- Roy Trivia: He was born in Vernon, Texas, the middle son of Orbie Lee Orbison (1913–1984), an oil well driller and car mechanic, and Nadine Vesta Shults (July 25, 1913 – May 28, 1992), a nurse.
- Roy Trivia: Later, his family moved to Wink, Texas. Orbison later described life in Wink as "football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand" and expressed relief that he was able to leave the desolate town.
- Roy Trivia: From childhood he was quiet, self-effacing, and remarkably polite and obliging — a 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.
- Roy Trivia: Impressed by Lefty Frizzell's singing, his major musical influence as a youth was country music.
- Roy Trivia: In West Texas, he was exposed to many forms of music: "R&B" "Tex-Mex", the orchestral arrangements of "Mantovani", and "cajun"...
- ... The cajun favorite "Jole Blon" was one of the first songs he sang in public.
- Roy Trivia: Aged eight, he began singing on a local radio show. By the late 1940s, he was the show's host.
- Roy Trivia: 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, Texas. When they were offered $400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music.
- Roy Trivia: After graduating from Wink High School, he enrolled at North Texas State College in Denton, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay...
- ... After his first year of college, he returned to Wink and continued performing with the Wink Westerners. Three of the five members of the band moved to Odessa, Texas, and two new members were added to the group,...
- ... which changed its name to the Teen Kings. Orbison enrolled in Odessa Junior College. When Orbison heard that his North Texas State classmate, ...
- ... Pat Boone, had signed a record deal, he further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician.
- Roy Trivia: Johnny Cash toured the Odessa, Texas area in 1955, playing on the same local radio show as the Teen Kings, and suggested that Orbison approach Sam Phillips at Sun Records, ...
- ... the home of rockabilly artists Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Cash. Orbison telephoned Phillips and during their conversation was curtly told, "Johnny Cash doesn't run my record company!"
- Roy Trivia: While at North Texas State College he listened to a song called "Ooby Dooby", composed by Dick Penner and Wade Moore in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at the college...
- ... The Teen Kings recorded the song on the Odessa-based Je–Wel record label. Phillips was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956.
- Roy Trivia: In Memphis, Sam Phillips re-recorded "Ooby Dooby" which broke into the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 59 and sold 200,000 copies.
- Roy Trivia: After Orbison and the The Teen Kings split over disputed writing credits and royalties, Orbison stayed in Memphis, and asked his 16-year-old girlfriend, Claudette Frady, to join him there...
- ... They stayed in Phillips's home, sleeping in separate rooms.
- Roy Trivia: Orbison sold "Claudette" - a song he wrote about Claudette Frady whom he married in 1957 - to the Everly Brothers ...
- ... and their subsequent recording of it was released as the B-side of their smash hit "All I Have to Do Is Dream".
- Roy Trivia: Annoyed by Sam Phillips's style, and increasingly frustrated at Sun Records, he gradually stopped recording. He toured music circuits around Texas, ...
- ... and then quit performing for seven months in 1958. Broke, his car repossessed, he turned to family and friends for funds.
- Roy Trivia: Sam Phillips remembered being much more impressed with Orbison's mastery of the guitar than with his voice. A ballad Orbison wrote - "The Clown" - met with a lukewarm response;...
- ... after hearing it, Sun Records producer Jack Clement told Orbison that he would never make it as a ballad singer!
- Roy Trivia: By 1960 he moved to Nashville and signed with Monument Records.
- Roy Trivia: In Nashville with a more liberal use of session musicians and through the efforts of producer Fred Foster, Orbison's music achieved a more polished, professional sound ... finally allowing Orbison's stylistic inclinations free rein.
- Roy Trivia: With this combination, he recorded three new songs, the most notable of which was "Uptown", written with Joe Melson.
- Roy Trivia: "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll" states that the music Orbison made in Nashville "brought a new splendor to rock",...
- ... and compared the melodramatic effects of the orchestral accompaniment to the musical productions of Phil Spector.
- Roy Trivia: Then Orbison and Joe Melson wrote a song in early 1960 which, employing strings and the Anita Kerr doo-wop backing singers, and also featured a note hit by Orbison in falsetto ...
- ... that showcased a powerful voice which, according to biographer Clayson, "came not from his throat but deeper within". The song was "Only the Lonely".
- Roy Trivia: After trying to sell "Only the Lonely" to Elvis and then the Everly Brothers who turned it down, Orbison recorded the song himself. The single shot to number two on the Billboard Hot 100...
- ... and hit number one in the UK and Australia. According to Orbison, the subsequent songs he wrote with Melson during this period were constructed with his voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power.
- Roy Trivia: His dark and brooding persona, combined with his tremulous voice in lovelorn ballads marketed to teenagers, made Orbison into a superstar during the early 1960s. ...
- ... He had a string of hits in 1963 with "In Dreams", "Falling", and "Mean Woman Blues" coupled with "Blue Bayou" ...
- ... He finished the year with a Christmas song written by Willie Nelson titled "Pretty Paper" (U.S. number 15 in 1963/UK number 6 in 1964).
- Roy Trivia: As "In Dreams" was released in April 1963, Orbison was asked to replace guitarist Duane Eddy on a tour of the UK in top billing with the Beatles, whose popularity was on the rise...
- ... When he arrived in Britain, however, he saw the amount of advertising devoted to the quartet and realized he was no longer the main draw. He had never heard of them...
- ... and, annoyed, asked rhetorically, "What's a Beatle anyway?" to which John Lennon replied, after tapping his shoulder, "I am".
- Roy Trivia: On the opening night, Orbison opted to go onstage first. The Beatles stood dumbfounded backstage as Orbison performed singing through 14 encores. ...
- ... Finally, when the audience began chanting "We want Roy!" again, Lennon and McCartney prevented Orbison from going on again by physically holding him back!
- Roy Trivia: Claudette Frady, his wife, was the "pretty woman" he sang about, but on June 6, 1966 she died in a tragic motorcycle accident.
- Roy Trivia: During a tour of England, on September 16, 1968, he received the news that his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, had burned down, and his two eldest sons had died.
- Roy Trivia: He continued recording albums in the 1970s, but none of them sold more than a handful of copies, and by 1976, he had gone an entire decade without a charting album.
- Roy Trivia: Increasingly affected by heart disease, on December 6, 1988 he died of a heart attack, at the age of 52.
- Roy Trivia: In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne.
- Roy Trivia: In 1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
- Roy Trivia: 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".
- Roy Trivia: In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.
