Roy Orbison: One of the Lonely Ones

# Pretty woman, walking down the street

# Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet

# Pretty woman

# I don't believe you, you're not the truth

# No-one could look as good as you... #

My success came from the freedom I demanded.

Go your own way, do what you want to do and you'll get that hit record.

# Pretty woman, won't you pardon me?

# Pretty woman, I couldn't help see

# Pretty woman

# That you look lovely as can be

# Are you lonely, just like me? #

I remember the British tour of 1966.

They advised me to steer clear of the motocross event, but I did it anyway.

# I'll ride the highway

# I'm going my way

# I leave a story untold... #

The will to go on is relentless.

It's like the devil chasing me around.

Sometimes it scares me. It's like a quest.

When there's no limit, I would ride it all the way.

# Ride on away from me... #

In this particular race, I hit a sand pit.

The bike came down and broke my ankle.

Roy Orbison didn't easily give way to adversity.

Music came first in his life.

Even with a broken ankle, the show had to go on.

# When I fall asleep to dream

# My dream's of you... #

He was very competitive.

Whatever it was that he was getting into, he would weigh the risk,

and if he didn't think he could win, he may or may not do it.

There was a very driven man underneath there.

What was really distinctive was his enormous dignity.

And I think a lot of sorrow, actually. But underneath.

He could walk through a room, crowded with people,

and no-one would even see him.

He knew a way to find the darkened corners.

He was a man whose eyes you couldn't see.

There was that enigma about him,

that you couldn't see behind the glasses.

He was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

of rock and roll, you know?

He had that desolation in his voice, that desolation of Northwest Texas.

Most of the songs I write are from personal experience.

I try to relive something in the past.

If my story is ever really told,

I would include how my parents walked across Oklahoma in the Depression.

Walked all the way, and how they found a cigarette they shared.

When I was young, I would ask my dad about when he was young,

and he explained to me that they lived, more or less,

in the desert. And he lived in a place called Wink, Texas.

And they lived in a shack that had a tin roof,

and he loved to listen to it rain through that tin roof.

That land out there in West Texas is awfully flat.

You know, tumbleweeds

and oil derricks.

That's about the most exciting thing you see rolling through on the wind.

It was so dusty, you could write your name on any surface in the house.

My father gave me my first guitar for my sixth birthday.

I told him I wanted a harmonica, and he said, "How about a guitar?"

I equated size with value, and said, "I'll take the guitar."

In 1943, the War was on,

and a bunch of soldiers came over to my parents' home and played music.

Our boys were leaving home to fight, and more than likely be killed.

When they sang, they sang with all their hearts.

Their level of intensity made a lasting impression.

None of us ever rose out of that.

# Oh, give me land, lots of land

# Under starry skies above... #

During the war, my grandmother worked in the plant making planes.

And I know that my dad had a love of mechanics.

The miracle of flight was something that he was enthralled with.

And he started building simple model aeroplanes from the time

he was five or six, probably when he started playing guitar.

And he kept building model aeroplanes his whole life.

Seeing the aeroplanes made you dream of getting out of your little,

small town onto bigger and better dreams.

Wink, Texas was a rough place,

and inherently people in Texas are brash and loud.

And brag.

And my dad did not have those qualities.

Even as a boy, he had to have the thick glasses early on.

I imagine that caused for some ridicule, you know.

Kids are mean that way.

I think it just, in a way, probably drove him to music.

That was the way he could have an artistic outlet.

And be one of the cool cats.

I learned to love Spanish fandangos and Mexican music.

They were very popular at the time.

My music is a composite of mariachi, country-western and blues.

All of those influences probably settled into one thing,

and I'm the result.

I have a sense that he was Roy Orbison from the time he was

six or seven years old.

Playing the guitar was a good way for him to be different.

I don't know what it is about being an Orbison,

but I've experienced it myself, that we are just a little bit different

and don't really fit entirely into one place.

There are so many ways to be lonely in West Texas.

It was macho guys working in the oil fields, and grease and football,

and all about being a stud.

So I got out of there as quick as I could,

and I resented having to be there.

It was tough as could be, no illusions, no mysteries,

no dreams in Wink.

