They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit. 13 When they were offered 400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music.

The combination led many critics to describe his music as operatic, nicknaming him the Carusoof Rock and the Big O.

While most male rock-and-roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, many of Orbisons songs instead conveyed vulnerability.

During performances, he was known for standing still and solitary and for wearing black clothes to match his dyed jet-black hair and dark sunglasses; all of this lent an air of mystery to his persona.

He was signed by Sam Phillips, of Sun Records, in 1956, but his greatest success came with Monument Records.

From 1960 to 1966, 22 of his singles reached the Billboard Top 40, and he wrote or co-wrote almost all that rose to the Top 10, including Only the Lonely (1960), Running Scared (1961), Crying (1961), In Dreams (1963), and Oh, Pretty Woman (1964).

Soon afterward, he was struck by a number of personal tragedies while his record sales declined.

In the 1980s, Orbison experienced a resurgence in popularity following the success of several cover versions of his songs.

In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys, a rock supergroup, with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne.

Orbison died of a heart attack in December 1988 at the age of 52.

One month later, Orbisons song You Got It (1989), co-written with Lynne and Petty, was released as a solo single and became his first hit to reach the U.S.

Top 10 in nearly 25 years.

Orbisons honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in the same year, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989.

Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on their list of the Greatest Artists of All Time and number 13 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.

Monument Records 3.2 Top-10 hits 5 1970s80s 7 Style and legacy 7.1 Songwriting Early life edit Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison (19131984), an oil well driller and car mechanic, and Nadine Vesta Shults (July 25, 1913 May 28, 1992), 1 a nurse.

After the Great Depression, the family moved to Fort Worth in 1942 searching for work, and according to Orbison historian Marcel Riescos research on the Authorized Roy Orbison 2 both parents found jobs at the aircraft factories that had been expanded as a result of the United States entering World War II.

Orbisons direct paternal ancestor was Thomas Orbison (b.1715) from Lurgan, County Armagh, Ulster, Northern Ireland, who settled in Pennsylvania Colony in the mid-18th century.

Young Roy Orbison attended Denver Avenue Elementary School 4 until a polio scare prompted the family to return to Vernon.

Orbison later described life in Wink as football, oil fields, oil, grease, and sand 5 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, and remarkably polite and obliginga product, biographer Alan Clayson wrote, of his Southern upbringing.

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

He considered his voice memorable, if not great.

On Roys sixth birthday, his father gave him a guitar.

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

His major musical influence as a youth was country music.

He was particularly moved by Lefty Frizzells singing, with its slurred syllables.

When he later joined the British-American supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, he adopted the name Lefty Wilbury).

One of the first musicians he heard in person was Ernest Tubb, who was playing on the back of a flatbed truck in Fort Worth.

The cajun favorite Jole Blon was one of the first songs he sang in public.

By the late 1940s, he was the shows host.

In high school, Orbison and some friends formed a band, the Wink Westerners.

They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit.

When they were offered 400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music.

Roy Orbison Discography