Roy Orbison: Love Hurts

I'm Alex Orbison, Roy Orbison's youngest son.

Along with my brothers Roy Jr and Wesley,

we're here to tell you our family's story.

# Pretty woman walking down the street... #

It's a dramatic and emotional story

that we still find difficult to tell.

Sometimes I know that I'm getting emotional

and I want to veer away...

..but I realise it's just best to let the emotions fly free.

HE GROWLS

# Pretty woman, stop on by... #

They say that time...

..makes it better

but, you know, that's one of the biggest lies.

Time doesn't make it better.

It just...time stops.

# Pretty woman, look my way

# Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me... #

It's not like you think about it every day, all day

but it's really just there and, then, when you visit it,

it's just as fresh as it was,

when it happened.

# ..be mine tonight

# Pretty woman, don't walk on by

# Pretty woman, don't make me cry... #

Our story starts in the spring of 1966.

My dad's star was shining at its brightest.

He'd had a string of top 10 hits around the world...

..was married to his childhood sweetheart Claudette...

..and, together, they lived in Nashville

with their sons Roy Dewayne, Anthony King,

and their new baby Wesley.

I remember things in terms of, roughly,

years where big events in my life happened.

It started in '65 with being born.

That's the biggest event.

Then, a year later, we lost my mother Claudette

in a motorcycle accident. '66.

Claudette and I went riding on motorcycles.

We were...

..about six miles from home.

I made a stoplight, and turned left and then stopped.

And she wasn't behind me.

So I turned around and went back

and a pick-up truck had pulled out in front of her.

So I came home and I had to tell the children.

Told the oldest boy that his mother wasn't coming home.

I don't know much at all about her other than they say

that she was very sweet.

And a pretty woman.

But I was always keen to ask my father, for instance...

..and he would say,

"That's a little hard for me to talk about, with you,

"because you favour her so much," you know.

"You remind me of her."

"So, I don't mind talking about it,

"but just... Just give me a minute," you know.

Most of my love just went to the children.

Er...

My world, sort of, centred around them.

I didn't stop working, or anything.

Working is...

..is very therapeutic.

Right now, it's top of the bill time

and we have just about America's most favourite visitor to our charts.

I mean, the one and only Roy Orbison.

APPLAUSE

Now, what I did, I'd go through the motions

of doing whatever I'd normally do.

I don't think you should analyse anything...

..immediately after it happened.

And I think you need to reflect just a little bit.

# A candy coloured clown they call the Sandman

# Tiptoes to my room every night

# Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper

# Go to sleep, everything is all right

# I close my eyes

# Then I drift away

# Into the magic night

# I softly say

# A silent prayer. #

I was touring England in '68.

And I had one more show to do,

which was in Bournemouth, I think. It was on a Sunday.

One of my best friends came to the room and all he said was that...

He said, "Your house has burned."

And he said, "You lost Roy and Tony."

'68 we had a house fire and I lost my two older brothers.

Roy Dewayne and Anthony King.

I remember wanting to go back.

With all my might and...

..Papaw stuck his hand on the top of my head

and kept me from physically looking back,

as we travelled to the neighbour's house, for shelter.

The house blew up. There was an explosion.

And my mother and father...

..and little Wesley was blown outside in the yard

and the other two children back into the house.

Both my hands were big, clear blisters.

They looked like softballs.

And I don't know if it was like a self-defence sort of thing

but, yeah, my hands, they still are kind of shiny and hairless...

..from those scars.

# In dreams

# I walk with you

# In dreams

# I talk to you... #

There was a moment there where I have a clear memory

of leaving from the fire but not before and not for days after.

Other than the fact that we lived in a motel for about six months.

There was a pool there, so that was good

but we had to, kind of, stay indoors a lot.

That got old really fast.

I was looking for a yard to play in

and they wouldn't let me go outside,

you know, for, I guess, obvious reasons.

I sure didn't understand it at the time.

# Only in dreams

# In beautiful dreams. #

I would ask Mother about things and she would explain to me.

She said, "Son, give it a couple of years

"and you'll feel a little better."

And, two years to the day,

er, almost to the day,

she was right.

I was doing a tour of England...

..in 1968.

I met Barbara.

And she said she'd never heard of me

and I didn't believe that.

And then she told me a lot of things

and I didn't believe her.

