Of all the artists who passed through the doors of Sam Phillips's Sun label in the 1950s, Roy Orbison must have seemed the least likely to succeed. He gave it his best shot, cutting a minor rockabilly hit called Ooby Dooby, but he wasn't suited, sonically or aesthetically, for rock'n'roll. In fact, he sounded a bit like he looked: weird, troubled, wraith-like. At moments of high anxiety – and in the songs that were to make him famous, you were never very far away from one of those – he would rise into a desperate, quavering falsetto that occasionally sounded not unlike a theremin, the primitive synthesiser Hollywood films used to denote the alien or bizarre. In an era when balladeers tended to give it lots of extravagant hand gestures, Orbison stood eerily still on stage, his eyes permanently hidden behind dark glasses. The cumulative effect on at least one set of onlookers, the present writer's paternal grandparents, was to convince them that Orbison was actually blind, a belief they steadfastly cleaved to, despite constant assurances to the contrary.
It wasn't until he fetched up at Monument Records that things started to go Orbison's way. It was a minor operation – their other big contribution to rock history was Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax, better known as the Benny Hill theme – but, after a couple of false starts, they worked out what to do with him: let him sing the ballads he'd written with another minor rockabilly singer called Joe Melson, despite the fact that they'd already been rejected by Elvis and the Everly Brothers. In fairness, you can see why they passed. Magnificently larded with strings and backing vocals that tapped into doo-wop's ethereal extremes, the run of Monument singles that began with Only the Lonely mapped new, dark emotional territories for rock music. It wasn't just their novelty that made them seem strange. There's a deep strain of almost indefinable weirdness running through songs like In Dreams – 'A candy-coloured clown they call The Sandman tiptoes to my room every night,' intones Orbision gloomily at its outset – made all the weirder by the fact that Orbison clearly didn't think they were weird at all. In an interview with Nick Kent a few days before his death in 1988, just as his career was undergoing a renaissance, he professed to being 'almost mortified' at the way the film that had started said renaissance, David Lynch's Blue Velvet, made In Dreams seem so sinister.
The upper list of songs by Roy Orbison may be not complete. Songstube is against piracy and promotes safe and legal music downloading on Amazon. Music and lyrics on this site are for the sole use of educational reference and are the property of respective authors, artists and labels. Roy Orbison discography and songs: Music profile for Roy Orbison, born 23 April 1936. Genres: Pop Rock, Pop, Rock & Roll. Albums include Mystery Girl, Blue Velvet, and In Dreams.
No one had waded this deep into misery and male vulnerability before, although plenty eventually would. One of the reasons you can still feel Orbison's direct influence in an era when rock seems to have cut most of its audible ties with the 50s pioneers may be that the Monument singles provide an bridge between the rock'n'roll era and one of latterday rock's great touchstones: the glorious, melodramatic ballads of Scott Walker. You can hear the roots of virtually every subsequent rock tragedian on these two CDs: the 1962 B-side Mama – in which he bewails his latest emotional disasters down the phone to his mother at such length you rather picture old Ma Orbison holding the receiver away from her ear – carries a distinct hint of Morrissey moaning for his mum on I Know It's Over and Shakespeare's Sister.
Roy Orbison Singles Discography Music
But the point isn't their influence, the point is how fantastic they still sound in their own right. Orbision refined his style until it reached a terrible perfection on 1964's staggering It's Over, on which stars cry, rainbows weep, drums beat out a leaden march, and the chords churn, pushing the song on to the point where despair becomes a kind of catharsis: there's something almost exultant about the final repetitions of the song's title. Elsewhere, however, you get the sense that Orbison wasn't the most versatile performer. As Oh, Pretty Woman proved, he could do rock'n'roll if the lyrics still cast him as the tormented outsider – 'Are you lonely just like me?' he wails, which presumably makes it the first rock song in history to address the topic of angling for a sympathy shag. But when they didn't, the results are baffling: he sings Let the Good Times Roll like a man dolefully piercing the film on a Birds Eye microwaveable roast lamb dinner for one.
Perhaps that's what led to his commercial decline, which began not long after the 1965 live performance included on a DVD here, and went on for another 20 years, as evidenced by the unwittingly grim title of a posthumous live album: Orbison Over England: March 25 1980, The Fiesta Club, Stockton-On-Tees. Then again, listening to Crying or Running Scared blaring out in glorious original mono, it's hard not to dismiss Orbison's failings outright, as indeed posterity seems to have done. If you're this good at doing one thing, versatility almost seems beside the point.
Roy Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter who found the most success in the early rock and roll era from 1956[1] to 1964. He later enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1980s with chart success as a member of the Traveling Wilburys and with his Mystery Girl album which included the hit single 'You Got It'.[2] At the height of his popularity, 22 of Orbison's songs placed on the US Billboard Top 40 chart, and six peaked in the top five, including two number one hits. In the UK, Orbison scored ten top-10 hits between 1960 and 1966, including three No. 1 singles.
Born and raised in Texas, Orbison got his start in a rockabilly band in high school. According to the official Roy Orbison discography by Marcel Riesco, Orbison's first release was in March 1956 on the Je-Wel label.[3] He broke into professional music under Sam Phillips at Sun Records in the summer of 1956,[4] but found only marginal success there.[5] After a couple years writing for other musicians (including 'Claudette' recorded by The Everly Brothers), Orbison recorded several songs at Monument Records under producer Fred Foster starting in 1959. With Foster, Orbison and his frequent songwriting partners Joe Melson and Bill Dees tailored many of Orbison's songs for his unique voice; his most popular songs were dramatic ballads ending with emotional crescendos that showcased his powerful vocals. After his biggest hit in 1964, 'Oh, Pretty Woman', Orbison continued to record and chart intermittently in the UK,[1] but it was not until 1987 that he again found the level of popular worldwide success he had known in the early 1960s, when his original recording of 'In Dreams' was used in David Lynch's film Blue Velvet.[1] The following year, Orbison co-founded the supergroup Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.[6] Lynne produced Orbison's final album Mystery Girl, which was released posthumously in February 1989.
This discography shows main official U.S. and U.K. releases. According to Riesco's official Orbison discography,[7] there were numerous international single and album releases of importance (not released in the U.S. or U.K.) like the German 'San Fernando' b/w 'Mama' (London DL 20 726).[7]
Roy Orbison Albums ListYouTube EncyclopedicRoy Orbison In Dreams
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