Friday, November 24, 2017

THE ORB RODE

When I saw that photo above, I thought it was photoshopped. Roy Orbison on a dirt bike? C'mon. He didn't seem like a grease under the fingernails sorta guy. Maybe it's his voice, it's so...smooth I guess is the word. Rich. Even on his early Sun stuff his voice had more polish than was typical of the label. So, curious, I went looking and found this caption: "Roy Orbison America singer March 1966 riding on a scramble bike at Hawkstone Park Shropshire." I'll be dipped in shit, turns out that he was a bike fiend, as was his wife Claudette. (She was killed in a motorcycle accident while the two were on a ride.)


Here's a mess of the biker's early stuff, a Coke commercial he did, and a later clip of him doing the song he wrote about his wife, backed by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen, amongst others.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Roy Orbison - Coke commercial mp3 at The Podcast Place
Video:
Roy Orbison - Claudette
at YouTube Live, with Tome Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and others

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Never could get into Orbisons voice for some reason though I recognize how important it is. Mean Little Mama however is the song of the week.