I had formed a high school band called the Wink Westerners.

But we quickly changed the name to the cooler-sounding Teen Kings.

The Teen Kings were good, but Roy was the one that moved that beat.

They all fell in line with his leadership.

They were really popular, I really liked them.

Very much.

# They stood there trembling

# And couldn't speak... #

I didn't know what the stumbling blocks were,

or how likely you are to succeed at singing, but it didn't matter.

I thought my voice was sort of a wonder.

It was great, and it didn't hurt anybody and it made me feel good.

# True love, goodbye... #

His appeal was that voice.

Cos he socked it home, man.

There's no doubt about it.

Roy Orbison, he's the only man that Presley said could out-sing him.

Elvis said, "He can out-sing me."

# Then they parted, both brokenhearted... #

Roy wasn't there for the money, because the money wasn't that good.

So who do you play? You play for them good-looking little old gals

running round out there.

Yeah, I think Roy, he was playing with the girls too.

So I grabbed my group together

and went on the road for two or three months.

That was the beginning of my professional career.

I made a demo of Ooby Dooby

and sent it to Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee.

When my dad heard Ooby Dooby,

he heard something unusual in Roy Orbison's voice.

He was always listening for the artist, and I think he heard

something different in Roy Orbison, just like he heard in Elvis.

# Well, you been struttin', cos now you know

# How to do the Ooby Dooby, better let go... #

The Teen Kings had left him right in the middle of a session

and pretty much devastated Roy.

And the Teen Kings, part of them,

I don't know if all of them did or not, but according to Roy,

Little Willy and the big bass player decided they ought to be stars.

So they up and quit Roy.

And went back to Texas to be stars,

or whatever they thought they would be.

They didn't realise what they had.

Roy thought it was maybe the end of his career.

According to my father, Roy was a pretty sensitive individual.

And it really... I think he even said he teared up a couple times

when they were having a conversation.

He really was conscientious about his music.

I think that's one of the things that he was disappointed in

in his latter recordings at Sun.

Because they were feeding him material that he didn't like.

He didn't like Chicken Hearted.

He was very, very upset, because he wanted his music perfect.

# I'd like to be a hero

# But I ain't got the nerve

# I'm chicken hearted

# I'm chicken hearted... #

Chicken hearted was recorded for Sun.

It was one of the worst recordings in the history of the world.

I spent a lot of time on the road away from Sun,

because I was wanting to sing ballads, but my very own ballads.

Whereas they wanted me to record R&B,

like the other acts that were making it big.

That last year or so, he was pretty disappointed,

even though he had contract obligations to fill.

I don't think he was a happy camper.

There was a little friction.

I think it was basically that we were independent

when we came to Sun Records,

from Elvis to me to whoever recorded there.

And that same independence wouldn't let us stand still.

Everyone from Sun gravitated towards Nashville,

where they had proper studios and string players and engineers.

I couldn't believe it. It was like a goldmine.

So we all came to Nashville.

I was ready to faint.

I was just a kid, really, and I had always been fairly inhibited and shy,

and now I had a chance do it all, and I did.

# Uptown, in penthouse number three

# Uptown, there lives a doll just made for me... #

So when we wrote Uptown,

we began to put the pretty music in with the rock.

We were changing rockabilly into the more pop feel

which he would be eventually singing.

# Uptown, but she never, ever looks my way. #

I was going to college in Odessa, Texas. I got out one night.

They had these little drive-ins,

where the girls come up on skates and bring you Cokes...

So I was drinking a Coke, and here come this big Cadillac.

And I looked over, and I say, "That's got to be Roy Orbison."

He said, "I been looking for you. Can we take a little ride and talk?"

So I got in this Cadillac with him

and we drove out under the stars of Texas.

He said, "You know, you write a pretty good song.

"And I write a pretty good song."

He said, "I bet if we put them together, we'd have some great songs."

Joe was the instigator.

Roy was kind of like, laid-back and shy.

And I said to somebody once,

"When I get my record company,

"I'm only going to sign people who don't sound like anybody else."

And Roy didn't sound like anyone else.

Fred Foster was very instrumental in picking the songs.

He had a very tight relationship with Roy.