Roy saw me across the room and wanted to meet me

-so the energy first came from him.

-Yes.

And I didn't know when I first talked to him

that there was any interest,

from him, except just a casual meeting.

And we just started talking and really, really

had something to talk about. I don't know.

Anyway, she said, "That's a terrible looking jacket you have on."

I said, "Thank you very much."

It was a Levi jacket.

But, er,...

I said, "I just borrowed this so I wouldn't catch cold.

"It belongs to my friend there."

And I said, "Come to the show tomorrow night

"and I'll show you my finest suit."

She came to the show and she said,

"You know, if you were trying to impress me, then you did all right."

And, then, we were married in 1969.

My family didn't even know for the first three months,

or two months. I was 17 and I don't think it would have gone over

very well for me to have come home and said that I fell in love with

a rock and roller that was, like, 15 years older, so I had to hide it.

# Sweet dream, baby

# Sweet dream, baby

# Sweet dream, baby

# How long must I dream? #

So, after the home burned, we needed a place to stay.

Dad was building a big old beautiful home for his new wife

and he would be out surveying the progress

and it was a custom home so it took a little longer than usual

and it turned out really terrific.

The house was fantastic.

It was really like a time capsule of what you would imagine

a rock star in 1969 building.

The back overlooked the lake

and there were several acres of land

and each floor had a fantastic deck that would look out

and you could tell that it was, you know,

just the layout of it was a sanctuary for my dad.

My mom left her family, her home in Germany, and her language.

She gave birth to me when she was 19.

So she gave up everything she was and had been for him

and created a new life.

Because he lost the other two boys he was very afraid.

My mom said that while she was pregnant with me

that Roy was very apprehensive.

You know, almost afraid to have another child that...

..for what could happen.

Um, so he was very conflicted about that

and I definitely got a lot of the love that was meant

for the two brothers that died, and so I am aware

I was the, the golden boy, that saved Roy's life,

I was the energy that saved his life.

The Orbison household was divided into two houses,

so with Mamaw and Papaw and Wesley down the street.

Their house was just over the hill.

It's really close but you can't see it over the horizon,

but it's probably about a city block is as far away.

Orbie Lee, Dad's father, he basically, he and Nadine together,

they raised me and that's where I grew up, under their care.

From their point of view they felt that,

they felt to blame that they had let Roy's children die,

and they felt they let him down so much, and so my grandmother

in particular grabbed a hold of Wesley and never let go.

She became like the momma alligator protecting the eggs.

It didn't seem like that I was supposed to go with them.

It felt like I was supposed to stay where I was, you know?

It already felt like home.

From '68 to '75, that little period was very protected,

and when the family got a little bit bigger

and he had Alex, it started to be fun again.

The little boys are around, you know, things are really great

cos they're so vibrant and full of life.

So those guys, you know,

would often come together to visit with their grandparents, you know?

And myself.

And just a glorious time.

They seemed like they wanted to stay there

even when it was time to go home for dinner or something like that,

so it was a sad time for them to have to go back home.

-How are you, huh?

-Fine.

-Fine. How was your day?

-Fine.

-You got a kiss for your daddy?

-Yes.

Mwah, mwah.

I think this is probably a work of art by Alex.

Oh, it's my house.

There we go.

"This is my house, by Alex."

My dad had an incredible life.

He was born in 1936, and when you look at history,

1936 was the dead bottom of the depression.

The crash was '29, and then they had also over-farmed

and it made the Dust Bowl and my dad was born and lived

in West Texas, and so this would have been the driest,

dustiest, hardest hit area of the depression,

and the fact that my grandparents even had a son then,

in this blackness, and that this guy grew up to be

this legendary character, is stunning to me.

-I just dropped in. How are you doing there?

-Fine. Doing fine.

This is Dad, this is Papaw.

Yeah, this is... the headman around here.

That's right! The number one.

Papaw was a guitar player and a great singer

and he was also Roy's road manager for many years until his retirement.

At a certain point Roy was making more per night then Papaw

made in a year and so Papaw quit his job in the oilfields

and working on cars and followed Roy around.

You know, my dad was super engaging in the things that he knew

and it was amazing that he seemed to be good at everything,

and for whatever random thing I was into he would, you know,

come either out of his bedroom or back from being on the road

or whatever and I would think I had developed some new tricks

and he was like, "Oh, let me see what you're doing there,"

and then of course he already had it mastered.

