Adrian's Album Reviews

Roy Orbison

Lonely And Blue 8 ( 1961 )
Only The Lonely / Bye Bye Love / Cry / Blue Avenue / I Can't Stop Loving You / Come Back To Me / Blue Angel / Raindrops / (I'd Be) A Legend In My Time / I'm Hurting / Twenty-Two Days / I'll Say It's My Fault

Roy Orbison sings lonely and blue? Well, he does just that. Can it be said that Roy filled a void left by Buddy Holly? Well, obviously the styles differ, yet I can hear some kind of relation between the pair of singers. The year was 1961, half of the tunes of this debut Roy Orbison LP proper were written or co-written by Roy. There was a formula in place, Roy had hit his stride upon arriving at Monument records. It's unfortunate that 'Come Back To Me' is a virtual, vastly inferior rewrite of 'Only The Lonely'. Well, any re-write was also going to be inferior, 'Only The Lonely' immediately setting out Roy's stall, tragic and romantic ballads impeccably sang. What an immense voice, and that falsetto tugs at the heart strings so effectively. 'Only The Lonely' has of course stood the test of time, fairly stupid thing to say, it's a rock/pop standard, these days. 'Lonely And Blue' is such a well rounded debut album, we've a few of those wonderful ballads, we've pop hits, we've rock and we've rockabilly and country. We've the voice of big Roy Orbison, and string arrangements very much of their day, but these arrangements do perfectly compliment the material. Roy Orbison sings 'Bye Bye Love' and it sounds like a Roy Orbison song. So, Roy wasn't just a mere singer, naturally. His own songs are good enough, but also to be able to be such a skilled interpreter of others material takes some talent. The two tunes he covers by ( appropriately enough as he was a big influence on Roy ) Don Gibson, 'the sad poet', are among the stronger of the cover material here.

'Blue Angel' is the 2nd alltime classic tune on this LP, 'Only The Lonely' being the first, of course. In the rock n roll era, which in 1961 we were only just coming out of, songs like 'Blue Angel' weren't at all commonplace, they were rare beasts. Roy spins out this tale of loneliness, love and romance. Inspired by country music, Roy weaves a new form of pop tapestry from various different strands. He came up with something that was more or less unique in the pop field at the time. The strings are wonderful and the vocals are deliriously great. You've got to dig the 'dum de dum' deep backing vocals, too. Well, you don't have to, of course. Poor choice of language I suppose. You know, you don't have to even like Roy Orbison at all, much less like this LP. Would you be missing out? Perhaps. Roy Orbison, as it turns out, was very much a one off. 'Lonely And Blue' isn't a classic LP, as such, as a good three or four tunes on this short, twenty eight minute LP fall short of the mark. Still, the classics make up for it and it's nice to have original LPs from an artist we usually just buy a compilation or two from, I think.

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( 1962 )
Crying / Great Pretender / Love Hurts / She Wears My Ring / Wedding Day / Summer Song/ /Dance / Lana / Loneliness / Let's Make a Memory / Nite Life / Running Scared

Before I go into detail about the glory that is Roy Orbison and his 'Crying' LP, I want to briefly discuss the impact MP3 downloading is having on artists such as Roy. Roy is the kind of artist who will have less than a third of his proper LPs to buy at any one time. An average record store might stock a couple of hits compilations and a couple of 'proper' Orbison albums. An internet store such as Amazon will offer the vast majority, although not all. The downloading culture is providing listeners with the opportunity to either legally download or sample entire artist catalogues. Therefore, rather than nightmare scenario number 1 ( apart from a couple of dozen artists, everybody else is reduced to a hits LP ) we've actually seen a boom in music lovers seeking out long lost LPs, by whatever means. True, such an activity is likely to be restricted to a hardcore fanbase, yet ensuring material is available to buy can only enhance an artist, as far as i'm concerned. The complete catalogue provides a complete picture? Something like that, yeah. I'm still missing a couple of Big O LPs, but i've got 95% of them now, just missing a couple of his apparently dodgy mid to late 70s efforts.

Twelve songs here, a third of which are all time classics, which isn't a bad ratio when you think about it. The filler material I have a slight problem with when compared to the debut, this LP seems slightly less varied due to a shortage of up-tempo numbers. There's only two actually I can immediately think of, 'Dance', which is a standard rock n roll type number and 'Loneliness', a weird mix of down lyrics uneasily wedded to a happy tune. What else? 'Summersong' is quite lovely, but 'Crying' is an album where the difference between the good and merely wonderfully performed is quite marked. The good? Hardly needs saying. 'Crying', with that wonderful high section right at the end. 'Lana', an uptempo number, should have mentioned it just now. 'Love Hurts' is beautiful with an utterly brilliant vocal full of emotion. Good, very effective musical arrangement. Finally? One of the all-time, all-time greats. Indeed, 'Crying' and 'Running Scared' which bookend the LP, particularly highlight Roy in all his magnificent falsetto glory. A vocal that sounds tearful, or sounds scared. It sounds like he's on the brink of collapse, yet does so whilst hitting these glorious notes and sounds. Good stuff, Mr O, good stuff.

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this page last updated 18/05/07