And they trusted each other. And they worked together beautifully.

Let me tell you what some people said...

"You're wasting your money.

"He's never going to make it, he's too ugly."

This was the age of pretty boys like Fabian and Frankie Avalon.

And I didn't even know how to respond to that.

I thought, "Man, is that superficial or what?"

We were a winning combination.

We brought out the best in each other. I think.

# Only the lonely

# Know the way I feel tonight

# Only the lonely

# Know this feeling ain't right... #

Only The Lonely evolved...

because I was lonely, down there in Texas.

I always had a girlfriend, but I was basically a loner.

So we were writing one night, and I said, "How about Only The Lonely?"

He didn't say anything. He just looked at me. And...

In a little bit he said,

"You know, Only The Lonely would be a good title for that."

I said, "That's what I said!" He said, "No, I came up with that."

I said, "No, you didn't."

I said, "OK, let's just compromise,

"We'll say we both thought up the title."

# There goes my baby

# There goes my heart

# They're gone forever

# So far apart

# Only the lonely

# Know the way I feel tonight

# Only the lonely

# Know this feeling ain't right... #

Later on, he coloured his hair black.

And the black hair just suited him. It seemed like once

he got that formula, and then he added the dark glasses, he was safe.

I think he felt safe. You know.

And he just kept that image.

# Only the lonely

# Know the way I feel tonight

# Only the lonely

# Know this feeling ain't right...

Most performers have two sides to them.

They might be shy, retiring types, but they're able to summon up

the brazen self confidence you need to perform to an audience.

Often it seems that chronic insecurity breeds creativity.

Maybe I need that pressure, but it doesn't make for an easy life.

# There goes my baby

# And there goes my heart

# They're gone forever

# So far apart

# But only the lonely

# Know why I cry

# I cry, only the lonely

# Dum, dum, dum-be-doo-wah... #

Roy became so popular.

I mean, really, that song went straight to the top

and put him on the road, performing.

Because it was just such a nailer of a song, the crowd loved it.

They wanted to see him.

# No more sorrow

# But that's the chance

# You gotta take

# If your lonely heart breaks

# Only the lonely. #

The songs were, also, as in Only The Lonely, first-person narrations.

So that he begins to build a persona from song to song

about himself as this suffering male character

who experiences these intense emotions

linked to extreme loneliness.

Crying, suffering, pain at a level of intensity that was not

the norm for men at that point of time in the early '60s.

All those things together helped define him.

Roy had the guts to put into words

what everybody felt, or was thinking.

And couldn't admit it, openly.

In the period between 1960 and 1964, which is when he rose to

great fame, he wasn't a big media presence, at least in the

United States in fan magazines and so forth, like many stars were.

And little was known about his personal life and his private life.

Roy had quietly dated

and then married Claudette Frady from Wink, Texas.

For four years or so,

they managed to keep their family life out of the spotlight.

Claudette was that first love,

and he was totally consumed by her, totally in love with her.

She was kind of a quiet girl,

she just stayed in the background all the time.

Her and Roy, love affair, I can tell you.

When we were writing, he said, "I got to break now,

"I got to go home and love on that sweet woman."

That was always his phrase.

He was always ready to get back to Claudette.

She was so gorgeous.

He was a little different-looking.

It was a little odd, I thought, that was an odd couple.

But they seemed like they were really in love, you know?

Roy talked about her all the time on the road,

and talked about how much he loved her.

And wrote a song called Claudette.

# Well, I got a brand-new baby and I feel so good

# She loves me even better than I thought she would

# I'm on my way to her house and I run out of breath

# When I see her tonight, I'm gonna squeeze her to death

# Claudette

# Pretty little pet, Claudette... #

Back then, a promoter would buy Orbison for two weeks,

and then he'd try to fill in the dates.

We were playing all the sororities and fraternities at the colleges.

When we first got with Roy, he was kind of shy,

like everyone knows him to be.

But once he got to know us, he became one of the guys.

And Roy just loved to be around us,

telling stories and telling jokes and being funny.

Every time we were on the road and we had a day off,

which was rare, we'd go to a movie.

I'd give up a good meal, even when I'm hungry, to see a movie.

