Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, 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 US 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 The 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 with tragedy, including the death of his first wife and two of his children in separate accidents.
Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison
Orbison was a natural baritone, yet could sing high tenor notes with ease; commentators 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 commentators to refer to his music as operatic; he even earned the sobriquet “the Caruso of Rock”. Performers as disparate as Elvis Presley and Bono 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.
Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen
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. More recently in 2007 he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone listed Orbison as No. 37 in their list of The Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at No. 74 in the Top 600 recording artists. Rolling Stone rated Orbison at No. 13 in their list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008.
Roy Orbison's high school senior photograph
Roy Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison, an oil well driller and car mechanic, and Nadine Shultz, a nurse. Both 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. 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, his 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.
Roy Orbison
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 “Jole 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.
The Wink Westerners
In high school, Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners, an informal band that would play 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, Orbison 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 his 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 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 such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Cash. Phillips told him curtly, “Johnny Cash doesn’t run my record company!”[\ Phillips was convinced to listen to a record by the Teen Kings named "Ooby Dooby", a song composed in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at North Texas State. He was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956.
The Teen Kings
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 100, peaking at No. 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. 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.
Sun Records in Memphis, TN
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, and was a older brother to Mekilo Rushlow,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 songs he recorded that were written by other writers to RCA Victor 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.” After two tepid attempts with RCA Victor, they decided not to option Orbison for another song. Wesley Rose maneuvered Orbison into the sights of producer Fred Foster at Monument Records.
Roy Orbison and Joe Melson
In his first sessions at Monument in Nashville, Orbison took on a song that RCA refused, “Paper Boy”, and wrote another, “Pretty One”. Playing shows late into the night, and living with his wife and young child in his tiny apartment, he 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 1959 and the two decided to try to write some songs together. They experimented with the doo-wop backup singers arranged by Anita Kerr in a song called “Uptown”; Orbison was allowed to use strings on the record, which he enjoyed. Melson later recalled, “We stood in the studio, listening to the playbacks and thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world”. The song earned a modest spot at No. 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 found religion and Chuck Berry had been arrested and spent time 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”.
The Roy Orbison single, "Only the Lonely"
Influenced by contemporaneous hits such as “Come Back to Me My Love” and “Come Softly to Me”, Orbison and Melson wrote a song in April 1960 which, when recorded, employed strings, the Anita Kerr doo-wop backup singers, and finally, an astounding note hit by Orbison in falsetto that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, “came not from his throat but deeper within”. It was titled “Only the Lonely”, and Orbison and Melson tried to pitch it to Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers, both of whom turned it down. Orbison released his own version instead and it shot to No. 2 on the Hot 100 in the U.S. and hit No. 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.”
Roy Orbison
Instantly Orbison was in high demand. He appeared on American Bandstand and toured the U.S. for three months non-stop with Patsy Cline. When Presley heard “Only the Lonely” 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 No. 9, a self-performed version of “Claudette”, and “I’m Hurtin’”, which rose to No. 27.
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 the run with a woman, followed by another man who is trying to take her away. Orbison encountered a 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 the sound engineer 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, to the astonishment of everyone present, sang the final high G sharp naturally. 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.”
Roy Orbison and his first wife (and song inspiration) Claudette Orbison
Just weeks later “Running Scared” reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart. 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 No. 2; it was coupled with an R&B up-tempo song titled “Candy Man” (written by fellow singer/songwriter/guitarist Fred Neil, best known for penning “Everybody’s Talking”) that stayed on the charts for two months. Orbison’s second son was born in 1962, and he hit No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 2 in the UK with “Dream Baby”, an upbeat song written by veteran country songwriter Cindy Walker. 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.
Roy Orbison
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” (No. 7 in the U.S.), “Falling”, “Mean Woman Blues” (No. 5 in the U.S.), and “Blue Bayou”, all of which also hit the Top 10 in the UK. He finished the year with a Christmas song written by Willie Nelson titled “Pretty Paper”.
Roy Orbison (far right) with The Beatles and Gerry & the Pacemakers
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 as “The Big O”, with a local band that was becoming massively popular named The Beatles. 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.
Roy Orbison performing live at Atlanta's Whiskey A-Go-Go
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, Tennessee. 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 where 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.”
Roy Orbison and Bill Dees
Orbison also began collaborating with Bill Dees, whom he had known in Texas. With Dees, he wrote “It’s Over”, a No. 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 No. 1 in the fall of 1964 in the U.S. and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks; it hit No. 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.”
Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" single
“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-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. His first collection at MGM, an album titled Goodnight, sold less 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 see if he was recuperating after his 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.
Roy Orbison in a scene from "The Fastest Guitar Alive"
A grieving Orbison threw himself into his work, collaborating with Bill Dees to write music for 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’ll kill you and play your funeral march at the same time”, with—according to biographer Colin Escott—”zero conviction”. Titled The Fastest Guitar Alive, 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.
Barbara and Roy Orbison
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 Wilhonnen Jacobs whom he had met a few days before his sons died. His youngest son with Claudette was raised by his parents. He and Barbara had a son in 1970 and another in 1974.
Orbison recorded in the 1970s, but his albums performed so poorly that he began to doubt his talents. Author Peter Lehman would later observe 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 Hurts” was remade by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and again by heavy metal band Nazareth. Sonny James sent “Only the Lonely” to No. 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 No. 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 cover reaching No. 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.
Around the same time Orbison underwent open heart surgery. 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 No. 5 in the U.S. and stayed on the charts for 15 weeks; it was No. 1 in the UK for three. Although he was all but forgotten in the U.S., 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.
k.d. lang and Roy Orbison
Orbison’s career was fully revived in 1987. He released an album of his re-recorded hits titled In Dreams: The Greatest Hits. 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).
Dean Stockwell lip-synching to Roy Orbison in the film "Blue Velvet"
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 Coconut 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.
The Traveling Wilburys (L to R) Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison
In 1987, Orbison had begun collaborating with Electric Light Orchestra 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.”
The Traveling Wilburys (L to R) Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne
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 U.S. charts, peaking at No. 3. It hit No. 1 in Australia and topped out at No. 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.
Roy Orbison, Bo Diddley, Bruce Springsteen
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:
“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”, written by Lynne and Tom Petty. It posthumously rose to No. 9 in the U.S. and No. 3 in the UK.
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.
Roy Orbison's family gathers around his postumously received Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (L to R) Westly Orbison, Alex Orbison, Barbara Orbison, Roy Orbison Jr.
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 attack.
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.
For more information about Roy Orbison visit the official site at RoyOrbison.com.
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