Roy Orbison
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| Roy Orbison | |
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Orbison in the 1980s.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Roy Kelton Orbison |
| Born | April 23, 1936 Vernon, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | December 6, 1988 (aged 52) Hendersonville, Tennessee , U.S. |
| Genres | Rockabilly, pop |
| Occupations | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1954–1988 |
| Labels | Sun, Monument, MGM, London, Mercury, Asylum, PolyGram, Virgin |
| Associated acts | Traveling Wilburys, Teen Kings, The Wink Westerners, Class of ’55 |
| Website | http://www.royorbison.com/ |
| Notable instruments | |
| Gibson ES-335 | |
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.
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.[1] The combination of Orbison’s powerful, impassioned voice and complex musical arrangements led many commentators to refer to his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet “the Caruso of Rock”.[2][note 1] Performers as disparate as Elvis Presley and Bono stated his voice was, respectively, the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard.[3] 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.
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. Rolling Stone placed Orbison at number 37 in their list of The Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.[4] Rolling Stone rated Orbison number 13 in their list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008.[5]
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[edit] Early life
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”,[6] and in later years expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.[note 2] 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.[7] He was quiet and self-effacing, remarkably polite and obliging – a product, his biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing.[8] 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.[6]
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.[9] Orbison’s major musical influences as a youth were in country music. He was particularly moved by the way Lefty Frizzell sang, slurring syllables.[10] 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.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13] 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!”[note 3] 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.[6] He was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956.
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