1936年4月23日出生於美国德州的Roy Orbison，1956年以Ooby Dooby 正式出道，随即於60年以Only The Lonely勇夺英美单曲排行冠亚军宝座而声名大噪， 这位集创作、演唱、製作於一身的全方位的艺人，在一片British Invasion的衝击下，他不仅在美国立於不败之地外，他更是成功的反击并横跨大西洋登陆英国乐坛，成为唯一能与披头四抗衡的美国歌手，奠定其在英美不败的流行巨星的地位，让流行乐之王-猫王恭称他是全世界最伟大的歌者！Roy Orbison将乡村流行音乐元素与摇摆乐结合，以其温柔颤抖的嗓音，缓缓唱出浪漫爱情的共鸣。
Roy Orbison拥有“忧郁摇滚情歌之王”的美誉，他是使用假声演唱方法的先驱之一，他那激烈的、情感丰富的演唱将摇滚音乐和乡村音乐最美妙的元素融合在了一起，创造出了一种新的、大胆的演唱风格，这在《Pretty Woman》、《In Dreams》、《Crying》等经典的乡村音乐作品中都有很好的表现。在去世10年后于1998年获得格莱美终身成就奖，这也是对他整个艺术人生的肯定。
by Richie Unterberger
Although he shared the same rockabilly roots as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison went on to pioneer an entirely different brand of country/pop-based rock & roll in the early 60s. What he lacked in charisma and photogenic looks, Orbison made up for in spades with his quavering operatic voice and melodramatic narratives of unrequited love and yearning. In the process, he established rock & roll archetypes of the underdog and the hopelessly romantic loser. These were not only amplified by peers such as Del Shannon and Gene Pitney, but also influenced future generations of roots rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Chris Isaak, as well as modern country stars the Mavericks.
Orbison made his first widely distributed recordings for Sun Records in 1956. Roy was a capable rockabilly singer, and had a small national hit with his first Sun single, Ooby Dooby. But even then, he was far more comfortable as a ballad singer than as a hepped-up rockabilly jive cat. Other Sun singles met with no success, and by the late 50s he was concentrating primarily on building a career as a songwriter, his biggest early success being Claudette (recorded by the Everly Brothers).
After a brief, unsuccessful stint with RCA, Orbison finally found his voice with Monument Records, scoring a number-two hit in 1960 with Only the Lonely. This established the Roy Orbison persona for good: a brooding rockaballad of failed love with a sweet, haunting melody, enhanced by his Caruso-like vocal trills at the songs emotional climax. These and his subsequent Monument hits also boasted innovative, quasi-symphonic production, with Roys voice and guitar backed by surging strings, ominous drum rolls, and heavenly choirs of backup vocalists.
Between 1960 and 1965, Orbison would have 15 Top 40 hits for Monument, including such nail-biting mini-dramas as Running Scared, Crying, In Dreams, and Its Over. Not just a singer of tear-jerking ballads, he was also capable of effecting a tough, bluesy swagger on Dream Baby, Candy Man, and Mean Woman Blues. In fact, his biggest and best hit was also his hardest-rocking: Oh, Pretty Woman soared to number one in late 1964, at the peak of the British Invasion.
It seemed at that time that Roy was well-equipped to survive the British onslaught of the mid-60s. He had even toured with the Beatles in Britain in 1963, and John Lennon has admitted to trying to emulate Orbison when writing the Beatles first British chart-topper, Please Please Me. But Orbisons fortunes declined rapidly after he left Monument for MGM in 1965. It would be easy to say that the major label couldnt replicate the unique production values of the classic Monument singles, but thats only part of the story. Roy, after all, was still writing most of his material, and his early MGM records were produced in a style that closely approximated the Monument era. The harder truth to face was that his songs were starting to sound like lesser variations of themselves, and that contemporary trends in rock and soul were making him sound outdated.
Orbison, like many early rock greats, could always depend on large overseas audiences to pay the bills. The two decades between the mid-60s and mid-80s were undeniably tough ones for him, though, both personally and professionally. A late-60s stab at acting failed miserably. In 1966, his wife died in a motorcycle accident; a couple of years later, his house burned down, two of his sons perishing in the flames. Periodic comeback attempts with desultory albums in the 1970s came to naught.
Orbisons return to the public eye came about through unexpected circumstances. In the mid-80s, David Lynchs Blue Velvet film prominently featured In Dreams on its soundtrack. That led to the singer making an entire album of re-recordings of hits, with T-Bone Burnett acting as producer. The record was no substitute for the originals, but it did help restore him to prominence within the industry. Shortly afterward, he joined George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne in the Traveling Wilburys. Their successful album set the stage for Orbisons best album in over 20 years, Mystery Girl, which emulated the sound of his classic 60s work without sounding hackneyed. By the time it reached the charts in early 1989, however, Orbison was dead, claimed by a heart attack in December 1988.