However, Orbison was readily available to sing, and often became the focus of attention when he did.

Playing shows late into the night, and living with his wife and young child in his tiny apartment, Orbison often sought refuge by taking his guitar to his car and writing songs there.

When compared to the Everly Brothers, who often used the same session musicians, Orbison is credited with " a passionate intensity " that, according to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, made " his love, his life, and, indeed, the whole world to be coming to an end — not with a whimper, but an agonized, beautiful bang ".

It is often believed that Roy Orbison was the original voice to cut the track ; however, it was upon hearing the demo by Reeves that he decided to cut it.

Released in January 1967, it is a collection of songs written by Country Music Hall of Fame singer / songwriter Don Gibson who, like Orbison, often wrote about the loneness and sorrow that love can bring.

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

Orbison was a rare performer ; when many rock and roll concerts were accompanied with frenetic performances onstage, Orbison rarely moved.

It begins like a lullaby with minimal acoustic guitar strums, with Orbison introducing the listener to " A candy-colored clown they call the sandman " half-spoken and half-sung in a Sprechgesang fashion common in operas and other musical theater performances.

* Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story, a 1990 book by Ellis Amburn

Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly / country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis.

Orbison was initiated into the second class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 by longtime admirer Bruce Springsteen.

Orbison later recalled that, by the age of seven, " I was finished, you know, for anything else "; music would be his life.

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

Orbison attempted to sell to RCA Victor songs he recorded that were written by other writers as well, working with and being completely in awe of Chet Atkins who had played guitar with Presley.

Orbison tried one song penned by Boudleaux Bryant called " Seems to Me ".

Bryant's impression of Orbison was " a timid, shy kid who seemed to be rather befuddled by the whole music scene.

During three recording sessions in 1958 and 1959, Orbison and Melson recorded seven songs at RCA Nashville, with Atkins producing, but only two songs were judged worthy of release by RCA ; Wesley Rose maneuvered Orbison into the sights of producer Fred Foster at Monument Records.

Orbison became one of the first recording artists to popularize the Nashville Sound, a trend of country and pop crossover music that used session musicians dubbed the A-Team: guitarists Grady Martin, Harold Bradley, Ray Edenton, and Bob Moore ; pianists Floyd Cramer or Hargus " Pig " Robbins ; drummer Buddy Harman ; and backup vocals by the Jordanaires or the Anita Kerr Singers.

In his first session for Monument in Nashville, Orbison took on a song that RCA had refused, " Paper Boy ", backed by " With The Bug " as the B-side, but neither charted.

With this combination, Orbison recorded three new songs, the most notable of which was " Uptown ", penned by himself and Melson.

Influenced by contemporaneous hits such as " Come Back to Me ( My Love )" and " Come Softly to Me ", Orbison and Melson wrote a song in early 1960 which, using elements from " Uptown " employed strings and the Anita Kerr doo-wop backup singers.

It also featured a note hit by Orbison in falsetto that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, " came not from his throat but deeper within ".

" again, Lennon and McCartney prevented Orbison from going on again by physically holding him back.

His youngest son with Claudette ( Wesley, born 1965 ) was raised by Orbison's parents ; Orbison and Barbara had a son ( Roy Kelton ) in 1970 and another ( Alexander ) in 1974.

The same year, Orbison was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and initiated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen, who concluded his speech with a reference to his own song " Thunder Road ": " I wanted a record with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector — but, most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison.

" In response, Orbison asked Springsteen for a copy of the speech, and said of his induction that he felt " validated " by the honor.

Lang later recounted how humbled Orbison had been by the show of support from so many talented and busy musicians: " Roy looked at all of us and said, ' If there is anything I can ever do for you, please call on me.

" The concert was filmed in one take and aired on Cinemax under the title Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night ; it was released on video by Virgin Records, selling 50, 000 copies.

Mystery Girl was produced by Jeff Lynne, whom Orbison considered the best producer he had ever worked with, while Bono, Elvis Costello, Orbison's son Wesley and others offered their songs to him.

Although Orbison is counted as a rock and roll pioneer, and has been cited by numerous critics as one of the genre's most influential musicians, his style was noted for how it departed from the norm.

As the psychedelic rock movement took hold in the late 1960s, Orbison felt lost, later saying " didn't hear a lot I could relate to so I kind of stood there like a tree where the winds blow and the seasons change, and you're still there and you bloom again.

His colleagues ridicule him for this, one of them saying, " Hit the high note in ' Crying ' and I'll be impressed ," in reference to Orbison and his trademark sunglasses.

The zydeco favorite " Joli Blon " was one of the first songs Orbison sang in public.

In high school, Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners, an informal band that played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks, and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit.

According to Orbison, the subsequent songs he wrote with Melson during this period were constructed with his voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power.

Bruce Springsteen ended his concerts with Orbison songs and Glen Campbell had a minor hit with a remake of " Dream Baby ".

In the 1960s, Orbison refused to splice edits of songs together, and insisted in recording them in single takes with all the instruments and singers together.

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

Although Orbison recorded and wrote standard structure songs before " Only the Lonely ", he claimed never to have learned how to write them: " I'm sure we had to study composition or something like that at school, and they'd say ' This is the way you do it ,' and that's the way I would have done it, so being blessed again with not knowing what was wrong or what was right, I went on my own way .... So the structure sometimes has the chorus at the end of the song, and sometimes there is no chorus, it just goes ... But that's always after the fact — as I'm writing, it all sounds natural and in sequence to me.

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

He has written songs for other musicians, including Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison.

Category: Roy Orbison songs

She has contributed songs to movie soundtracks and has teamed with musicians such as Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, Elton John, Anne Murray and Jane Siberry.

Four songs from the film's soundtrack entered the record charts in the United States: " Crying " by Roy Orbison ( re-recorded as a duet with k. d.

They played numerous Elvis covers and two original songs, together with their usual set of Blues, Rockabilly, Country and 1960s covers including Roy Orbison and The Monkees.

Dees eventually made his way to Nashville, Tennessee where his meeting Roy Orbison led to a collaboration that produced a string of successful songs for Monument Records including the hits Oh, Pretty Woman and It's Over.