FEATURE:
The Lockdown Playlist
PHOTO CREDIT: Moore, Hulton Archive/Getty Images
‘The Caruso of Rock" and ‘The Big O’, Rob Orbison would have been eighty-five today (23rd April). He sadly died on 6th April, 1988 aged just fifty-two. I want to remember him on his eighty-fifth birthday, as I think he is one of the greatest vocalists who ever lived. Whether performing during his solo career of with The Traveling Wilburys (a supergroup he performed in alongside Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty), his voice was unlike anyone else’s! Not to mangle his biography, but here are some details and background:
“A few things contributed to Roy Orbison’s success. The songs, the production, and the performance were key factors. The songs were completely original in structure, sound and style. Totally innovative compositions, that didn’t exist until then. It became a style. Fred Foster really went for quality instead of quantity. He was willing to splash money on a session without any guarantee of payback. He was also willing to take a chance on a sound that did not conform to accepted market norms.
After that came “Crying”, “Candy Man”, “Dream Baby”, “Working for the Man”, “Leah”, “In Dreams”, “Pretty Paper”, “Blue Bayou”, “Mean Woman Blues “, “It’s Over”. This became an unbroken string of Top 40 hits that lasted for four years. Roy became the top selling American artist and one of the world’s biggest names .
In May 1963, and with the success of “In Dreams”, Wesley Rose eventually accepted an invitation for Roy to tour England on a bill with The Beatles, who meant nothing in the United States at that time. The tour was sold-out in one afternoon. On the first night, Roy did fourteen encores before The Beatles could get on stage.
Roy Orbison was one of the few hit-makers to hold his ground, and even to increase his popularity in the wake of the so-called British Invasion. He did it by maintaining a matchless quality of releases, with an original variety of content, structure, tempo and rhythm. He was also an extremely subtle song craftsman, making changes during the course of a session, or between sessions, adding the final commercial gloss to a song.
“Oh Pretty Woman” was recorded on August 1st, 1964. It was written by Roy together with his new writing partner Bill Dees and it became Roy’s biggest hit, and in fact the most popular song of all time. Released in August in the US and in September in the UK, it went to number one in every country of the World. By most estimates, the song sold about seven million copies that same year.
As his MGM contract came to an end in 1973, Roy signed a one-year contract with Mercury Records in 1974 without major acclaim, but as he would say, he always had a record in the charts in some part of the World. For example “Penny Arcade” was number 1 in Australia for weeks on end and “Too Soon to Know” was number 3 in England. After that brief stay with Mercury Records, Roy re-signed with Monument in January 1976 in an attempt to recharge his career in the midst of heavy touring on the Far East, Australia, Asia and Europe. Roy paid the price of heavy smoking, heavy touring and life on the road when he underwent open-heart surgery at the St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville in January 18, 1978, but he was back on the road three weeks later just to prove he could do it.
But about this time things started to look a bit brighter in the US. Roy was always out of the shadow in Europe, mainly in England and everybody over there knew who he was, he was still popular and doing more shows overseas than at home, but when Linda Ronstadt had a huge hit with Roy’s “Blue Bayou” which sold about 7 or 8 million copies, Van Halen had an enormous success with “Oh Pretty Woman” and Don McClean did the same with “Crying”, a rejuvenation process started.
Key factors contributed to the rebirth of Roy’s career in the USA. A Grammy with Emmylou Harris in 1980 for “That Lovin’ You Feelin’ Again”, “Wild Hearts Run out of Time” being in the film Insignificance, the Class of ’55 LP with fellow Sun record mates, his move to Malibu, California in late 1985, he re-recorded his greatest hits for an upcoming LP for Silver Eagle from Canada, and the use of the song “In Dreams” in the film Blue Velvet, but for sure helped a big deal to put Roy’s music back in the map. Blue Velvet is considered a cult film and it helped Roy to become very contemporary again, as he always wanted to be.
It was announced that Roy would be inducted into the 2nd annual Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in New York in January 21, 1987. He was inducted by Bruce Springsteen who said, “In 1975, when I went into the studio to make Born to Run, I wanted to make a record with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector. But most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison.” Right after this, Roy signs with Virgin Records who immediately re-releases the greatest hits tapes on an LP called In Dreams-Greatest Hits. There are a few new songwriting collaborators, among them Jeff Lynne. New material is being recorded for the upcoming Virgin LP in Los Angeles and the expectations start to grow.
Posthumously released in 1989, Mystery Girl became the biggest selling album of his career. Two cuts from the album became hits: “You Got It” made it in the U.S. Top 10 and Bono’s “She’s A Mystery To Me” climbed to the Top 30 in the U.K. In 1992, Virgin released King of Hearts, a collection of previously unreleased songs, and The Very Best of Roy Orbison in 1996, which documented his career from its beginning through the last years of his life.
Roy’s legacy continues to grow as his wife; Barbara devotes her time to managing his estate and releasing Orbison products on her label, Orbison Records. In January 1998, she issued Combo Concert, which is a collection of previously unreleased live recordings from Holland and France made in 1965. A companion video of the same name features a black and white film of the original Dutch television broadcast. In 1998, nearly ten years after his death, Barbara accepted the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed upon Roy for his unparalleled contribution to the recording industry”.
To mark what would have been the eighty-fifth birthday of an iconic singer, this Lockdown Playlist is all about that stunning and rich voice. I have selected a few of his choice tracks that showcase what a talent he was. Although he has been gone for quite a few years, I think that his legacy and hugely important music will live on forever. This is a Lockdown Playlist salute…
TO The Big O.