I like the kind of picture that entertains without necessarily

showing life at its rawest.

Roy definitely loved movies.

That would've also been where Roy heard a lot of

more complicated music. Some of the orchestral parts.

Some of the classic...

People ask if Roy listened to classical music - almost never.

And you go, where did he get some of these influences?

And a lot of it came from the cinema. The drama of this music.

MUSIC: Bolero by Ravel

# What would I do?

# If he came back

# And wanted you?

He's an artist whose work is focused on a kind

of psychological dimension that's very inward-looking.

# Running scared...

I, for example,

feel that it reverberates deeply in the realm of fear and dark desires.

It was a time when teenage audiences were confronting, not just

their own growing pains, personal tensions and sexual anxieties,

but also broader fears about threats to the American way of life.

# Feeling low

# Running scared

# You loved him so... #

He worked at a very dark palette.

He certainly wore dark glasses,

black everything, and had a black guitar.

You know.

He was serious.

I'm sure he was a complicated cat.

I'm certain of that.

So I think darkness was the underlying

tone of all of Roy's work.

# So sure of himself

# His head in the air

# While my heart was breaking

# Which one would it be?

# You turned around and walked away with me. #

That big sound of mine wasn't planned, it just evolved

from the freedom I had, because I never took music lessons, and I

didn't know you should write a verse and then a verse and chorus.

I just took the melody where I felt it should go.

Structure,

I don't think he probably knew the meaning of the word.

What he was doing was putting down a message, he wrote so great.

And whatever the melody and the meter was, he went with it.

# I was all right, for a while... #

Each of my early hits is a piece of storytelling.

In Crying, I was dating this girl and we broke up.

# But I saw you last night

# You held my hand so tight... #

I went to a barber shop to get a haircut

and looked across the street, and there was the girl I'd split up with.

But I just got into the car and drove on down the street.

# That I'd been crying... #

I had tears in my eyes, I'll go that far.

But whether I was physically crying or just crying inside,

it's the same thing.

So he shows up one night and plays me Crying.

He said, "Well, what's wrong with it?"

I said, "There's only one thing wrong with it."

He said, "What's that?" I said, "It's not out yet."

# I thought that I was over you

# But it's true, so true

# I love you even more than I did before

# But, darling, what can I do?

# For you don't love me

# And I'll always be

# Crying

# Over you

# Crying

# Over you... #

If you listen to the phrasing of Crying, you'll hear black singers.

He don't sing the blues, we wouldn't put the sevenths in,

because that would be too bluesy.

So we did it so that it was a white man's version of black.

# Crying... #

It's all black.

And that was part of his popularity,

we had the black phrasing with a white guy.

# I love even you more than I did before

# But, darling, what can I do? #

Roy Orbison did not, in any way,

invent any of his main subjects or themes.

Crying, dreaming, loneliness -

those are deeply embedded in the American song tradition.

So what he did is inflect them in different ways.

Crying was written at a time when people were mostly macho.

Not only did guys not talk about it, but you were not supposed to cry.

So there I was, coming out with Crying

and talking about feelings when the whole age was macho.

I've always gone against the grain.

# Crying

# Over you. #

He was able to touch those emotions

that just destroyed you when he sang.

He made you cry.

I was one of those kids who got picked on and bullied and all that,

and I stuck up for myself.

But Roy's music just resonated with me.

I was that lonely kid who, you know,

nobody I had an interest in was interested in me.

He speaks for me, he speaks for the lonely.

He speaks for the heartbroken.

He speaks for all the tragedies that happened in my life.

# Well, I got a woman, mean as she can be

# Sometimes I think she's almost mean as me... #

I came to England and played with the Beatles,

worried whether I'd go down well.

I agreed because I would be singing ballads,

and they were singing songs like Twist And Shout,

so it all made sense.

Anyway, I was making four or five times as much money as they were.

So I gave them a break.

He loved Britain,

because he actually did much better in Britain than he did in America.

He had many more hits over here.

He looked totally different from anybody else, that's for sure.

He never moved an inch off the spot he was standing on.

Strummed his guitar, never opened his mouth,

and yet everybody loved him.

He was, erm...

