125 Facts About Roy Orbison

Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads.

Roy Orbison performed with minimal motion and in black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.

Roy Orbison was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956 after being urged by Johnny Cash.

Roy Orbison's first Sun recording, "Ooby Dooby", was a direct musical sound-a-like of Elvis's early Sun recordings.

Roy Orbison had some success at Sun but enjoyed his greatest success with Monument Records.

From 1960 to 1966,22 of Roy Orbison's singles reached the Billboard Top 40.

Roy Orbison experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s, following the success of several cover versions of his songs.

Roy Orbison's honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014.

Roy Orbison received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and five other Grammy Awards.

Roy Orbison was born on April 23,1936, in Vernon, Texas.

Roy Orbison was the second of three sons born to Orbie Lee Orbison and Nadine Vesta Shults.

Roy Orbison's father was an oil-field driller who struggled to find work after the Great Depression, and his mother enjoyed painting and writing poetry.

Roy Orbison's direct paternal ancestry was traced to Thomas Roy Orbison was born on 1715 and from Lurgan, Ireland, who settled in the Province of Pennsylvania in the middle of the 18th century.

Roy Orbison's father gave him a guitar on his sixth birthday and he was taught how to play it by his father and older brother.

Roy Orbison recalled, "I was finished, you know, for anything else" by the time he was 7, and music became the focus of his life.

Roy Orbison was particularly moved by Lefty Frizzell's singing, with its slurred syllables, leading Orbison to adopt the stage name "Lefty Wilbury" during his time with the Traveling Wilburys.

Roy Orbison enjoyed Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Moon Mullican and Jimmie Rodgers.

Roy Orbison said that a formative experience was the regular singing sessions at Fort Worth, where he was surrounded by soldiers who were intensely emotional because they were about to be sent to the front line in World War II.

Roy Orbison began singing on a local radio show at age 8, and he became the show's host by the late 1940s.

At the age of 9, Roy Orbison won a contest on radio station KVWC, which led to his own radio show where he sang the same songs every week.

Roy Orbison attended Denver Avenue Elementary School in Fort Worth until a polio scare in 1944 prompted his parents to send Orbison and his brother Grady Lee to Vernon to live with their grandmother.

The Roy Orbison family moved again in 1946, to Wink, Texas in search of employment.

Roy Orbison described life in Wink as "football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand" and expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.

Roy Orbison was self-conscious about his appearance and began dyeing his nearly-white hair black when he was still young.

Roy Orbison was always keen to sing and considered his voice memorable, but not great.

In 1949, Roy Orbison formed the band "Wink Westerners" with school friends Billy Pat Ellis on drums, Slob Evans on bass fiddle, Richard West on piano and James Morrow on electric mandolin.

At the age of 15, Roy Orbison decided that instead of becoming a guitar player, he would use the guitar as an accompaniment to his singing.

Roy Orbison's plan was to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay; however, he became bored with the course in its first year and switched to history and English.

Roy Orbison continued performing with the Wink Westerners after his first year.

Roy Orbison then heard that his schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, and it further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician.

Also, Roy Orbison had seen Elvis Presley perform back during his days at North Texas State College in 1954 and was impressed by the shocking gyrations that Elvis exhibited on stage.

The Wink Westerners were disbanded in the fall of 1955 and Roy Orbison formed a new band called The Teen Kings.

Roy Orbison was now free to find a new label to market Ooby Dooby; however, a further setback was that he cut a demo of the song for Columbia Records which they turned down but had one of their contract artists release a recording of "Ooby Dooby" before Roy Orbison could offer the tape to another record company.

However, the band's career soon slumped, since Roy Orbison wanted to record emotional ballads rather than the rockabilly songs demanded by Sam Phillips, and Phillips's goal for a successor to Elvis Presley had moved on from Roy Orbison to Carl Perkins.

Much influenced by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison performed frenetically, doing "everything we could to get applause because we had only one hit record".

Elvis Presley was in the audience for this show and Roy Orbison claimed that Elvis praised Roy Orbison, but another band member says that it was actually Jack Kennelly that Presley praised.

The band's contract didn't include any royalty payments when their songs were played on the radio and Orbison had run out of money by late 1956.

The band broke up in December 1956 and Sam Phillips said they were arguing about money but the basic problem was that Roy Orbison was too much of a loner and driven egoist.

However, Roy Orbison was broke and realized that he couldn't survive as a recording artist, so after several weeks he returned to the road.

Roy Orbison toured with Johnny Cash, Sonny Burgess, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, playing mostly songs from other artists before finishing the set with a song of his own.

