Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas on the 23^rd April 1936. Like his siblings, Orbison suffered from terrible eyesight and was virtually blind, requiring thick prescriptions.

He was given his first guitar at the age of seven and scarcely looked back pursuing a life in music that encompassed his country and rhythm and blues influences. He formed a country covers band called The Wink Westerners (Wink was his home town) at high school and was getting paid gigs. Despite seeing that he could make money from music he went to college to study geology and later teaching so he could have something to fall back on.

By this time he was in a band called the Teen Kings, after meeting Johnny Cash, the country great recommended that he approach Sam Phillips of Sun Records. Though initially reluctant, Phillips signed the Teen Kings in 1956; the song that persuaded the producer was Ooby Dooby.

The band toured with the likes of Cash and tried to follow up the success of their first track (which had made the Billboard Top 100) but eventually split up. Orbison remained with Sun Records and met his future wife Claudette Frady. Although not rated as a solo artist his song writing skills meant that he wrote one of the Everly Brothers’ B-Sides Claudette which earned him significant royalties. By 1958 he gradually toured less and less and stopped recording, leaving Sun Records.

After spending time as a songwriter, Orbison finally made his return, signing to Monument Records in 1960, it was here that he formed a partnership with songwriter Joe Melson. Finally they hit a winning formula with the song, Only The Lonely, it was turned down by Elvis so Orbison instead kept it and reached number one in the UK as well as number two in his native America. The pair discovered that the winning formula was to write around his unique voice which showed a great range on his hit single, more success followed with tracks including Running Scared.

Without the sex-appeal of acts like Elvis, Orbison was a very shy performer without having an image as such. When on the road in the early sixties he misplaced his glasses and was forced to perform in Ray-Bans, this made for a more confident performance. It also gave the singer an element of mystery, leaving him with an image for the first time.

After a string of hits, he was invited to the UK to tour with The Beatles in 1963. Although he was the more established act, the enormous hype surrounding The Beatles meant that he was the opening act. He rose to the occasion and had to be dragged off stage after fourteen encores.

The following year he began to collaborate with Bill Dees and between them they composed the songs It’s Over and Oh, Pretty Woman which were successful on both sides of the Atlantic, giving him two more UK number ones.

The sixties was the also the decade of a great tragedy in his personal life when his wife (whom he had divorced and remarried), Claudette was killed in a motorbike accident in June 1966. Throwing himself into his work he made his first and only film, the comedy, The Fastest Guitar Alive was panned by critics.

Struggling to compete with psychedelia his music career was suffering when he was hit with tragedy again in 1968 when his two eldest sons were killed in a house fire. He remarried but musically his career remained quiet in the seventies, being kept alive by a number of artists recording popular covers of his songs which showed what a great influence he had been.

In 1987 such success was celebrated when Orbison re-recorded his biggest hits for the album In Dreams. The title track was also used in David Lynch’s cult classic Blue Velvet to very good effect. That same year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1988 he became part of one of music history’s great super groups The Travelling Wilburys alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. The latter also produced Orbison’s acclaimed album, Mystery Girl.

The singer was relentless in his efforts to maintain his success having gotten a second chance and it was suggested that he had worked himself to death. It was when he returned home to rest on the 6^th December 1988 that he died of a heart attack aged just 52.