Roy Orbison

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Roy Orbison

Post by Rum » Fri Jun 07, 2019 6:34 pm

Roy Orbison is one of the greats. There, I’ve said it.

Orbison suffered, as many did, from the arrival of the Beatles who swept away everything before them as almost irrelevant (at the time). Orbison was consigned to the same basket as Neil Sedaka, Conny Francis, Brian Highland and dozens more. A lot of us became very snooty about that ‘old school’ and the Tin Pan Alley approach to pop music.

I’ve started listening to his songs again and they are superb in my view. Not only in their structure - nearly always building up to a crescendo, but in their emotional content. He seemed to really feel them.

From what I’ve read he had a pretty tragic life and let’s face it, he didn’t exactly have rock star looks, but hey - of got his ‘best of’ on rotate at the moment.

Just thought I’d get that off my chest.

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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:50 pm

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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Joe » Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:52 pm

And then there's the voice. I still get chills when I hear it.

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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Hermit » Sat Jun 08, 2019 2:48 am

Crooner
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by JimC » Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:44 am

He had aspects of typical crooners, but went above and beyond that straitjacket...
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Animavore » Sat Jun 08, 2019 7:26 am

He's a'ight. My father really likes him.
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by JimC » Sat Jun 08, 2019 7:27 am

Animavore wrote:
Sat Jun 08, 2019 7:26 am
He's a'ight. My father really likes him.
That is a perfect example of damning with faint praise... :tea:
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Hermit » Sat Jun 08, 2019 8:04 am

JimC wrote:
Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:44 am
He had aspects of typical crooners, but went above and beyond that straitjacket...
I'm not sure about the "above" bit. :mrgreen:

The Wikipedia has a list of crooners. When I perused it I quickly discovered that a) none of the admittedly few I know something about are confined to the straitjacket of croonerism and b) I like some of them even when they are in crooning mode.

I did not like Roy Orbison's output when I first encountered it in the 1960s, and nothing has happened to make me change my mind since.
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Rum » Sat Jun 08, 2019 6:23 pm

He was no ‘crooner’. The likes of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra fit that category.

I suppose my point was that he was just a tad before my time, superseded by the 60s ‘revolution’ and I had kind of dismissed him. Listening afresh paid dividends for me.

I like some of Sinatra’s stuff to come to that, especially from the late 50s.

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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Hermit » Sun Jun 09, 2019 12:41 am

Roy Orbison was a crooner to me from the moment I first heard him sing circa 1965, and - along with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra - he is on Wikipedia's list of crooners. Mere opinions, of course, no better than yours. Just different.
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by JimC » Sun Jun 09, 2019 1:02 am

Maybe he could be described as a crooner-rock hybrid...
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Re: Roy Orbison

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Jun 09, 2019 2:52 pm

Yeah, a rock'n'roll singer for those who found rock'n'roll a bit brash and noisy?
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"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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