Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist known for his distinctive and powerful voice, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. Orbison's music is mostly in the rock music genre and his most successful periods were in the early 1960s and the late 1980s. He was nicknamed "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 projected machismo. He performed with minimal motion and in black clothes, matching his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses.
Samuel Cornelius Phillips was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the career of Presley. In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton.
Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee on February 1, 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. Prior to that, Sun had concentrated mainly on African-American musicians because Phillips loved rhythm and blues and wanted to bring it to a white audience.
Carl Lee Perkins was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Among his best-known songs are "Blue Suede Shoes", "Honey Don't", "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".
Glen Dee Hardin is an American piano player and arranger. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, and Ricky Nelson.
Joe Melson is an American singer and a BMI Award-winning songwriter best known for his collaborations with Roy Orbison, including "Only the Lonely" and "Crying", which are both in the Grammy Hall of Fame and have both been included in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Melson was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
William Marvin Dees was an American musician known for his songwriting collaborations with singer Roy Orbison.
Buddy Wayne Knox was an American singer-songwriter, best known for his 1957 rock & roll hit song, "Party Doll".
King of Hearts is a posthumous album of Roy Orbison songs put together from master sessions and demos by Jeff Lynne for Virgin Records, and Orbison's 23rd album overall. According to the authorized Roy Orbison biography, the collection was originally released in October 1992 on CD, music cassette, and LP.
Jack Henderson Clement was an American musician, songwriter, record producer, film producer and music executive.
Roy Orbison was an American singer-songwriter who found the most success in the early rock and roll era from 1956 to 1964. He later enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1980s with chart success as a member of the Traveling Wilburys and with his Mystery Girl album, which included the posthumous hit single "You Got It". At the height of his popularity, 22 of Orbison's songs placed on the US Billboard Top 40 chart, and six peaked in the top five, including two number-one hits. In the UK, Orbison scored ten top-10 hits between 1960 and 1966, including three number-one singles.
"Million Dollar Quartet" is a recording of an impromptu jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash made on December 4, 1956, at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The recording was first released in Europe in 1981 as The Million Dollar Quartet with 17 tracks. A few years later more tracks were discovered and released as The Complete Million Dollar Session. In 1990, the recordings were released in the United States as Elvis Presley: The Million Dollar Quartet. This session is considered a seminal moment in rock and roll.
The TCB Band is a group of musicians who formed the rhythm section of Elvis Presley's band from August 1969 until his death in 1977. The initials TCB stand for Taking Care of Business, a personal motto Presley adopted in the early 1970s. Although personnel changed over the years, the original members were James Burton, Jerry Scheff (bass), John Wilkinson, Larry Muhoberac (keyboards) and Ron Tutt (drums). They first appeared live at Presley's first Las Vegas performance at what was then known as the International Hotel on July 31, 1969.
Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session was a televised concert that was taped live at Limehouse Studios in London, England on 21 October 1985. The show featured rock n' roll pioneer Carl Perkins along with friends as guest stars, including former Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Rosanne Cash, Phantom, Rocker & Slick, and Dave Edmunds. Most of the repertoire performed in the concert consisted of Perkins' classic rockabilly songs from the 1950s.
"Oh, Pretty Woman", or simply "Pretty Woman", is a song recorded by Roy Orbison and written by Orbison and Bill Dees. It was released as a single in August 1964 on Monument Records and spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 from September 26, 1964, making it the second and final single by Orbison to reach number one in the United States. It was also Orbison's third single to top the UK Singles Chart, where it spent three weeks at number one.
Allen Richard "Dick" Penner is an American retired professor of English, who, while in college in 1955, co-composed, with Wade Lee Moore, "Ooby Dooby", which was recorded and released by Wade Moore and Rod Barkley. The song was later given away and became a rockabilly hit for Roy Orbison. Penner also had been a singer, guitar player, and recording artist.
Roy Orbison's Sun recordings were made by Orbison at Sun Studio with producer Sam Phillips. Sun Records was established in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee, and during an eight-year period Phillips recorded such artists as Roy Orbison, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, Rufus Thomas, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Harold Jenkins, and Charlie Rich. The musicians signed at Sun Records made music that laid the foundation of rock and roll in the 20th century.
Je–Wel, latterly renamed Jewel Records, was an independent American record label founded in Odessa, Texas, in 1955 by Weldon Rogers (1927–2004), himself a singer, and Chester Calvin Oliver (1907–2000). Je–Wel is known for having engaged, recorded, and produced fledgling artists from West Texas at the dawn of rock and roll in the 1950s.
"Birth of Rock and Roll" is a 1986 song written by Carl Perkins and Greg Perkins. The song was featured on the Class of '55 album which included performances with Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. "Birth of Rock and Roll" was released as a 7" single with a picture sleeve, 885 760–7, on the Smash/America label copyrighted by PolyGram Records produced by Chips Moman. The single reached No. 31 on the Billboard country chart and No. 44 on the Canadian country chart in 1986. The B side was "Rock and Roll (Fais-Do-Do)" which featured Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison. The theme of the song “Birth of Rock and Roll" is about how "Memphis gave birth to rock and roll" in the 1950s at Sun Records. A video of the song was also made featuring Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones as they drove to the historic Sun studios in Memphis, Tennessee in a white Cadillac convertible.
Alexander Orbison, also known as Orbi, is an American drummer, writer, director, and film producer. He is the president of Still Working Music Group, a publishing company. He is also president and co-founder of Roy's Boys LLC, which manages the legacy of his father, musician Roy Orbison; the organization also includes his brothers, Roy Orbison Jr. and Wesley Orbison.