Courteous, charming...

He did not lay his troubles on other people.

He kept them underneath and the great difference between him

on stage and off was his intensity on stage

and his passion,

and it was incredible to see.

# She gotta ruby lips

# She got shapely hips, yeah

# Boy, she makes old Roy-oy flip

# I got a woman mean as she can be

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

When I went to Europe with Roy for the first time,

we did The Beatles tour and as big as The Beatles were and as much

pandemonium as there was, Roy would do three and four encores a night.

And people were just screaming for more,

and not wanting The Beatles yet,

cos they hadn't got enough of Roy yet.

John Lennon was getting fed up cos they couldn't get on.

He said, "Get off, Yank!"

HE LAUGHS

Roy had carved out his own niche.

He was a gentleman, a true gentleman,

and people liked him for that.

# She gotta ruby lips

# She got shapely hips... #

Roy was now enjoying all the rewards of his hard-earned success

on both sides of the Atlantic.

We knew about his family of three kids back home in Nashville,

and his collection of antique cars, not to mention the new house.

I have a swimming pool in the living room, a drawing room,

and six baths and that's just for convenience

if you're on a certain level. There are three levels. And, er...

I have a couple of waterfalls beside the staircase that go into

the swimming pool and this is for a pretty sound rather than for show.

Like I say, I don't have that many guests.

Roy was proudest of all of his beautiful wife Claudette

and he would write his biggest hit yet about her.

# Pretty woman walking down the street

# Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet

# Pretty woman

# I don't believe you, you're not the truth,

# No-one could look as good as you... #

Mercy! That's my line.

# Pretty woman, won't you pardon me?

# Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see

# Pretty woman

# That you look lovely as can be

# Are you lonely just like me? #

ROY PURRS, JOHNNY LAUGHS

# Pretty woman, stop a while

# Pretty woman, talk a while

# Pretty woman, give your smile to me

# Pretty woman... #

But as so often with Roy, just as success or happiness

was in reach, fate seemed ready to intervene.

Through the mid-'60s from 1964 and '5...

er, my dad and Claudette

had gone through a rough period and had gotten divorced

after Pretty Woman.

She was having an affair with...

He was a builder, he was, you know, worked on a building site.

And she was having an affair with him.

And so Roy got mad.

She left, she walked out and left him with the children...

..but I think he blamed himself to a certain extent about being

away from his family so much.

Most of the songs I write are from personal experience.

It's Over is the sort of a thing whereby you know that a love affair

is over before anyone actually says it's finished.

# It breaks your heart in two

# To know she's been untrue

# But oh, what will you do?

# When she says to you

# There's someone new

# We're through

# We're through

# It's over

# It's over

# It's over... #

Within 18 months, Roy and Claudette had gotten back together

and remarried.

BIRDS CAW

Claudette died in an accident riding behind Roy.

I drove up to his house...

..and the door was open,

so I walked in and he's sitting, staring at the floor.

And Wesley was there and his dad was there.

And Mr Orbison said, "I'm glad you're here, Fred."

And Roy heard him say that, and he looked up and saw me, and he

jumped up and ran.

Wow, toughest moment...I can ever remember, and he just kind

of leaped on me and just started beating his fists on me and crying.

And, erm...

I heard Mr Orbison say, "Thank God, he's crying at last."

And that's...

It was...it was awful.

It very much affected him and I think he wouldn't speak to

those things really, other than if I were to ask him outright,

you know, "What was my mother like?" or something.

He would say, "Well, she was really beautiful and very sweet," you know,

and he said, "You remind me a lot of her,

"so it's a little hard to, erm...

"..to talk to you about this." And, er...

# It's too soon to know

# If I can forget her... #

I wanted to be able to remove myself

and look at what had happened objectively before I quit or

became convinced that life was not worth living.

# And it's too soon to know... #

After Claudette's death, he was really at a loss.

I think he did welcome the fact that he was taken away from Tennessee

for a while to get away while his parents looked after the kids.

Roy left his old colleagues like Fred Foster behind as he was

enticed to MGM by the offer of 1 million

and a Hollywood acting career in their studios.

GUNSHOTS

The film he was given was rumoured to be an Elvis Presley reject.