At the time, Roy Orbison was addicted to sleeping pills and speed.

Roy Orbison was introduced to Elvis Presley's social circle, and at some stage picked up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac.

However, none were successful and Roy Orbison gave up on becoming a recording artist.

Roy Orbison returned to Odessa, Texas in the fall of 1957 to be together with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Claudette.

Roy Orbison and Claudette had married in 1957 and their first child was born on September 16,1958.

Roy Orbison toured music circuits around Texas and then quit performing for seven months in 1958.

Roy Orbison then worked with, and was in awe of, Chet Atkins and attempted to sell his recordings of songs by other writers to the RCA Victor record label.

The songwriter Joe Melson, an acquaintance of Roy Orbison's, tapped on his car window one day in Texas in 1958, and the two decided to write some songs together.

In three recording sessions in 1958 and 1959, Roy Orbison recorded seven songs for RCA Victor at their Nashville studios; only two singles were judged worthy of release by the label.

Roy Orbison requested to use string instruments instead of fiddles, which was unusual for the time.

Roy Orbison recorded three new songs, the most notable of which was "Uptown", written with Joe Melson and released in late 1959.

Roy Orbison was passing through Memphis when he tried to pitch the song to Elvis Presley in order to make some money quickly, but it was early in the morning and Presley did not want to see Roy Orbison at that time.

Roy Orbison encountered difficulty when he found himself unable to hit the song's highest note without his voice breaking.

Roy Orbison was backed by an orchestra in the studio, and Porter told him he would have to sing louder than his accompaniment because the orchestra was unable to be softer than his voice.

The composition of Roy Orbison's following hits reflected "Running Scared": a story about an emotionally vulnerable man facing loss or grief, with a crescendo culminating in a surprise climax that employed Roy Orbison's dynamic voice.

Roy Orbison's second son was born the same year, and Roy Orbison hit number four in the United States and number two in the UK with "Dream Baby ", an upbeat song by country songwriter Cindy Walker.

Roy Orbison enlisted The Webbs, from Dothan, Alabama, as his backing band.

Roy Orbison first met Bob Dylan at Dylan's 21st birthday party in May 1962.

From 1959 to 1963, Roy Orbison was the top selling American artist and one of the world's biggest names in music.

Roy Orbison finished 1963 with a Christmas song written by Willie Nelson, "Pretty Paper".

When Roy Orbison arrived in Britain he realized he was no longer the main draw.

The Beatles stood dumbfounded backstage as Roy Orbison simply played through 14 encores.

Roy Orbison was just standing there, not moving or anything.

Roy Orbison felt a kinship with Lennon, but it was George Harrison with whom he would later form a strong friendship.

Billy Pat Ellis said "Claudette had the affair because Roy Orbison was gone a lot and she got lonely and wanted to prove she was attractive again".

When Roy Orbison toured Britain again in the autumn of 1963, she joined him.

Roy Orbison traveled to Australia again in 1965, this time with the Rolling Stones.

Roy Orbison began collaborating with Bill Dees, whom he had known in Texas.

When Claudette walked in the room where Dees and Roy Orbison were writing to say she was heading for Nashville, Roy Orbison asked if she had any money.

Roy Orbison did it twice, with 'It's Over' on June 25,1964, and 'Oh, Pretty Woman' on October 8,1964.

In early 1965, Roy Orbison confirmed that he and Claudette were divorced.

Roy Orbison was a film enthusiast, and when not touring, writing, or recording, he dedicated time to seeing up to three films a day.

The move was described as Roy Orbison "joining the ranks of fading rock stars fleeing to MGM".

Orbison's first collection at MGM, an album titled There Is Only One Roy Orbison, sold fewer than 200,000 copies.

Roy Orbison was known to follow a car that he liked and make the driver an offer on the spot.

Roy Orbison was a daredevil driver, blasting around on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and owning a Ferrari car, which he used to challenge other drivers to race him on the highway.

Roy Orbison was taken by ambulance to hospital, but her liver was seriously injured and she died, aged 25.

Roy Orbison's character was a spy who stole and had to protect and deliver a cache of gold to the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and was supplied with a guitar that turned into a rifle.

Roy Orbison was pleased with the film, although it proved to be a critical and box-office failure.

Roy Orbison recorded an album dedicated to the songs of Don Gibson and another of Hank Williams covers, but both sold poorly.

Roy Orbison was 33 years old at the time, and sources vary regarding whether Wellhonen was either 17,18 or 19.

Roy Orbison continued recording albums in the 1970s, but his career stagnated during this decade.

