| ROY
ORBISON (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY) Roy Kelton
Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988), nicknamed “The Big O”,
was an influential American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock
and roll, whose recording career spanned more than four decades. By
the mid-1960s Orbison was internationally recognized for his ballads
of lost love, rhythmically advanced melodies, three-octave vocal
range, characteristic dark sunglasses, and sometimes distinctive
usage of falsetto, typified in songs such as ”Only The Lonely”, ”Oh,
Pretty Woman”, and ”Crying”. In 1989, he was inducted posthumously
into the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Probably the greatest voice in the second half of the
Twenth Century< Orbison went on to work with the Travelling
Wilburies - the Suoer-Group of all time.
Two common misconceptions about his appearance stubbornly continue
to surface about Orbison: one, that he was an albino, and two, that
he wore his trademark dark glasses because he was blind or nearly so.
Neither is correct, although his poor vision required him 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 he had available were darkly tinted
prescription sunglasses. “I had to see to get onstage,” so he wore
the glasses throughout his tour with the Beatles, and he carried on
with it for the rest of his professional career. “I’ll just do this
and look cool.”
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, he organized his first band, “The Wink
Westerners”, and when not singing with the band he 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. He 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 he 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. His 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, he worked at Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville, Tennessee as a
songwriter, and then was given a contract by RCA, but eventually
Chet Atkins referred him to Fred Foster, the owner of Monument
Records, where he moved after his contract with RCA ended in 1959.
Breakthrough and sudden decline
At Monument, Foster encouraged him to break from his established
style. Under Foster’s guidance, he 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), he went
on to become an international rock and roll star. His 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
him 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. He 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 he would perform several songs from an album of the same
name. However, due to changes in musical taste, he suddenly ceased
to have hits in the United States after 1967, and although he 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. He 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 he 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. His popularity extended to Germany, and he recorded his hit
song “Mama” in German. His records were in great demand on the
“black market” behind the Iron Curtain. In France, he was viewed as
the master of the ballad of lost love in the vein of that country’s
most popular singer Édith 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. He 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.
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. He was
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the induction
speech made by Bruce Springsteen (who had famously referenced
Orbison and “Only the Lonely” in his 1975 song “Thunder Road”). His
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, he 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. He subsequently recorded a new solo
album, Mystery Girl, produced by Orbison, Mike Campbell (of Tom
Petty’s 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.
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, he 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. His 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. He 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.
Legacy
Orbison is most remembered for his ballads of lost love, and within
the music community he 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, he 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 him as the “Voice of God.” Multiple Academy Award–winning
songwriter Will Jennings (“My Heart Will Go On,” from the Titanic
soundtrack) called him a “poet, a songwriter, a vision,” after
working with him 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. He kept you on your toes. … [He
sang] 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.’ His 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.” |