It was a risky venture for his first starring role.

-FILM VOICEOVER:

-Sharpshooter...vagabond...

Roy Orbison is travellin' west with seven of his brand-new songs.

# Pistolero

# 5,000 pesos they put on your head... #

I think it embarrassed him.

I thought it was a terrible movie.

Roy probably, after the movie he probably thought,

"Well, now I'll go back to singing, to doing what I do best!"

# Twinkle toes, you must dance on, girl... #

Having failed to conquer Hollywood, Roy returned to his comfort zone,

the London stage.

# Yeah, twinkle toes, you must dance on, girl... #

# If you work it right, they'll never know

# Now go. #

But while touring England in 1968 and escaping his problems back home,

fate would again intervene in Roy's life.

We were at the Birmingham Theatre doing a show.

I was in the dressing room talking with him, and that was

the first time that he said, "Did I ever show you my children?"

And he got his billfold out and he had all these

pictures of his boys in there

and also a picture of his house,

and he said to me, "You know what's good about this house, Terry?"

And I says, "What?"

He says, "It's virtually fireproof."

And he actually said those words to me, I'm not making that up.

But as we were speaking,

in Tennessee it was two o'clock or thereabouts in the afternoon,

and the house was burning.

As we were speaking.

Very sad.

'I had reasoned that if you take all that is good in life,

'you must accept tragedy if it comes along.

'It was a dark period.

'All I was doing was surviving.

'I was trying to work my way out of the turmoil.'

It hit him pretty hard. That was his two boys, you know?

Bad. And, um... Really bad.

'Your own life can't stop.

'You can only go on doing the things you did before

'and learn to live with the memories.'

There is a love of God, there is a love of woman,

there is a love of children, there is a love of music.

I think the love of music was Roy's first real love.

And so, instead of turning to someone to get you through it,

he turned to music.

# I'm cold inside

# The day just died

# The night has just begun... #

In 1969, my dad went to the studio

to work through and help him deal

with the pain of losing Roy Dewayne and Tony.

# ..The rising sun

# I run with the lonely ones... #

One of the only songs that really has my dad's heart on his sleeve,

and he talks about being one of the lonely ones and it's quite sad.

And, um, you know,

that probably was not released

because of the sensitivity.

You can see a glimpse of the tragedies there.

'So, I was in this dark place when I met Barbara,

'and she said she'd never heard of me and I didn't believe that.

'I didn't know what to make of this young girl, but anyway,

'we started a courtship over the phone,

'and she was very sweet and she said she missed me and this and that.

'So, I flew to her native Germany and met her parents,

'and then we were married in 1969.'

By the time we got married, all that was important

was to have a great relationship

and to live life and to sort of,

like, mend, you know,

those incredibly painful times and to really enjoy life.

She was there with him, she was willing to, um, you know,

dwell in the darkness.

Her role was just as his only friend.

His only friend, the only one that he let into his life.

We had Roy Kelton Jr, who was born in 1970, then Alex in '74,

then we had Wesley from the marriage with Claudette.

If you would have seen Roy with the kids, you would have never

suspected that he had lost two kids in a house fire.

My mom had a real gusto for life,

and while being respectful of losing Claudette

and Roy Dewayne and Tony,

she had a way about her that wouldn't allow any complete

stopping of life because these tragic things had happened.

She had a wonder built into her and she wanted to go

and experience life and she wanted to take my dad with her.

I didn't think he would ever come back, I thought

that would finish him,

having lost Claudette and having lost now two of his children.

And I really thought that he would not come back

to England again to tour.

# I still can see her smile... #

'In the '70s, I got to the point where I just didn't want to go on.

'You begin another tour, you get a bit ill and a bit confused,

'and finally you couldn't see the point in touring or not touring.'

In the States, he had more or less been written off,

but over here in England, people were there

to listen to him.

Batley Variety Club, they would just book him

and book him every year, they wanted him there.

It was Roy!

It's my very great pleasure and privilege to present Roy Orbison!

Hey, excuse me, Mr Orpington?

-Yes?

-Why do you wear your sunglasses when it's not sunny?

Same reason you wear your hat when it's not raining.

