ROY ORBISON - A LOVE SO BEAUTIFUL

A LOVE SO BEAUTIFUL

ROY ORBISON

SONGWRITERS: ROY ORBISON & JEFF LYNNE

COUNTRY: U. S.A

ALBUM: ROY ORBISON WITH THE ROYAL PHILARMONIC ORCHESTRA

LABEL: ROY’S BOYS

GENRE: ORCHESTRAL POP

YEAR: 2017

 

          Roy Kelton Orbison(April 23, 1936– December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. His music was described by critics as operatic, earning him the nicknames "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 chose to project defiant masculinity. He performed while standing motionless and wearing black clothes to match his dyed black hair and dark sunglasses, which he wore to counter his shyness and stage fright.

     Born in Texas, Orbison began singing in a rockabilly and country-and-western band as a teenager. He was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records in 1956, but enjoyed his greatest success with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, 22 of Orbison's singles reached the Billboard Top 40. He wrote or co-wrote almost all of his own Top 10 hits, including "Only the Lonely" (1960), "Running Scared" (1961), "Crying" (1961), "In Dreams" (1963), and "Oh, Pretty Woman" (1964).

             After the mid-1960s, Orbison suffered a number of personal tragedies and his career faltered. He experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s following the success of several cover versions of his songs. In 1988, he co-founded the Traveling Wilburys(a rock supergroup) with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne. Orbison died of a heart attack in December 1988 at age 52. One month later, his song "You Got It" (1989) was released as a solo single, becoming his first hit to reach the US & UK Top 10 in nearly 25 years.

         Orbison's honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2014. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and five other Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on its list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time" and number 13 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In 2002, Billboard magazine listed him at number 74 on its list of the Top 600 recording artists.

            A Love So Beautiful is a compilation album by American singer Roy Orbison. It was released on November 3, 2017 by Roy's Boys, Monument, Legacy, Sony. The album features archival vocal recordings of Orbison accompanied by new orchestral arrangements by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It also features a duet with English country duo Ward Thomas.

         A Love So Beautiful debuted and peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart, becoming Orbison's highest charting album for almost 30 years.

            "Oh, Pretty Woman" opens with a guitar strum played by Orbison's grandson Roy III, then aged about ten months

The summer sun went down on our love long ago

But in my heart I feel the same old after glow

A love so beautiful in every way

A love so beautiful we let it slip away

 

We were all too young to understand to ever know

That lovers drift apart and that's the way love goes

A love so beautiful a love so free

A love so beautiful a love for you and me

And when I think of you I fall in love again

 

A love so beautiful we let it slip away

A love so beautiful in every way

A love so beautiful we let it slip away