{"id":461,"date":"2021-11-03T23:43:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T03:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/?p=461"},"modified":"2021-12-25T17:13:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T21:13:24","slug":"roy-orbison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/2021\/11\/03\/roy-orbison\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Orbison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Roy Orbison, the rock legend originating from Vernon, Texas, had&nbsp;a musical career that was pushed and pulled by his environment at every turn.&nbsp;At the age of six, he asked his parents for a harmonica for his birthday, and they gave him a guitar instead.&nbsp;This&nbsp;fated&nbsp;substitution was&nbsp;what kickstarted his interest in&nbsp;music as a whole.&nbsp;He would&nbsp;rapidly become proficient with the instrument, soon he would get the idea into his head that he would without&nbsp;a&nbsp;shadow of a doubt&nbsp;become a singer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orbison would record for two notable record labels throughout his career, the first being Sun Records. His very first recorded song was \u2018Oobie&nbsp;Doobie\u2019,&nbsp;featuring nonsense lyrics&nbsp;and a distinctly country sounding electric guitar.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roy Orbison - Ooby Dooby\" width=\"1345\" height=\"757\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SS4P1F6Svsg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In this recording, done in Sun Records\u2019 studio&nbsp;in Memphis, Tennessee, Orbison seems to be practically shouting at points to keep up with the&nbsp;other elements in the track. This, although they certainly played it off well, was not a consciously made stylistic choice, but&nbsp;rather a&nbsp;symptom of the recording environment itself. According to the man himself, the live room they used was quite small, which meant&nbsp;that all the amplifiers and drums in the room would overpower the vocals unless he got louder to keep pace.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The business side of working at Sun was no better for the singer, as the amount of creative freedom he had was minimal. Sun&nbsp;did not have confidence in his ability to perform in genres outside of rock &amp; roll\/rockabilly and&nbsp;wanted him to stick to that for the sake of record sales.&nbsp;This, no doubt, contributed to his eventual move to Monument Records.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Orbison switched labels, many of the nagging problems he had surrounding his artistic career were&nbsp;more or less solved.&nbsp;They allowed him much more agency when it came to his creative license, which led to him following his craving to&nbsp;depart&nbsp;from the familiar space of rock and&nbsp;try\u2014to much success, a ballad style.&nbsp;The recording space was&nbsp;also&nbsp;much more accommodating&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;softer vocals&nbsp;he was inclined to use, in his recordings at&nbsp;Monument, it can be clearly heard that his voice is not competing with the other instruments in the room.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Crying\" width=\"1333\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k_L_GZLa5ow?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Orbison was known for writing his own lyrics, something that allowed him to play to the strengths of his voice better than if someone else were to write them.  However, for a portion of his career he had help from Joe Melson, this includes Crying. Melson&#8217;s involvement in the song was mentioned in Billboard magazine, where his contributions to nine of the songs on the album of the same name were credited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/files\/2021\/11\/image-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-536\" width=\"517\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/files\/2021\/11\/image-4.png 616w, https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/files\/2021\/11\/image-4-300x98.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Also mentioned were the Bryants and Buck Ram, who worked on the album as well, though in the form of instrumentalists and a producer instead of songwriters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Biography.com Editors. \u201cRoy Orbison Biography.\u201d<em>&nbsp;Biography.com<\/em>.&nbsp;20 Apr. 2021,&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biography.com\/musician\/roy-orbison\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.biography.com\/musician\/roy-orbison<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orbison, Roy. \u201cHHR&amp;R Roy Full Interview.\u201d&nbsp;<em>YouTube<\/em>, uploaded by Marty Sinclair, 5&nbsp;May,&nbsp;2018,&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/j492RhfRt7Y\" target=\"_blank\">HHR&amp;R Roy Full Interview<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sun Records. \u201cRoy Orbison.\u201d\u00a0<em>Sun Records<\/em>.\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sunrecords.com\/artists\/roy-orbison\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.sunrecords.com\/artists\/roy-orbison<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Billboard. &#8220;Spotlight Albums of the Week.&#8221; <em>Billboard Music Week<\/em>, 27 Jan. 1962, pp. 22. <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=QBYEAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA22&amp;dq=%22roy+orbison%22+%22crying%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjmnM3bvaH0AhVVSzABHcdtBAkQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&amp;q=%22roy%20orbison%22%20%22crying%22&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/books.google.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roy Orbison, the rock legend originating from Vernon, Texas, had&nbsp;a musical career that was pushed and pulled by his environment at every turn.&nbsp;At the age of six, he asked his parents for a harmonica for his birthday, and they gave &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[203,158,201,202],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artifacts-of-texas-music","tag-monument-records","tag-rock","tag-roy-orbison","tag-sun-records"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/music-of-texas-fall-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}