Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Orbison's music is mostly in the rock genre and his most successful periods were in the early 1960s and the late 1980s. His music was described by critics as operatic, earning him the nicknames "The Caruso of Rock" and "The Big O". Many of Orbison's songs conveyed vulnerability at a time when most male rock-and-roll performers projected machismo. He performed with minimal motion and in black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.
Roy Orbison
April 23, 1936
December 6, 1988 (aged 52)
- Singer-songwriter
- musician
5, including Alex
- Vocals
- guitar
1953–1988
- Teen Kings
- Traveling Wilburys
Born in Texas, Orbison began singing in a rockabilly and country-and-western band as a teenager. He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, but enjoyed his greatest success with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, 22 of Orbison's singles reached the Billboard Top 40. He wrote or co-wrote almost all of his own Top 10 hits, including "Only the Lonely" (1960), "Running Scared" (1961), "Crying" (1961), "In Dreams" (1963), and "Oh, Pretty Woman" (1964).
After the mid-1960s Orbison suffered a number of personal tragedies, and his career faltered. He experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s, following the success of several cover versions of his songs. In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. Orbison died of a heart attack that December at age 52. One month later, his song "You Got It" (1989) was released as a solo single, becoming his first hit to reach both the US and UK Top 10 in nearly 25 years.
Orbison's honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and five other Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on its list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 13 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In 2002, Billboard magazine listed him at number 74 on its list of the Top 600 recording artists.
Early life[edit]
Orbison was born on April 23, 1936, in Vernon, Texas.[2] He was the second of three sons born to Orbie Lee Orbison (1913–1984) and Nadine Vesta Shults (1914–1992). Orbie was an oil-field driller who struggled to find work after the great depression and Nadine enjoyed painting and writing poetry.[3] Orbison’s direct paternal ancestor was traced to Thomas Orbison (born 1715) from Lurgan, Northern Ireland, who settled in the Province of Pennsylvania in the middle of the century.[4] According to The Authorized Roy Orbison, a biography written by Roy's son Alex, the family moved to Fort Worth in 1942 to find work in the aircraft factories.[5] Due to eyesight problems, Roy wore thick glasses from the age of four.[6]
Orbison's father gave him a guitar on his sixth birthday, and Roy was taught how to play it by his father and older brother.[7] Roy recalled, "I was finished, you know, for anything else" by the time he was 7, and music became the focus of his life.[8] His major musical influence as a youth was country music. He was particularly moved by Lefty Frizzell's singing, with its slurred syllables,[9] leading Orbison to adopt the stage name "Lefty Wilbury" during his time with the Traveling Wilburys. He also enjoyed Hank Williams, Moon Mullican and Jimmie Rodgers. One of the first musicians that he heard in person was Ernest Tubb, playing on the back of a truck in Fort Worth. Orbison also said that a formative experience was the regular singing sessions at Fort Worth, where he was surrounded by soldiers who were intensely emotional because they were about to be sent to the front line. In West Texas, he was exposed to rhythm and blues, Tex-Mex, the orchestral arrangements of Mantovani, and Cajun music. The cajun favorite "Jole Blon" was one of the first songs that he sang in public. He began singing on a local radio show at age 8, and he became the show's host by the late 1940s.[10] At the age of 9, Orbison won a contest on radio station KVWC, which led to his own radio show where he sang the same songs every week.[7] He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School[5] in Fort Worth until a polio scare in 1944 prompted his parents send Roy (then aged 8) and his brother Grady Lee to Vernon to live with their grandmother.[11] As World War II wound down, Roy's parents returned to Vernon.[12]
The Orbison family moved again in 1946, to Wink, Texas in search of employment.[13] Orbison described life in Wink as "football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand"[14] and expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.[a][16] Roy was self-conscious about his appearance and began dyeing his nearly-white hair black when he was still young.[17] He was quiet, self-effacing, and remarkably polite and obliging.[18] During recess at school, he played guitar by himself while the other kids were playing physical games.[19] As a teenager, Roy's lack of sporting ability left him with shyness and low self-esteem.[20] Roy was always keen to sing, however, and considered his voice memorable, but not great.[14]
Career[edit]
1949-1955: Wink Westerners[edit]
