Roy Orbison
Although he shared the same rockabilly roots as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash,
and Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison went on to pioneer an entirely different brand
of country/pop-based rock & roll in the early '60s. What he lacked in
charisma and photogenic looks, Orbison made up for in spades with his quavering
operatic voice and melodramatic narratives of unrequited love and yearning.
In the process, he established rock & roll archetypes of the underdog
and the hopelessly romantic loser. These were not only amplified by peers
such as Del Shannon and Gene Pitney, but also influenced future generations
of roots rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Chris Isaak, as well as modern
country stars the Mavericks.
Orbison made his first widely distributed recordings for Sun Records in 1956.
Roy was a capable rockabilly singer, and had a small national hit with his
first Sun single, "Ooby Dooby." But even then, he was far more comfortable
as a ballad singer than as a hepped-up rockabilly jive cat. Other Sun singles
met with no success, and by the late '50s he was concentrating primarily
on building a career as a songwriter, his biggest early success being "Claudette"
(recorded by the Everly Brothers).
After a brief, unsuccessful stint with RCA, Orbison finally found his voice
with Monument Records, scoring a number-two hit in 1960 with "Only the Lonely."
This established the Roy Orbison persona for good: a brooding rockaballad
of failed love with a sweet, haunting melody, enhanced by his Caruso-like
vocal trills at the song's emotional climax. These and his subsequent Monument
hits also boasted innovative, quasi-symphonic production, with Roy's voice
and guitar backed by surging strings, ominous drum rolls, and heavenly choirs
of backup vocalists.
Between 1960 and 1965, Orbison would have 15 Top 40 hits for Monument, including
such nail-biting mini-dramas as "Running Scared," "Crying," "In Dreams,"
and "It's Over." Not just a singer of tear-jerking ballads, he was also capable
of effecting a tough, bluesy swagger on "Dream Baby," "Candy Man," and "Mean
Woman Blues." In fact, his biggest and best hit was also his hardest-rocking:
"Oh, Pretty Woman" soared to number one in late 1964, at the peak of the
British Invasion.
It seemed at that time that Roy was well-equipped to survive the British
onslaught of the mid-'60s. He had even toured with the Beatles in Britain
in 1963, and John Lennon has admitted to trying to emulate Orbison when writing
the Beatles' first British chart-topper, "Please Please Me." But Orbison's
fortunes declined rapidly after he left Monument for MGM in 1965. It would
be easy to say that the major label couldn't replicate the unique production
values of the classic Monument singles, but that's only part of the story.
Roy, after all, was still writing most of his material, and his early MGM
records were produced in a style that closely approximated the Monument era.
The harder truth to face was that his songs were starting to sound like lesser
variations of themselves, and that contemporary trends in rock and soul were
making him sound outdated.
Orbison, like many early rock greats, could always depend on large overseas
audiences to pay the bills. The two decades between the mid-'60s and mid-'80s
were undeniably tough ones for him, though, both personally and professionally.
A late-'60s stab at acting failed miserably. In 1966, his wife died in a
motorcycle accident; a couple of years later, his house burned down, two
of his sons perishing in the flames. Periodic comeback attempts with desultory
albums in the 1970s came to naught.
Orbison's return to the public eye came about through unexpected circumstances.
In the mid-'80s, David Lynch's Blue Velvet film prominently featured "In
Dreams" on its soundtrack. That led to the singer making an entire album
of re-recordings of hits, with T-Bone Burnett acting as producer. The record
was no substitute for the originals, but it did help restore him to prominence
within the industry. Shortly afterward, he joined George Harrison, Bob Dylan,
Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne in the Traveling Wilburys. Their successful album
set the stage for Orbison's best album in over 20 years, Mystery Girl, which
emulated the sound of his classic '60s work without sounding hackneyed. By
the time it reached the charts in early 1989, however, Orbison was dead,
claimed by a heart attack in December 1988. — Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)