Roy's music at its heart was rock-a-billy, which was out of step with the psychedelic era.Here’s the first of legendary US singer-songwriter Roy Orbison’s three stints at number 1. Having lost his first wife Claudette in a motorcycle accident two years previously, the gut-wrenching double blow of having two-thirds of his offspring taken from him so soon after would have emotionally crippled even the sturdiest of living souls.Yes during the late 1960s-1970's 'counterculture era' - definitely. When two of Roy Orbison’s sons perished in a house fire in 1968, Johnny Cash feared his good friend would never perform again.
After graduating he enrolled at North Texas State College, and heard his fellow schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a recording contract. By the late 1940s, he was the presenter of the show.Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners while he was in high school. He adored the country music of Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers, and was singing on a local radio show a year later. He was a shy child, with poor eyesight and little confidence, but he loved to sing, and at the age of seven, his father bought him a guitar.
The duo decided to try writing songs together. He looks older in 1960 than he did before his death in 1988.In 1958, Orbison was strumming his guitar in his car, as he often did, when songwriter Joe Melson tapped on the window. His hair was already going white, causing him to dye his hair earlier than most, and in 1960, he didn’t always wear his famous glasses.While researching this blog, the picture above surprised me, as he hadn’t yet developed his famous persona. Signing to Sun, the band toured plenty but eventually split, with Orbison staying at Phillips’s house with his girlfriend, Claudette Frady.The couple wed in 1957, and Orbison paid tribute to is wife with the song Claudette, which as a double A-side with the more famous All I Have to Do Is Dream, became the first number 1 for the Everly Brothers, and the biggest-selling UK single of 1958.This was the step up Orbison needed, and the royalties meant he was able to buy his own Cadillac, but he was very different to your typical rock’n’roll star of the same time, and was just as shy as the child he had been growing up, causing many to wonder if he was cut out for showbusiness. A phone call between the two got nowhere, but later, The Wink Westerners changed their name to The Teen Kings, and their recording of Ooby Dooby changed Phillips’s mind. The Wink Westerners appeared on TV alongside Johnny Cash, who suggested that Orbison contact Sun Records owner Sam Phillips.
Orbison decided to have a go himself, and once more they adopted a new method of production, by building the song around the vocals, with the band performing quietly in the background. They had worked on another song using the same sound, Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel), and had tried selling it to Elvis and the Everlys, but both acts declined. The trio, along with sound engineer Bill Porter, began work on new songs with sophisticated production techniques, involving string sections and backing singers that were close-miked.The first release, Uptown, got nowhere, however, and Orbison began considering performing in nightclubs instead.
Like his friends, The Everly Brothers, this was a new, more sophisticated form of pop, that would influence future musical idols. And although Roy Orbison would come up with better songs over the next few years, Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel) may be the best encapsulation of the Roy Orbison sound. Rather than yet another rock’n’roll star to be envious of, the Big O would have been much more identifiable to your more sensitive teenager. Here was a new type of musical hero, a sensitive soul that could help you get through trying times. Here’s a song for the unlucky-in-love, for the shy, for the broken-hearted. Nobody has ever sounded quite so distinct, before or since.This track is a perfect introduction to the Orbison sound.
Two bridge spans collapsed, causing the barges to catch fire. By the time Orbison next had a UK number 1, the musical landscape had changed dramatically.Weeks at number 1: 2 (20 October-2 November)25 October: Heavy fog causes two barges to collide with the Severn Railway Bridge. Elvis regretted turning the song down (you can imagine him singing it, but could he sing about being a loser in love with such conviction?) and bought copies of the single for his friends.
The book quickly sold three million copies, and was a watershed moment for future publishing freedoms. It’s still considered one of the best British films of all time.30 October: Michael Woodruff performed the first successful kidney transplant in the UK at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.2 November: A landmark ruling saw Penguin Books found not guilty of obscenity for publishing DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
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