An artist off the beaten track for the Org, so here goes this thread for one of my all time favourate singers - the very great Roy Orbison, who sadly died 20 years ago this year - this fact is incredible to me in itself. It doesn't seem that long.


Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988), nicknamed "The Big O," was an influential Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, guitarist and a pioneer of rock and roll whose recording career spanned more than four decades. Orbison is best known for the songs, "Ooby Dooby," "Only the Lonely," "In Dreams," "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Crying," "Running Scared," and "You Got It." In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1989, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He had his first hit in 1956 with 'Ooby Dooby' and, briefly as a SUn Records recording artist, became a friend of many of the great early white rock n' roll artists, such as Elvis Presley (who described Orbison as the 'greatest white singer in the world'), Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Orbison was a powerful influence on contemporaries such as The Rolling Stones. In 1963, he headlined a European tour with The Beatles. He became lifelong friends with the band, especially John Lennon and George Harrison. Lennon admitted to being influenced vocally by Orbison and the Beatles song "Please Please Me" was inspired by Orbison's 'Only the Lonely'. Orbison would later record with Harrison in the Traveling Wilburys supergroup. During their tour of Europe, Orbison encouraged the Beatles to come to the United States. When they toured America, they asked Orbison to manage their tour, but his schedule forced him to decline.

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 and No. 1 on the British charts. The record sold more copies in its first ten days of release than any single up to that time, and eventually sold over seven million copies.

Orbison is remembered for his ballads of lost love, and in the music community he is revered for his song writing ability. Record producer and Orbison fan Don Was, commenting on Orbison's writing skills, said: "He defied the rules of modern composition". Songwriters such as Elton John and Bernie Taupin along with many 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 (four octaves), his voice effortlessly powerful, and his songs were melodically and rhythmically advanced and lyrically sophisticated, often incorporating the bolero form. Perhaps due to his lack of formal training, Orbison and his regular 60s writing partner Joe Melson wrote songs that were often oddly structured, with irregular sequences of measures and slightly odd production tricks.

Bob Dylan, later a band mate 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'.


Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Elvis that Roy Orbison was/ is perhaps the greatest white pop/ soul singer of them all. His ability to sing very high notes from the stomach, in full voice, without resorting to the easier falsetto, is astonishing - one of the most truly 'soulful' singers I know. While obviously great in the '60s, imo some of his best work is on his two posthumously released final albums, 'Mystery Girl' (1989) and 'King of Hearts' (1992). The first is an Orbison classic and the second is excellent.

Apparently, Roy and Otis Redding, thrown together on a plane flight, once discussed the possibility of making an album together - could have been interesting ...

Who else out there digs the 'Big O'?
[Edited 2/19/08 13:32pm]

...This pretty much says it all (or a great deal).



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 2/19/08 14:48pm]

theAudience said:

theAudience said:

Indeed it does, tA.

An incredible performance from Roy there. This song has that great, melodramatic, kind of latin feel of many of his best works, and has one of those classic Orbison emphatic endings. Roy even had a unique trademark way to end many of his songs.

A shame this thread has attracted only minimal, if appreciated, interest. Obviously Roy hid his inner funk very successfully , the lack of which in his music may go some way to explain this ...

On a personal note, Roy played more than once within 20 miles of my home town, back in the early-mid'80s and, being only in my early teens, my callow youth had little knowledge or interest in an 'over the hill artist from long ago', as I then viewed him. So, to my lasting regret, I never got to see him ...

It was only shortly before Orbison's passing, with the renewel of interest in Roy with the Wilburys, that I began to realise how incredible he was.

The above also applies for the now sadly late Gene Pitney, whom I enjoy the odd track of. Pitney also played the same provincial venue around the same time. Both were fine songwriters at times (indeed, Pitney, along with Dionne Warwick and others, was one of the better interpreters of the Bacharach and David songbook), and both imo should be reclaimed from Heaven's nostalgia circuit of half-forgotten legends and given full respect in the mainstream nowadays. Obviously, Roy and Gene's sedate lives and images don't make as good copy as the Elvis's and Lennons etc. But I'm mainly interested in the sounds, and there's some good, classic pop there for those with open minds and ears. But if I had to choose between Roy and Gene, Roy would be far more my main man .

See? Even this emoticon is wearing Roy's shades .

Miles said:

That is so freaky that you'd mention Gene Pitney.
His name came to mind when I read your "Big-O" piece.

An old post I did on Pitney when he passed:
http://www.prince.org/msg/8/184818



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Good to read that thread again, tA. I would link Orbison with Pitney as they were both great singers with unique, melodramatic voices that reach your soul, from the days when great songs seemed to be all around (at least to me, who wasn't there to hear all the trash pop inbetween now mostly forgotten .

Now I can't stop hearing Gene's 'Looking in the Eyes of Love' playing in my head. Or is it 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'?
[Edited 2/21/08 13:53pm]

Miles said:

love that voice. the songs and performances.... he's eerie. i love it.

Miles said:

Raze said:

Yes. I don't know if it's the record production or our knowledge that his days were numbered, but on his last couple of albums, Roy's voice (imo normally sounding like the lovechild of Mario Lanza and Hank Williams ), which imo improved with age, sounds decidedly 'ghostly' at times.

Having recently listened heavily to his 1960-65 Monument hits and B-Sides and his last two - 'Mystery Girl' and 'King of Hearts', both of which imo contain some classic late era Orbison tracks that stand tall alongside anything he did in the '60s, I've now decided to embark on a buying odyssey into his actual '60-'65 Monument albums and late '60s - early '70s MGM catalogue; the latter seems to have quite a lot of diversity, from more country-like material to big, 'Running Scared' type production numbers, to classic ballads. His '50s stuff appeals less to me as his style only really coalesced in 1960 with 'Only the Lonely'.

There's also a great DVD out that documents his life and career in good detail; it's called, appropriately enough, 'In Dreams', after one of his great songs. It's actually narrated by Roy himself, from interview material recorded down the years.

Apparently, Roy, for various reasons, recorded far more material than has ever been released; some estimates say less than half his recorded output has seen the light of day. In any case, it seems that there's a large Orbison vault out there, but nobody, from his estate to record companies, seem in any hurry to release any of this material. This strikes me as odd; he's hardly hot news nowadays of course, but even so, unreleased albums by far more obscure artists than Roy appear all the time, unless it's about stupid rights issues. I'm sure there's a small put passionate audience of Orbison fans and classic '60s pop fans who would get it. Who knows?

I think his secret, other than the great, virtuosic voice, was the innocent, 'lonely' persona he portrayed in so many of his songs; this seems to touch people, as many of us have that aspect to our personalities in some measure; the eternal, unquenchable loneliness of existence - the jeopardy of innocent hope balanced against the abyss (pretentious? Moi? ).

And, when you hear about the tragedies in his life, you begin to see where some of this might have come from, or at least, the tragedies imbued his music with greater depth of experience - Some of his best songs render life, love, hope and loss on an epic scale, taking you on an emotional journey, but in the 'safe' realm of epic melodrama. Tho, thank god, most of Roy's songs have some hope for the future by their end .

All good music is a mirror to the listener.
[Edited 2/22/08 13:16pm]

Miles said:

So very true. The material of an musician is a reflection to their soul.