Roy Orbison

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. His voice was distinctive and powerful, and he built his reputation on complex song structures and dark, emotional ballads. His biggest commercial peaks came in the early 1960s and again in the late 1980s. At a time when most male performers projected strength, Orbison’s songs often conveyed vulnerability. Onstage, he moved very little and always wore black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.

Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, the second of three sons. His father, an oil-field driller, struggled to find work after the Great Depression; his mother enjoyed painting and writing poetry. The family moved to Fort Worth in 1942, seeking work in aircraft factories. Because of eyesight problems, Orbison wore thick glasses from age four. His father gave him a guitar on his sixth birthday, and he learned to play from his father and older brother. By age seven, music had become the focus of his life. His early influences included country and western swing, especially Lefty Frizzell’s slurred syllables—which later inspired Orbison’s stage name “Lefty Wilbury” in the Traveling Wilburys—as well as Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, and Jimmie Rodgers. He first heard Ernest Tubb playing on the back of a truck in Fort Worth. A formative experience was singing regularly for soldiers in Fort Worth who were intensely emotional before being sent to the front lines of World War II. In West Texas, he absorbed rhythm and blues, western swing, Tex-Mex, the orchestral arrangements of Mantovani, and Cajun music; the Cajun favorite “Jole Blon” was one of his first public songs. He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School until a polio scare in 1944 prompted his parents to send him and his brother to live with their grandmother in Vernon. At age eight, he began singing on a local radio show and became its host by the late 1940s. At nine, he won a contest on station KVWC, leading to his own radio show where he sang the same songs each week. After the war, his parents returned to Vernon. In 1946, the family moved to Wink, Texas, for work. Orbison described Wink as “football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand” and was relieved to leave. Self-conscious about his appearance, he began dyeing his nearly white hair black while still young. He was quiet, self-effacing, polite, and obliging; during recess, he played guitar alone while other kids played sports. His lack of athletic ability left him shy with low self-esteem, but he always loved to sing, considering his voice memorable but not great.

In 1949, at age 13, Orbison formed the band “Wink Westerners” with school friends. They played country and western swing standards and Glenn Miller jazz swing at local honky-tonk bars, and had a weekly morning radio show on KERB in Kermit, Texas. Their first performance was at a school assembly in 1953. When they were offered $400 to play a dance, Orbison realized he could make a living in music.

He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, after Johnny Cash urged Phillips to hear him. Elvis Presley was leaving Sun, and Phillips was looking for a replacement. Orbison’s first Sun recording, “Ooby Dooby,” was musically similar to Presley’s early Sun work. He had moderate success at Sun but achieved his greatest success with Monument Records. Between 1960 and 1966, 22 of his singles reached the Billboard top 40. He wrote or co-wrote almost all his own top-10 hits, including “Only the Lonely” (1960), “Running Scared” (1961), “Crying” (1961), “In Dreams” (1963), “Oh, Pretty Woman” (1964), “I Drove All Night” (1987), “She’s a Mystery to Me” (1988), “You Got It” (1988), and “California Blue” (1988).

After the mid-1960s, Orbison suffered several personal tragedies and his career faltered. He experienced a resurgence in the late 1980s, following successful cover versions of his songs. In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. He died of a heart attack that December at age 52. One month later, his solo single “You Got It” (1989) was released, becoming his first top-10 hit in both the US and UK in nearly 25 years.

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. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and five other Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone ranked him number 37 on its list of the “Greatest Artists of All Time” and number 13 on its “100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” In 2002, Billboard listed him at number 74 on its Top 600 recording artists. His direct paternal ancestry traces to Thomas Orbison (born 1715) from Lurgan, Ireland, who settled in Pennsylvania in the mid-18th century.