Roy Orbison's fortunes sank so low in America that his concerts were mostly empty, such as the concert at Cincinnati Gardens that he played on his fortieth birthday in April 1976.

Roy Orbison credited this cover in particular for reviving his memory in the popular mind, if not his career.

Roy Orbison signed again with Monument in 1976 and recorded Regeneration with Fred Foster, but it proved no more successful than before.

In late 1977, Roy Orbison was not feeling well and decided to spend the winter in Hawaii.

Roy Orbison checked in to a hospital there, where testing discovered that he had severely obstructed coronary arteries and was barely alive.

Roy Orbison had suffered from duodenal ulcers since 1960 and had been a heavy smoker since adolescence.

Roy Orbison said he felt rejuvenated after the procedure; however, he continued to smoke cigarettes, despite the advice of his doctor.

In 1980, Don McLean recorded a cover of Roy Orbison's 1961 hit single "Crying" and it went to the top of the charts, first in the Netherlands then reaching number five in the US and staying on the charts for 15 weeks; it was number one in the UK for three weeks and topped the Irish Charts.

Roy Orbison was all but forgotten in the US, yet he reached popularity in less likely places such as Bulgaria in 1982.

Roy Orbison was astonished to find that he was as popular there as he had been in 1964, and he was forced to stay in his hotel room because he was mobbed on the streets of Sofia.

In 1987, Roy Orbison released an album of re-recorded hits titled In Dreams: The Greatest Hits.

The creation of the world's most recognized supergroup, Traveling Wilburys began in 1987 when Roy Orbison began collaborating seriously with Electric Light Orchestra bandleader Jeff Lynne on a new album.

Lynne had just completed production work on George Harrison's Cloud Nine album, and all three ate lunch together one day when Roy Orbison accepted an invitation to sing on Harrison's new single.

Roy Orbison was given one solo track, "Not Alone Any More", on the album.

Roy Orbison completed a solo comeback album, Mystery Girl, in November 1988.

Roy Orbison considered Lynne to be the best producer with whom he had ever collaborated.

Around November 1988, Roy Orbison confided in Johnny Cash that he was having chest pains.

Roy Orbison traveled to Europe and received an award at the Diamond Awards festival in Antwerp, where footage for the video for "You Got It" was filmed.

Roy Orbison gave several interviews a day in a hectic schedule and became ill with a blinding headache during the final interview.

Roy Orbison performed at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio, on December 4,1988.

Roy Orbison was booked in to tour the US and Europe in the following year.

Roy Orbison went to the bathroom, but did not return for 30 minutes.

Roy Orbison was found collapsed on the bathroom floor and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, where he died of a heart attack at the age of 52.

Roy Orbison's body was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

In 1996 the album The Very Best of Roy Orbison documented his entire career.

Roy Orbison's sons contributed instrumentation on the track along with Roy Orbison's vocals; it was produced by John Carter Cash.

Roy Orbison eventually developed an image that did not reflect his personality.

Roy Orbison had no publicist in the early 1960s, and therefore had little presence in fan magazines, and his single sleeves did not feature his picture.

Music critic Dave Marsh wrote that Roy Orbison's compositions "define a world unto themselves more completely than any other body of work in pop music".

The only convention Roy Orbison followed in his most popular songs is the time limit for radio fare in pop songs.

Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" was a song in seven movements that can be represented as Intro-A-B-C-D-E-F; no sections are repeated.

Some musicians who worked with Roy Orbison were confounded by what he asked them to do.

In concert, Roy Orbison placed the uptempo songs between the ballads to keep from being too consistently dark or grim.

Roy Orbison admitted that he did not think his voice was put to appropriate use until "Only the Lonely" in 1960, when it was able, in his words, to allow its "flowering".

Dwight Yoakam stated that Roy Orbison's voice sounded like "the cry of an angel falling backward through an open window".

Roy Orbison sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop.

Roy Orbison's voice melted out of his mouth into the stratosphere and back.

Roy Orbison never seemed like he was trying to sing, he just did it.

Roy Orbison's voice ranged from baritone to tenor, and music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range.

Roy Orbison noticed that he was unable to control the tremor in the late afternoon and evenings, and chose to record in the mornings when it was possible.

Roy Orbison often excused his motionless performances by saying that his songs did not allow instrumental sections so he could move or dance on stage, although songs like "Mean Woman Blues" did offer that.

Roy Orbison attributed his own passion during his performances to the period when he grew up in Fort Worth while the US was mobilizing for World War II.

Roy Orbison's parents worked in a defense plant; his father brought out a guitar in the evenings playing the driving rhythm of western swing, and their friends and relatives who had just joined the military gathered to drink and sing heartily with him.