He did so many things so well and he was so blessed.

I don't know how he crammed so much experience into a life so short,

52 years.

When did he have time to become such a good driver,

such a good painter, such a good pool player?

How did he know about art in Europe and the Louvre in France

and John Paul Sartre?

Being his son that only got limited kind of visitation,

he also had this intuition.

He could look at you and say,

"Hi, yeah, you know, I'm sorry I've been gone or whatever

"but always remember that I love you," you know,

"and you're on my mind all the time,"

and it just kind of made everything better, just knowing

that he was carrying a little part of you with him, you know?

When you're in the middle of it,

the amazing thing is how ordinary hanging out at the house

seemed to me, because I never knew anything else

and so, you know, you'd look over and there's Dad,

passed out on a lounger chair, except Dad is Roy Orbison,

and he's this legendary character who you never imagine

just sun-tanning and sitting around and having a life.

We were the only people besides Elvis

and Johnny Cash that had a satellite dish.

We had motorcycles, go-karts,

whatever kind of fad came along in the '70s.

We had a kiddie pool and when we changed it to a permanent pool,

we were left with all these pipes and we would use those pipes

to shoot bottle rockets at the boats that passed by.

And Alex and I were out there shooting at the boats,

Dad came out and we thought he was going to be mad at us, and he snuck

down behind us and started shooting bottle rockets at the boats too.

He always had attached to him this kind of this

sad man of rock and roll, or the tragic man of rock and roll,

but if you ask anybody that was around Roy for more than 10 minutes,

they always remember the humour and that laugh.

# Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable

# Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar

# Who could think you under the table

# David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel

# And Wittgenstein was a beery swine

# Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel. #

Seeing him do Monty Python skits with Roy

was like the funniest thing you've ever seen.

He really, you know...

..really nailed it down, you could see.

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure now,

and it has done for many years, to introduce a young man who's become

quite a personal friend of mine, and I do mean that, Roy Orbison!

# Just runnin' scared

# Each place we go

# So afraid

# That he might show... #

We couldn't go anywhere or do anything ever.

We had to have bodyguards and our dogs were, you know,

we went through 13 dogs - they would be stolen by the fans.

So you couldn't blink,

you couldn't walk into an airport without everything stopping.

Complete silence.

And...

We got to do certain things, we got to go to Disneyland.

They closed it down for Michael Jackson

and then they closed it down for Roy, we were the next ones.

Michael Jackson got a private kind of tour and they kept it open

-and they did that for us when I was little.

-Ta-da!

It was fully operational for two hours and we got to run around

so you couldn't feel more special than that.

-He just walks at him.

-Like menacing!

-Menacing.

But I thought everyone was like that. That's...

If your dad was a plumber he was king of the plumbers,

and all of the other plumbers would come to see you.

I actually didn't understand the mathematics that there could

only be one Roy Orbison.

This is the old writing couch.

I'd like to get rid of it.

Two of them I've worn the thing down so it has a nice comfy spot in it,

from sitting for hours and hours...

..and doing no good.

I don't normally sit around and sing for anybody.

There's a reason for that - I'm basically an introvert.

And also, I never give a performance

except in the studio when we make a record.

In recent years I had...

..I'd accepted the fact that a man should be able to cry

when he wants to cry and...

..that didn't bother me professionally,

and evidently didn't bother me at all but that's why

if I seem a little nervous when I play in the writing room,

it's because I'm not alone, and these songs are such a part of me

that you're aware of everything and everything around you.

# I was all right for a while

# I could smile for a while

# I saw you last night

# You held my hand so tight as you stopped to say hello

# You wished me well

# You couldn't tell that I'd been crying... #

Like that, so...

Still nervous. But...

People always said "Roy, you wrote these sad songs,

"you must be this sad guy,"

and it would seem like the tragedies would happen

and then you'd write Crying, or It's Over,

but truthfully my dad wrote those songs

when he was in a much better place and after the tragedies happened,

that put my dad at a disconnect with his songwriting craft.

So you have to back off just enough when you're performing...

..or you'll get too involved and you'll break down and

if you're crying you can't sing, you know? It doesn't work that way.