In 1949, Orbison (then 13 years old) formed the band Wink Westerners[7] with school friends Billy Pat Ellis on drums, Slob Evans on bass fiddle, Richard West on Piano and James Morrow on electric mandolin.[21] They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonk bars and had a weekly morning radio show on KERB in Kermit, Texas.[22] Their first performance was at a school assembly in 1953.[7] They were offered $400 to play at a dance, and Orbison realized that he could make a living in music.[23] Orbison was also part of a marching band and singing octet.[7] At the age of 15, Orbison decided that instead of becoming a guitar player, he would use the guitar as an accompaniment to his singing.[24]
In 1953 the Wink Westerners entered a talent contest on KMID-TV in Midland, Texas.[25] The group won the contest, resulting in a 30-minute spot on a local television show.[26] After the show, Orbison asked the owner of the company sponsoring the show if he could sponsor the group for ongoing shows, which led to the Wink Westerners playing weekly shows on KMID-TV on Friday nights and on Odessa television station KOSA-TV on Saturday nights.[27][25] It was around this time that Orbison began dyeing his hair (naturally a "dishwater grey color") to jet black.[28]
After graduating from high school in 1954, Orbison enrolled at North Texas State College in Denton. His plan to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay, however he became bored with the course in its first year and switched courses to History and English.[7] But Orbison preferred to play music with fellow students Billy Pat Ellis, Dick Penner and Wade Moore.[29] Penner and Moore had written a simple, catchy rockabilly song called "Ooby Dooby", which impressed Orbison and he started looking into how he could make a recording of it.[30] Orbison continued performing with the Wink Westerners after his first year.[25] He then heard that his schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, and it further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician.[31] At a New Year's Eve dance in 1954, the Wink Westerners had mostly played country music throughout the night, but ended the night by playing Shake, Rattle and Roll repeatedly, which became the catalyst for the band switching to rock and roll music.[32] Also, Orbison had seen Elvis Presley perform back in 1954 and was impressed by his shocking antics on stage.[b]
Posthumous career[edit]
Orbison's posthumous album Mystery Girl was released by Virgin Records on January 31, 1989[191] and became the highest selling album of his careers.[7] The biggest hit from Mystery Girl was "You Got It", written with Lynne and Tom Petty. "You Got It" rose to No. 9 in the US and No. 3 in the UK.[114][122] The song earned Orbison a posthumous Grammy Award nomination.[192] According to Rolling Stone, "Mystery Girl cloaks the epic sweep and grandeur of his classic sound in meticulous, modern production—the album encapsulates everything that made Orbison great, and for that reason it makes a fitting valedictory".[193]
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 spent 53 weeks on the US charts, peaking at number three. It reached No. 1 in Australia and No. 16 in the UK. The album won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group.[170] Rolling Stone included it in the top 100 albums of the decade.[183]
On April 8, 1989, Orbison became the first deceased musician since Elvis Presley to have two albums in the US Top Five at the same time, with Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 at number 4 and his own Mystery Girl at number 5.[194] In the United Kingdom, he achieved even greater posthumous success, with two solo albums in the Top 3 on February 11, 1989 (Mystery Girl was number 2 and the compilation The Legendary Roy Orbison was number 3).[195]
Although the video for the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle with Care" was filmed with Orbison, the video for "End of the Line" was filmed and released posthumously. During Orbison's vocal solo parts in "End of the Line", the video shows Orbison's guitar in a rocking chair next to Orbison's framed photo.[196]
On October 20, 1992, King of Hearts—another album of Orbison songs—was released.[197] In 1996 the album The Very Best of Roy Orbison documented his entire career.[7] Roy's wife Barbara managed his estate and released albums through the Roy Orbison Enterprises company.[7] Following Barbara's death in December 2011, the company management was taken over by Roy's sons Alex and Roy Kelton Jr.[7]
In 2014, a demo of Orbison's "The Way Is Love" was released as part of the 25th-anniversary deluxe edition of Mystery Girl. The song was originally recorded on a stereo cassette player around 1986. Orbison's sons contributed instrumentation on the track along with Orbison's vocals; it was produced by John Carter Cash.[198]
Studio albums
Posthumous albums
Remix albums
Concert videos
Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on their list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 13 on their list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time'.[231] In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.[114]