Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Orbison's most successful periods were in the early 1960s and the late 1980s. Many of Orbison's songs conveyed vulnerability at a time when most male performers projected strength. He performed with minimal motion and in black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.
Born in Texas, Orbison began singing in a country-and-western band as a teenager. He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956 after being urged by
Johnny Cash. Elvis Presley was leaving Sun and Phillips was looking to replace him. His first Sun recording, "Ooby Dooby", was musically akin of Presley's early Sun recordings. He had moderate success at Sun, but enjoyed his greatest success with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, 22 of Orbison's singles reached the Billboard top 40. He wrote or co-wrote almost all of his own top-10 hits, including "Only the Lonely" (1960), "Running Scared" (1961), "Crying" (1961), "In Dreams" (1963), "Oh, Pretty Woman" (1964), and "California Blue" (1988).
After the mid-1960s, Orbison suffered a number of personal tragedies and his career faltered. He experienced a resurgence in popularity in the late 1980s following the success of several cover versions of his songs. In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. Orbison died of a heart attack that December at age 52. One month later, his song "You Got It" (1989) was released as a solo single, becoming his first hit to reach the top 10 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 placed him at number 37 on its list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 13 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In 2002, Billboard magazine listed him at number 74 on its list of the Top 600 recording artists.
Roy Kelton Orbison was born on April 23, 1936, in Vernon, Texas. He was the second of three sons born to Orbie Lee Orbison (1913–1984) and Nadine Vesta Shults (1914–1992). His father was an oil-field driller who struggled to find work after the Great Depression, and his mother enjoyed painting and writing poetry. His direct paternal ancestry was traced to Thomas Orbison (born 1715) from Lurgan, Ireland who settled in the Province of Pennsylvania in the mid-18th century. According to The Authorized Roy Orbison, a biography written by Orbison's son Alex, the family moved to Fort Worth in 1942 to find work in the aircraft factories. Because of eyesight problems, Orbison wore thick glasses from the age of four.
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. He recalled, "I was finished, you know, for anything else" by the time he was seven, and music became the focus of his life. His major musical influence as a youth was country and western swing music. He 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. He also enjoyed Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Moon Mullican, and Jimmie Rodgers. One of the first musicians he heard in person was Ernest Tubb, playing on the back of a truck in Fort Worth. Orbison also 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. In West Texas, he was exposed to rhythm and blues, western swing, Tex-Mex (Tejano music), the orchestral arrangements of Mantovani, and Cajun music. The Cajun favorite "Jole Blon" was one of the first songs he sang in public. He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School in Fort Worth until a polio scare in 1944 prompted his parents to send Orbison (then eight) and his brother Grady Lee to Vernon to live with their grandmother. He began singing on a local radio show at age eight, and he became the show's host by the late 1940s. At the age of nine, Orbison won a contest on radio station KVWC, which led to his own radio show, on which he sang the same songs every week. As World War II wound down, Roy's parents returned to Vernon.
The Orbison family moved again in 1946, to Wink, Texas, in search of employment. 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. He was self-conscious about his appearance and began dyeing his nearly white hair black when he was still young. He was quiet, self-effacing, polite, and obliging. During recess at school, he played guitar by himself while the other kids played physical games. As a teenager, Orbison's lack of sporting ability left him with shyness and low self-esteem. He was always keen to sing, however, and considered his voice memorable but not great.
In 1949, Orbison (then 13 years old) 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. They played country and western swing standards and Glenn Miller jazz swing songs 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. They were offered $400 to play at a dance, and Orbison realized that he could make a living in music. Orbison was also part of a marching band and a singing octet. At the age of 15, he decided that instead of becoming a guitar player, he would use the guitar as an accompaniment to his singing.
In 1953, the Wink Westerners entered a talent contest on KMID-TV in Midland, Texas. The group won the contest, resulting in a 30-minute spot on a local television show. After the show, Orbison asked the owner of the company sponsoring the show if he could sponsor the group for ongoing shows, which led to the Wink Westerners playing weekly shows on KMID-TV on Friday nights and on Odessa television station KOSA-TV on Saturday nights. Around this time, Orbison began dyeing his hair (naturally a "dishwater grey color") to jet black.
After graduating from high school in 1954, Orbison enrolled at North Texas State College in Denton. His plan was to study geology so 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. Orbison preferred to play music with fellow students Billy Pat Ellis, Dick Penner, and Wade Moore. Penner and Moore had written a simple, catchy rockabilly song, "Ooby Dooby", which impressed Orbison, and he started looking into how he could make a recording of it. Orbison continued performing with the Wink Westerners after his first year. He then heard that his schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, and it further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician. At a New Year's Eve dance in 1954, the Wink Westerners had mostly played country and western swing music throughout the night, but ended the night by playing Bill Haley & the Comets’ hit song "Shake, Rattle and Roll" repeatedly, which became the catalyst for the band switching to rock and roll music. Also, 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.
At the end of the spring semester of 1955, Orbison dropped out of North Texas State College, switching to Odessa Junior College. The Wink Westerners were disbanded in the fall of 1955, and Orbison formed a new band called the Teen Kings. The band was made of Orbison, Billy Pat Ellis, and James Morrow from the Wink Westerners, plus Jack Kennelly on bass and Johnny Wilson. At a dance event where the Teen Kings performed, Orbison met his future wife, Claudette Frady. Frady was 14 at the time, five years younger than Orbison.