If you're crying you can't sing Crying.

If you're crying you can't sing Crying, so you just

back off just a little bit and then give it all you've got.

In the middle of the '70s it puts Roy

alone in the middle of a world that had changed so far from what

he knew and the hope of getting the new songs that he would write

in front of people and getting the reaction that he had always got,

it totally withered away.

All of that happening, you know, that puts you

around the time that I'm born, with him very happy that his present

family is flourishing, but outside that everything had fallen apart.

-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.

We'd like to do the new record for you, it goes like this. OK?

# Da da-da-da da-da

# Da-da-da da-da

# Da-da-da da-da

# Sweet Mama Blue... #

Well, I was spreading myself too thin.

I was making too many records and I was doing too much touring.

# That woman sings

# And plays piano like a dream... #

It's so funny cos people say, "Oh, well, Roy didn't do so well in the '70s."

You know, "He was off the map and his records weren't selling."

His new records didn't sell as well as his old records but

the guy literally had sold millions of his Greatest Hits records

and was one of the highest-paid entertainers.

Discover all the spine-tingling, immortal songs of

the most dynamic voice in the history of popular music.

# Blue angel... #

He really didn't have to prove himself for anything

because, you know, as a young man he had done exactly

what he wanted to do, so we just had a great time.

My dad was this car guy.

I mean, every kind of car you could imagine, you know,

four T-birds, Corvettes,

Cadillacs, Excaliburs,

there's a car we still can't figure out the name of it and

literally you look in our driveway and there's a fire truck from 1925.

If I'm going to be of any value to my family

I have to be sort of selfish and write my songs and go tour,

and earn a living,

else they're not provided for.

There's nothing you can do on tour except travel.

Land, sea or air, one way or the other, and that's always a bind.

If you're in a bus or an aeroplane

and you play cards or something like that.

You know, I listened to Dad's records a lot -

that's how I visited with him,

and I always really loved his voice and those recordings.

We had a really terrific... receiver that we had salvaged

from the house fire, and had a terrific sound to it,

and so I would have favourites that I would play like really a lot,

maybe obsessively, listening to the nuances of his voice

and singing along a little bit, you know.

# Yeah, running scared

# Afraid to lose

# If he came back

# Which one would you choose?

# Then all at once he was standing there

# So sure of himself, his head in the air

# Well, my heart was breaking

# Which one would it be?

# You turn around

# And walk away with me. #

Well, in my case, when you see me perform,

what happens is that I sing and the audience watches me do that.

I remember when I first played a nightclub in England,

I had just done concerts, and I was asked to do this

very famous nightclub

and everyone said, "What are you going to do?" You know?

I said, "I'm going to sing."

So that's about all I really do, is sing a few songs.

My dad hung out in that place where your voice breaks.

If you listen to Only The Lonely and Crying,

those lines, the place where every man wants to stay away from,

it's where your voice goes...ah!

It's where your voice cracks.

# You got to take

# If your lonely heart breaks... #

That is where Roy Orbison lived, that was his stronghold.

There, like the most sensitive bare place,

that's where he displayed his power, and he hung out in places

that were like embarrassing for people vocally.

I started singing this way because I was writing songs...

..and I, I wrote the melody that I heard in my head and I...

So then I had to sing those notes as well and I didn't know how high

or low you were supposed to go so I went where I wanted to.

There was a show in Memphis that Dad went to probably in the '70s

and Elvis called him out in the audience and, you know,

said that his good friend was here

and the greatest singer in the world,

and he introduced Roy Orbison.

The first show I ever did in Memphis, my record was number one,

and Elvis came along and was introduced at intermission.

Of course he stole the show but we had a talk, a chat afterwards,

and from then until his death we were very, very close.

When Elvis died, some of the fans stole his body.

And Roy started to get his gun and then started thinking,

and I could see that he was thinking something

and what he was thinking is that there was only two directions

these guys could have gone in that car, and he knew that

if they went east they would be driving through Nashville,

and he was going to get his car and go wait on the highway

because they had shown what the station wagon probably looked like.

He thought he could go out there and get Elvis...

..from these people. And he was going to do it.

I try to remain innocent and very, very young as long as I can,

but those reminders, like with Elvis,

and John, I have known all these people

and we were very close so that hurts a great deal.

