The Big O -

Singing My Life With His Words

LHS '64

One of my favorite singers, when I was at Lee, was Roy Orbison. He had several hits that seemed to parallel my own life as a teenager, and which I still love today.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. His music was described by critics as operatic, earning him the nicknames "The Caruso of Rock" and "The Big O." Many of Orbison's songs conveyed vulnerability at a time when most male rock-and-roll performers chose to project machismo. He performed while standing motionless and wearing black clothes to match his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.

Born in Texas, Orbison's father gave him a guitar on his sixth birthday. He recalled, "I was finished, you know, for anything else" by the time he was 7, and music became the focus of his life. Orbison began singing in a rockabilly and country-and-western band as a teenager. He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, 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), and "Oh, Pretty Woman" 

After leaving his thick eyeglasses on an airplane in 1963, while on tour with the Beatles, Orbison was forced to wear his prescription Wayfarer sunglasses on stage and found that he preferred them. The sunglasses led some people to assume he was blind. His black clothes and song lyrics emphasized the image of mystery and introversion. His dark and brooding persona, combined with his tremulous voice in lovelorn ballads marketed to teenagers, made Orbison a star in the early 1960s. 

Roy Orbison's, "Running Scared", based loosely on the rhythm of Ravel's Boléro; the song was about a man on the lookout for his girlfriend's previous boyfriend, whom he feared would try to take her away. Orbison encountered difficulty when he found himself unable to hit the song's highest note without his voice breaking. He 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. Fred Foster then put Orbison in the corner of the studio and surrounded him with coat racks forming an improvised isolation booth to emphasise his voice. Orbison was unhappy with the first two takes. In the third, however, he abandoned the idea of using falsetto and sang the final high 'A' naturally, so astonishing everyone present that the accompanying musicians stopped playing. On that third take, "Running Scared" was completed. Fred Foster later recalled, "He did it, and everybody looked around in amazement. Nobody had heard anything like it before." Just weeks later "Running Scared" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 9 in the UK. The composition of 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 Orbison's dynamic voice.

In early 1960, Orbison and Joe Melson wrote "Only the Lonely", which they tried to sell to Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers, who turned it down. (The song was subtitled "Know The Way I Feel" to avoid confusion with another song called "Only The Lonely", which Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen had written for Frank Sinatra in 1958.) The single shot to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one in the UK, Ireland and Australia. According to Orbison, he and Melson now began constructing songs with Orbison's voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power.

"Crying" is a song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson for Orbison's third studio album of the same name (1962). Released in 1961, it was a number 2 hit in the US for Orbison and was covered in 1980 by Don McLean, whose version went to number 1 in the UK.

All three of those hits told my fears when I attended Lee.

At the time, "Running Scared" was the song that most shared my feelings. When I was 17 I was dating the first love of my life and I was so worried she would leave me and go back to one of her earlier boyfriends. That song was talking about me - I knew it. I took a deep breath and loved the ending of the song, which gave me hope for the future. Of course things happen and times change, but at 17 that was me. 

The two emails below have been returned to me as non-deliverable. I am sorry but I do not have the names to go with the emails, so if you recognize them please let me know. I do not know if they have passed away or just changed email addresses.

rootyt@charter.net

rodwhite@tampabay.rr.com

My thanks goes out to Anna Rodgers for taking the time to snap some pictures from her television of some of my appearances on last week's Young Rock. I was shocked at how many times I appeared in the Paris bar scene when Andre the Giant appeared at the establishment. I had found it funny when they first advertised for background talent for the scene and asked for actors to be 5'6" or under in height. It turned out that they wanted short people so Andre looked more like a giant than he really was. After working 12 days on the show, this was the first time I really had some good camera time.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, and Comments

Mary Ann Bond Wallace, LHS ‘64, "Tommy I don't watch any of the shows you mentioned you were in.  I am going to start recording Young Rock so I can look for you.  What a great retirement thing to do.  Must be exciting to see a show being filmed and to be part of it.  Happy end of January!"

Phyllis Rodgers, LHS ‘65, "Normally I do not watch Young Rock, but decided to record and watch the episode you were in just to see if you made the cut.  Great acting, Tommy!  Your expressions were perfect. Keep up the good work. "