beatlemania overtook the United States in 1964,
the four lads from Liverpool invited Orbison to open for them on their English
tour. On his first night, Orbison performed 14 encores before the Beatles even
made it on stage.
Roy Orbison, who didn't have the Beatles' looks,
Sinatra's swagger or Elvis's pelvis, was perhaps the most unlikely sex symbol
of the 1960s. He dressed like an insurance salesman and was famously lifeless
during his performances. "He never even twitched," recalled George
Harrison, who was simultaneously awestruck and confounded by Orbison's stage
presence. "He was like marble." What Orbison did have was one of the
most distinctive, versatile and powerful voices in pop music. In the words of
Elvis Presley, Orbison was simply "the greatest singer in the world."
Born to a working-class Texan family in 1936,
Orbison grew up immersed in musical styles ranging from rockabilly and country
to zydeco, Tex-Mex and the blues. His dad gave him a guitar for his sixth
birthday and he wrote his first song, "A Vow of Love," when he was 8.
In high school, Orbison played the local circuit
with a group called the Teen Kings. When their song "Ooby Dooby" came
to the attention of Sam Phillips, the legendary producer at Sun Records,
Orbison was invited to cut a few tracks. In addition to a highly collectible
album called Roy Orbison at the Rockhouse, their collaboration yielded a
re-recording of "Ooby Dooby" that became Orbison's first minor hit.
After Orbison landed a record deal with the
Nashville-based label Monument in 1960, he began perfecting the sound that
would define his career. His big break came after he tried to pitch his
composition "Only the Lonely" to both Elvis Presley and the Everly
Brothers, and was turned down by both. Deciding to record the song himself,
Orbison used his vibrato voice and operatic style to create a recording unlike
anything Americans had heard at the time. Reaching as high the No. 2 spot on
the Billboard singles chart, "Only the Lonely" has since been
deemed a pivotal force in the development of rock music.
Between 1960 and 1965,
Orbison recorded nine Top 10 hits and another ten that broke into the Top 40.
These included "Running Scared," "Crying," "It's
Over" and "Oh, Pretty Woman," none of which adheres to a conventional
song structure. When it came to composition, Orbison called himself
"blessed ... with not knowing what was wrong or what was right." As
he put it, "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."
As
distinctive as his three-octave voice and unorthodox songwriting technique was
Orbison's unglamorous style, which some have described as "geek
chic." Stricken with both jaundice and bad eyesight as a child, Orbison
had sallow skin and thick corrective eyewear, not to mention a shy demeanour.
On a fateful day during his 1963 tour with the Beatles, Orbison left his
glasses on the plane before a show, which forced him to wear his unsightly
prescription sunglasses for that night's show. Although he considered the
incident "embarrassing," the look became an instant trademark.
Orbison's
unhip underdog look suited his music well, as his lyrics were marked by
incredible vulnerability. At a time when rock music went hand-in-hand with
confidence and machismo, Orbison dared to sing about insecurity, heartache and
fear. His stage persona, which has been described as borderline masochistic,
went a long way toward challenging the traditional ideal of aggressive
masculinity in rock 'n' roll.
Although
the first half of the 1960s saw the rise of Orbison's star, the second half of
the decade brought harder times. Tragedy struck when Orbison's wife, Claudette,
was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966, and again when his two oldest sons
died in a house fire in 1968. Following those incidents, a devastated Orbison
failed to generate many hits—and with the rise of the psychedelic movement in
rock 'n' roll, the market for rockabilly had all but dried up anyway.
Peter
Lehman, director of the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Arizona
State University, said about that period, "I was living in New York
between 1968 and 1971, and even in Manhattan I could not find a record store
that bothered to stock one copy of a newly released Orbison album; I had to
special order them." By the mid-1970s, Orbison stopped recording music
altogether.
Last Years and Legacy
Orbison's
returned to his musical career in 1980, however, when the Eagles invited him to
join them on their "Hotel California" tour. That same year, he
rekindled his relationship with country music fans by performing a memorable
duet with Emmylou Harris on "That Lovin' You Feeling Again," which
went on to win a Grammy Award. When Van Halen covered "Oh, Pretty
Woman" in 1982, rock fans were reminded that gratitude for the song was
owed to Orbison. By the late 1980s, Orbison had staged a successful comeback,
joined the all-star supergroup The Traveling Wilburys (alongside Tom Petty, Bob
Dylan and George Harrison) and been admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Despite his sales, charts and accolades, Orbison is most remembered today as an improbable rock star who put his heart on his sleeve and moved people with his music. "When you were trying to make a girl fall in love with you," Tom Waits once recalled, "it took roses, the Ferris wheel and Roy Orbison."
Clancy's comment: Wow. Loved ya work, Roy. Still do. You're a legend.
I'm ...
R.I.P
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