And...and is a reminder, even when you want to try and stay young.

So here we go, '78, my father has a massive heart attack,

triple bypass surgery. You know, are we going to lose him?

And just really unexpected, you know, he's 42 - gosh.

And...now it's...

..more fragile than before.

I always thought, you know, maybe when he retires, you know,

maybe in those retirement years we would get to be closer and he

would have more time and I could be more, more handy for him, you know?

Instead of a little needy kid I could, you know, be an adult

and we could do adult things, but now some of this was in jeopardy.

I think the little one's coming pretty soon.

-Yeah.

-So you'd rather not be smoking on camera then?

Uh...

No, if we get something that you really love though and I've got

a cigarette in my mouth all the time, you know,

that's not going to fit in well when I explain to people

that I've had open heart surgery, you know?

They are going to say, "Well, you've got a death wish

"or something." You know? And then they get the wrong impression.

My dad had his first heart attack in '77, '78.

That puts my mom where... beside having kids,

she'd never done anything with her life.

And with the vulnerability of the heart attack and being at home for

longer periods of time, you know,

my mom had started to cope more with that with drinking,

and so she had started drinking a little bit more

and I think it played into her insecurities and she became

agoraphobic, where leaving the house at all seemed terrifying to her.

For me what was normal no longer was normal. You know, it changed.

There was a seismic shift in the home life in our house

and so that can all be terrifying...

..for a young child.

# Hey, hound dog man

# Where you been now, where you been?

# I wish that you were back

# It was too good to ever end

# Once in a while someone like you... #

When Austin City Limits was filmed that guy was my best friend...

# Hey, hound dog man... #

..the way his voice had a sort of vulnerability and the vibrato

was different than in early, it wasn't quite as confident

as early years, and wasn't quite as mature as it was in the later years.

It's very vulnerable.

# You gave the world a whole lot of joy... #

On the Austin City Limits concert there was one song that

he didn't record anywhere else, it wasn't taped,

and so that we have film of Hound Dog Man.

# The way you sang rock and roll and blues... #

Hound Dog Man is the best Elvis tribute song there is.

It's just so beautiful and it's there on that video.

# And the memory that it brings

# Hey, hound dog man

# My old friend, play it again. #

Time is very important.

A lot of brilliant people through the ages have written that

time is the most important thing, but if you take that literally

you get very paranoid and say, you know,

"I might not be around tomorrow, I'd better hurry up today

"and do everything I'm going to do today."

When it became time for my dad to want to reclaim his throne

because there was a time when the record industry had changed

and we had had record deals and publishing deals go sour

and my dad consciously just said, "I'm not playing that game

"because I tour, I'm Roy Orbison

"I make enough money to have a happy life

"and I don't like disco music anyway."

And a lot of things happened around 1984, and my dad started

to want to make a run for the top again, and this very much involved

my mom becoming his manager and them seeing this thing through together.

Roy was signed to Virgin Records

and all of a sudden by meeting with me, they just said, "Listen,

"you need to help us, you need to manage Roy,"

so that's the way it came about, because I had a vision

and they have the same vision and it was just magic, you know?

In a way my dad was a man with a plan

before my mom quit drinking,

and then having Barbara totally on board

and moving into a management role officially...

..Barbara finds her voice as a human being

and together they push through and the plan is working.

When you're young and you walk into a life that is so big, yeah,

you lose yourself, but then when it was time for me

to sort of understand who I was

and what I wanted to do with my life, luckily it happened

that Roy could really hear me to give me that place.

Moving to California was another bold move, you know.

Roy sold the house that we had lived in for 30 years.

I still look back and I go like,

"I don't know why we sold the house," but this was a real break.

The strange thing about California

was that my parents went to California for a writing session.

I'm ten years old

and they went in the last couple of weeks of summer

and they never came back and so I started school in the fifth grade

with no parents at home.

I would get myself ready and go down and have the driver drive to school.

Then there was a phone call.

My mom and dad said, "Well, we're in Malibu and we love it here.

"What would you say if we said do you want to move to Malibu?"

And I literally just screamed out loud

and I couldn't believe what was happening.

It sounded like a dream.

So, now we have the family moving to Malibu.

Mamaw was already bedridden by this point.

She had crushed one of her hips

and had to have reconstructive surgery

and so we couldn't make the move.

