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| Roy Orbison |
On a day like today in 1988 one of the best singers died at the age of 52. He was Roy Orbison, one of the most beautiful voices of the last century and one of The Grandma's favourite artists.
Music is a great friend when you are alone and when you don't feel very well. Other great friends are books. The Grandma continues recovering her health and today she has remember Roy Orbison listening to his greatest hits and watching his memorable concert A Black & White Night where Orbison sings with Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Jennifer Warnes, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, k. d. lang and Bruce Springsteen.
Before listening to Roy Orbison, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 34).
More information: Yes/No Questions & Short Answers
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936-December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his powerful voice, wide vocal range, impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. The combination led many critics to describe his music as operatic, nicknaming him the Caruso of Rock and the Big O.
While most male rock-and-roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed vulnerability. His voice ranged from baritone to tenor, and music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. During performances, he was known for standing still and solitary, and for wearing black clothes, to match his dyed jet-black hair and dark sunglasses, which lent an air of mystery to his persona.
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas. Both of his parents were unemployed during the Great Depression, and searching for work, moved the family to Fort Worth in 1942. He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School until a polio scare prompted the family to return to Vernon. Later, in 1946, they moved to Wink, Texas.
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| Roy Orbison |
Orbison later described life in Wink as football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand and 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.
He was not confident about his appearance and began dyeing his nearly-white hair black when he was still young. He was quiet, self-effacing, and remarkably polite and obliging, a product, biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing. He was readily available to sing, however, and often became the focus of attention when he did. He considered his voice memorable, if not great.
On Roy's sixth birthday, his father gave him a guitar. He later recalled that by the age of seven, I was finished, you know, for anything else; music would be his life. His major musical influence as a youth was country music.
In high school, Orbison and some friends formed a band, the Wink Westerners. They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit.
More information: Roy Orbison
Orbison heard that his North Texas State schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, which further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician. While at North Texas State College, Roy heard a song called Ooby Dooby, composed by Dick Penner and Wade Moore in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at the college, and after his first year of college, he returned to Wink with Ooby Dooby in hand and continued performing with the Wink Westerners.
While living in Odessa, Orbison
saw a performance by Elvis Presley, who was only a year older and a
rising star. Johnny Cash toured the area in 1955 and 1956, appearing on
the same local TV show as the Wink Westerners, and suggested that Orbison
approach Sam Phillips at Sun Records, the home of rockabilly artists
Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. The success of
their KMID television show got them another show on KOSA-TV, and they
changed their name to the Teen Kings.
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| Roy Orbison |
The Teen Kings recorded Ooby Dooby for the Odessa-based Je–Wel label. According to the official Roy Orbison discography by Marcel Riesco, this was the first release by Orbison in March 1956. Phillips was impressed with the song, after the local record store owner Poppa Holifield played it for him over the telephone, and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956. The Teen Kings went to Sun Studio in Memphis, where Phillips wanted to record Ooby Dooby again, in his studio. The song was released on Sun 242 in May 1956. and broke into the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 59 and selling 200,000 copies.
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 songs in a rockabilly style, including Go! Go! Go! and Rockhouse. 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 there.
Orbison had some success at Sun Records, however, and was introduced to Elvis Presley's social circle, once going to pick up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac. Orbison wrote Claudette, about Claudette Frady whom he married in 1957, and the Everly Brothers recorded it for their subsequent release as 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. Increasingly frustrated at Sun, he gradually stopped
recording. He toured music circuits around Texas and then quit
performing for seven months in 1958 after touring with Patsy Cline,
Eddie Cochran, and Gene Vincent.
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Experimenting with a new sound, Orbison and Joe Melson wrote a song in early 1960 which, using elements from Uptown, and another song they had written called Come Back to Me (My Love), employed strings and the Anita Kerr doo-wop backing singers.
It also featured a note hit by Orbison in falsetto that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, came not from his throat but deeper within. The song was Only the Lonely.
Orbison and Melson tried to pitch it to Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers,
but were turned down. They instead recorded the song at RCA's Nashville
studio, with sound engineer Bill Porter trying a completely new
strategy, building the mix from the top down rather than from the bottom
up, beginning with close-miked backing vocals in the foreground, and
ending with the rhythm section soft in the background. This combination
became Orbison's trademark sound.
Orbison
eventually developed a persona and an image that did not reflect his
personality. He had no publicist in the early 1960s, therefore he had
little presence in fan magazines, and his single sleeves did not feature
his picture. Life called him an anonymous celebrity. Orbison's success was greater in Britain.
By 1987, Orbison's career was fully revived. He released an album of his re-recorded hits, titled In Dreams: The Greatest Hits. A song he recorded, Life Fades Away, written with his friend Glenn Danzig, was featured in the film Less Than Zero (1987). He and k. d. lang performed a duet of Crying for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film, Hiding Out (1987), winning a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.
Also in 1987, 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 album Born to Run: 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.
More information: ICCE
Orbison was in high demand for concerts and interviews once again, and was seemingly ecstatic about it. He began writing songs and collaborating with many musicians from his past and newer fans, to develop a solo album, Mystery Girl.
Mystery Girl was co-produced by Jeff Lynne, whom Orbison considered the best producer he had ever collaborated with. Elvis Costello, Orbison's son Wesley and others offered their songs to him. The biggest hit from the album was You Got It, written with Lynne and Tom Petty.
On December 6, 1988, he spent the day flying model airplanes with his sons and ate dinner at his mother's home in Hendersonville. Later that day, he died of a heart attack, at the age of 52.
His honors include
inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Nashville
Songwriters Hall of Fame in the same year, and the Songwriters Hall of
Fame in 1989. 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. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed
Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.
More information: Official Charts
I may be a living legend, but that sure don't help
when I've got to change a flat tire.
Roy Orbison
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