The Big O in Britain Page #2

They knew this thing was going on in America, so it was just something that they were really hungry for.

The Beatles responded to Roy with total admiration.

I can't emphasise how much American artists were the thing to admire.

And all things American.

Before I joined The Stones, I thought he was fantastic.

Then he toured with The Beatles in '63.

The Beatles were on the tour with us - ourselves and Roy. Massive tour.

It was my first record, first No.1

and my first tour with Mr Roy Orbison who became a very dear friend.

And such a lovely guy.

# Well, I got a woman Yeah, I got a woman

# Yeah, I got a woman... #

George told me they followed Roy and they would stand in the wings listening to this big ending

and they'd be just trembling, thinking, "How are we gonna go out and follow this?"

APPLAUSE:

And his last note was 47 miles high in the sky. The kids went, "Whoa!"

In spite of the fact that The Beatles were getting this huge acclaim

from the British public,

right from the word go really, from Love Me Do, it started...

When Roy came on stage,

he still had the goods to... top them.

# Just before the dawn... #

He just stood there...

And sang. That's all he did. He didn't do anything else.

I don't remember him putting one foot to the left or right.

# I can't help it

# I can't help it... #

That was what the impact was.

It was that he had the nerve... to do that.

To just stand there and let his voice do the work.

# It's too bad that all these things... #

Some people just give off this aura. They don't have to move about.

I've been trying to do it for 30 years, but it doesn't happen with me, so I stay in the shadows.

# Only in dreams... #

In my case, when you see me perform,

what happens is that I sing and the audience watches me do that.

# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #

On opening night, I had between seven to 15, 20 encores.

Paul and John grabbed me by the arms and said, "Yankee, go home!"

They wouldn't let me take my last curtain call but it was in good fun.

And that voice, my God! It used to annoy me, it was so good.

# Each place we go

# So afraid... #

He'd sing Runnin' Scared and his mouth would go... # Just runnin' scared... #

Like this, this tiny little movement of the mouth.

And he'd get to the end of that song where it goes up and up and up and his mouth still wasn't moving!

Not a lot. Not like, "I'm really gonna give it the full whack."

He'd still stand there and his mouth would open slightly more.

Then out would come this incredible note and I think that was what was so thrilling.

His modesty, in combination with his vocal prowess, was quite something to see.

# You loved him so... #

He sounded different from what we'd ever heard before. Elvis didn't do that.

And just a difference in sound that man made, that's why he was so popular.

# If he came back

# Which one would you choose? #

I never had any formal training. I think maybe it's just that I might be a baritone

with a real high range, two and a half octaves or so, but I never checked it.

# His head in the air

# Oh, my heart was breaking Which one would it be?

# You turned around

# And walked away with me. #

I started singing this way because I was writing songs

and I wrote the melody that I heard in my head

and then I had to sing those notes as well. I didn't know how high or low you were supposed to go!

# I could smile for a while... #

when I tried to sing along with it, of course,

it sounded like a wounded duck!

Because of his range.

And it was something to sing along with to learn how to sing.

#..couldn't tell

# That I'd been cry-y-ying... #

If you could sing along with it,

you became aware of how to make your voice do things

that we might not have understood.

# Left me standing all alone Alone and crying... #

There was something in Roy's voice

that was completely unique to him,

which was obviously a good thing because it was hard to emulate.

It had a crying sound to it. It almost was like a controlled cry.

His performance would just tear your heart out.

He could...

He could express all that emotion.

And, uh...

He was really different. Really different than anybody else.

# I love you even more than I did before

# But, darling, what can I do-o-o?

# For you don't love me

# And I'll always be

# Cry-y-y-ying over you... #

I think Roy's voice is like an opera voice, only sexy.

Opera voices... To me they're not sexy because of the music they're singing.

But Roy doing rock'n'roll and blues and blue notes, with that kind of opera voice,

that made it really different and put an opera slant on a rock'n'roll track.

It's wonderful and it's sad at the same time

because that's the inflection he puts into the soulfulness of his voice.

He's got marvellous soul. He was probably a soul singer before any of them.

# Crying

# O-o-o-o-o-o...

..ver you-u-u! #

Like Elvis said, "The best singer in the world right there, Roy Orbison."

He was the best singer of all.

# Golden days before they end... #

Roy's entry into the British music scene had been a triumph

with It's Over topping the UK charts in 1964,

but personal tragedy would soon threaten to end Roy's career.

In 1966, his wife Claudette was killed in a motorbike accident

and there was even more heartbreak to come.

He had this beautiful boy called Roy DeWayne. I used to take him to the zoo.

I loved his company. He was a really sweet kid.

I remember once I came back to the promotion offices, the Decca offices,

and Roy DeWayne, I'd exhausted him.

He must have been about six or seven. He wasn't a baby.

And I'd had to carry him back to the office. He was so exhausted, he fell asleep.

I remember his little head on my shoulder.

# But, oh, what will you do? #

And then he got... burnt to death in that fire.

# We're through... #

We'd been playing the Birmingham theatre for a week.

It was September, '68.

The following day we were going to do a last performance, a concert in Bournemouth.

Then he was flying back to the US. That was the end of the tour.

I got a call at 3am, local time in England.

# Send falling stars that seem to cry... #

He was on tour in England and got the news that his house had burned and he'd lost two of his boys.

I remember thinking, "How is that...

"..man gonna cope with that?"

# It breaks your heart in two... #

He stayed in seclusion for quite a while.

We made contact and let him know we cared and were concerned

and...it was a long time until I saw Roy

because it wasn't something that he was wanting to talk about.

To be quite honest, I really thought at that particular point in time that he...

..that we would never see him again.

He had not really worked since Claudette had died.

However, I did get another call saying that he was coming back.

To a large extent, Roy's return had been made possible by someone he had fallen in love with before the fire.

We started dating and six weeks later the house fire happened in Hendersonville.

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