LAUGHTER

# Oh, beautiful Lana, I told my mama

# And my dad, what I had

# Was the sweetest and the neatest

# Little girl in the world... #

It was during this directionless period that Roy's life

was interrupted by a news story.

'At a point between Brentford and Zion Lane station,

'Michelle was thrown out of the speeding train

'and lay beside the line unconscious and undiscovered for 13 hours

'throughout the bitter cold of a March night.'

# Pretty woman, won't you pardon me?

# Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see... #

'For the past ten days,

'Michelle has lain in a coma at this West London hospital,

'her room alive with the songs of her idol, Roy Orbison,

'in the hope that they will revive her.

'And this afternoon,

'Michelle's family broke their bedside vigil to receive

'a get well message specially recorded by the American singer.'

'Dear Michelle, this is Roy Orbison.

'I would very much like to wish you all the very best for the future.

'Health, wealth and happiness, OK?'

Well, on the tape, he'd always promised that

when I came out of the coma, I would be able to go backstage

and meet him at one of his concerts.

Roy Orbison came to my house in a Daimler and when he drew up,

I just looked out of the window

and I was absolutely dumbfounded, really.

But it was lovely to see him,

he came into my house and we had a nice cup of tea,

then we went up to the London studios

and he actually picked me up outside the radio studios and gave me

a kiss, which is unbelievable

and I'll never forget that for the rest of my life. It was just so...

I don't know, life-changing, I suppose.

Roy's music didn't just bring about a change in Michelle's life.

After almost a decade in the wilderness,

it continued the revival of his own stagnating career.

A new generation of American artists were discovering Roy

and carrying his '60s hits back into the charts.

# When you sleep all day and the catfish play on Blue Bayou... #

# I'm going back someday, come what may, to Blue Bayou

# Where the folks are fine

# And the world is mine on Blue Bayou... #

'I think the first one to start my revival was Linda Ronstadt.

'I had sold about a million of that song,

'but she sold four or five million albums.

'And that made me feel very now!'

# Maybe I'll feel better again on Blue Bayou... #

He had so much admiration from people,

fans that didn't even know that that was his music.

I had a whole generation of people that I would meet kids

and they would say, "Your dad wrote that Van Halen song?"

# Pretty woman, won't you pardon me?

# Pretty woman, I couldn't help but see

# Pretty woman

# Oh, you look lovely as can be

# Are you lonely just like me?

# Rarr! #

But the most unlikely landmark in Roy's career revival

came from a disturbing and controversial film noir.

When David Lynch used Roy Orbison's In Dreams in his film

Blue Velvet, it was done in a very unexpected

and unusual way to use it, which is why, I think, it is so memorable.

It's not a predictable context to use the song.

# I close my eyes

# Then I drift away

# Into the magic night

# I softly say

# A silent prayer

# Like dreamers do

# Then I fall asleep

# To dream my dreams of you

# In dreams I walk... #

'It was like everyone was starting up my career without me.

'And my life again climbed mountains.'

# In dreams I talk to you... #

'I suppose I have a feeling for the aristocratic way of life.

'And to have been in Berlin or Paris in the '20s

'would have been my cup of tea.'

HE KNOCKS AT THE DOOR

He had started playing guitar for hours a day

and just kind of strumming and listening to the tone

and working on his approach

and what the new Roy Orbison was going to be,

and lucky for all of us,

the new Roy Orbison wasn't too far off the original Roy Orbison.

The competitive edge never went away.

Suddenly, my dad found himself surrounded by a galaxy of stars,

competing to help him celebrate his past.

A Black & White Night was a live show

filmed as a testament to Roy's greatest hits.

# Le-Leah, Leah

# Le-Leah... #

Everybody was united behind the idea of, you know,

we're just here for Roy, this is about, we are putting Roy

out front, we are all going to stay in the back.

None of us knew who we were working for, you see?

We just showed up for Roy!

# Oh, how long must I dream? #

And we had, I think, one rehearsal in the afternoon,

or something like that, too!

Yeah, I mean, where we just did it was, like...

-Oh, this?

-Not this, this is Blue Bayou,

this is coming up to the record.

