Today is a very special day because I am going to do something I should have done a long, long time ago. I am going to remember the career of Roy Orbison, a man I have always maintained had the sweetest voice this side of heaven. I have attempted to do this before but those were just samplers compared to this career retrospective.

Orbison died after suffering a heart attack at the age of 52 on December 6, 1988. After being out of the limelight for almost two decades, he had rebounded, first as a 1987 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then as a member of The Traveling Wilburys, and was also planning a release for Mystery Girl, his comeback solo album.

I’m going to do start with one of his earliest recordings with his Texas-based band, The Teen Kings, then run through a dozen of his solo hits in chronological order from 1956 to 1989 before ending with his only Christmas recording – complete with a backstory – from 1963.

One thing in particular struck me when I was putting this medley together. Very early in his career – 1957, in fact – Orbison was told by Sun Records producer Jack Clement that he “would never make it as a ballad singer.” That bit of foolishness ranks right up there with Decca Records telling Brian Epstein that “the Beatles have no future in show business” after their 1962 audition for the Decca label.

Memories … That’s What We’re All About

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The Roy Orbison Medley