But certainly, for all of us that were on that show,

he was like a cowboy hero.

# I gotta go diving in the bay

# Gotta get a lot of oysters, find some pearls today

# To make a pretty necklace for Leah

# Le-ee-ah... #

'There was some fear involved, because there was a legend in

'the background, haunting me, and no way would I be able to live up to it.

'And then, I realised it didn't matter.

'What mattered was jumping in with both feet and being committed.'

# Le-Leah, Leah

# Here I go

# Back to sleep and in my dreams, I'll dream

# With Leah, Leah, Leah. #

'I have been taken aback by the way things are going.

'It's very nice to be wanted again, but I still can't quite believe it.'

There was a sense, I have to say, that he had

had at least one heart attack at the time and he was frail,

you could feel it in his handshake, not frail,

but you could feel the strength in his hand, like...

Wow, he's, you know, something being pulled out of him, or something.

I think he had settled for, maybe this is the end of it,

you know, that's my big-time stuff.

But... I think...

I sort of nudged him a lot, you know,

to remind him how great he was.

# I was all right... #

'It's the life of rock and roll that takes its toll.

'Always travelling and playing and then trying to rest.

'I could alter my lifestyle and stay home for a few years,

'but I've never been tempted to.

'Whatever drove me to it in the first place is still burning

'away in there, somewhere. It's like the devil's chasing me around.

'I mean, what kind of song can I write that would equal Crying?

'It has to do with my being as credible

'and viable today as when I started.'

# Crying over you... #

I wanted the good old-fashioned Roy Orbison again.

The great Roy Orbison.

So, I managed to coax him into singing like he did

when he did some of those great ones.

# It hurts like never before

# You're not alone

# Any more... #

What happened about the start of the Travelling Wilburys,

I was recording George's album, Cloud Nine...

..and he said, "You know what? Me and you should have a group."

And I said, "Well, can we have Roy Orbison, then?"

He said, "Yeah, I love Roy."

And we both liked Tom, he said, "We'll have Tom Petty."

And Bob Dylan.

And of course, we asked them all, they all said yes, immediately!

'We didn't ask any record companies or managers,

'we just went ahead and did it, kept it secret.

'And when we finally mentioned it, one executive said,

' "I'm not going to stand in the way of history," and hung up the phone.'

It was amazing, the camaraderie with the Wilburys.

He would come home and say, "Look what Jeff did on this!"

You know, he was having so much fun.

She's dressed to kill... Yeah, that's good.

-She give me a thrill...

-She had a car...

-Oh, because she was long and tall...

-Or short and fat!

So, George had started Handle With Care on the Wilburys album,

and that's the first one we recorded, in Bob Dylan's garage.

Like you would, you know! The bridge was written for Roy.

You know, that... # I'm so tired of being lonely... #

# I'm so tired of being lonely

# I still have some love to give

# Won't you show me that you really care? #

For the first time in 30 years,

my father was no longer the frontman, alone in the spotlight.

He was now an integrated member of a band,

as the Wilburys carried him back to the top of the charts.

# And dream on

# I've been uptight and made a mess

# But I'll clean it up myself, I guess

# Oh, the sweet smell of success

# Handle me with care. #

'When I started, rock and roll was not part of our culture.

'It wasn't acceptable as an art form.

'But there again, had I seen any limitations back in the '50s,

'like, "You are only as hot as your latest record,"

'had I listened to any of that, I might have cut the dream short.

'You set out to beat the world and you get beat up a little.

'I knocked the tops off mountains, but I also filled in the valleys.

'I never forgot I was a working man's son from West Texas.

'I was lucky to hang onto my innocence.

'Somewhere in the history of music, whether in rockabilly,

'pop or rock and roll, I would like to be remembered.'

# Oh, oh, oh, oh, ah

# Only the lonely

# Only the lonely

# Only the lonely

# Dum, dum, dum, dummy-doo-wah

# Know the heartaches I've been through

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Only the lonely

# Dum, dum, dum, dummy-doo-wah

# Know I cry and cry for you

# Dum, dum, dum, dummy-doo-wah

# And maybe tomorrow

# A new romance

# No more sorrow

# But that's the chance... #