He started hanging out with U2 and David Lynch

and T Bone Burnett and Jeff Lynne

and from those projects, we had the Wilburys,

we had the Mystery Girl album

and we had the Black and White Night with Bruce Springsteen.

And then you go...

# Sweet... #

-You might want to go...

-Yeah, I may have to.

-# Sweet dreams, baby

-Baby... #

-After four of those.

-After four of those.

-So, we do the first breakdown.

-Yeah.

-VOICEOVER:

-I'm a bit overwhelmed.

-VOICEOVER:

-I'm very grateful

that all these wonderful people came by to help me out.

Hup!

# Sweet dreams, baby

# Sweet dreams, baby

# Sweet dreams, baby

# Sweet dreams, baby

# Oh, how long must I dream? #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The amazing thing is that this isn't a granted

that Roy Orbison's actually going to have a comeback

and the fact that everything started to click

and you had these crazy things, like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...

In '75, we went into the studio to make Born To Run.

I wanted to make a record with words like Bob Dylan

that sounded like Phil Spector, but most of all,

I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison.

Now, everybody knows that nobody sings like Roy Orbison.

So, all I want to say is congratulations,

thanks for the inspiration and, ohhhh, mercy!

David Lynch used In Dreams in a movie.

# In dreams, I walk with you... #

There was nothing cooler in pop history for teenagers

and adults alike than David Lynch to feature In Dreams in a movie.

I mean, it was so shocking and crazy and different

and it changed the pop culture where all of a sudden, everyone,

and literally everyone, wanted a piece of my dad, you know,

just like young teenage girls trying to mob him

to get his signature and so Roy's on top of the world again.

# California blue

# California blue... #

Roy was working with Jeff Lynne in the studio

and Tom Petty and George came to America to cut a song for his album

and they phoned Bob and there they were.

# Been beat up and battered around... #

In May of that year, he had called for my birthday

and they were in the studio and he said, "I've got somebody that I want

"to have wish you happy birthday,"

and on the phone,

-ENGLISH ACCENT:

-"Hello, Wes, happy birthday."

The next guy sounds like he's imitating the first guy.

"Hello, Wes, happy birthday!" And he starts cracking up.

By the time the third guy's on the phone, they're laughing so hard

that they can't even talk any more.

# Happy birthday to you! #

And so Dad gets on the phone just giggling.

"Oh, man, that was Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, George Harrison."

I'm like, "Oh, my goodness!"

These are some of my terrific heroes, you know.

These are rock and rollers, you know.

This is a band, are you kidding?

That's, like, the coolest thing I've ever heard.

The Wilburys weren't the saving grace,

you know, my dad was at zero and pulled him out.

Everything in my dad's life was already working

and as a result of that, the Wilburys happened

and my dad's at top form.

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

# Everybody's got somebody

# To lean on

# Put your body next to mine

# And dream on... #

He was able to orchestrate this high note

that we get from some of his songs, you know.

It's like the sad songs happened before the tragedies

and then the renaissance happened

before the end of the song, you know.

So, Roy Orbison is alive and kicking, as they say in English.

Alive and well and I guess I've never been busier

or more successful. It's amazing.

-Are you happy?

-Very, very happy, yeah.

Roy and I had been in Europe for just a pleasure trip

and we said goodbye in England

and he was going to fly to tour one more night in Boston

and Akron, I guess two more nights,

and go home to Nashville to wish his mum

and our other kid Wesley merry Christmas

and then we were going to join and spend Christmas somewhere else.

When he comes to the house for the visit,

he's really excited about the new project

and, "I've got a little time to hang out with you, man,

"just me and you, and I've got the new record."

And things are really going great, you know.

For about an hour.

Then he's unresponsive in the bathroom.

Didn't want to check on him.

But I had this sense, something didn't feel right.

I mean, it really didn't feel right. What could be wrong, you know?

"Hey, Dad," you know? No answer.

I was like, "OK. Hey, Dad?"

No answer so I had to run and get a phone

and I was too freaked out.

They phoned in the middle of the night and they woke me up

in the middle of the night and then my mom just told me

pretty quickly in one sentence...

There was no beating around the bush, just like everybody...

It's always so abrupt, there's no real way to say it so she said,

"Roy Kelton..."

I don't even know how she said it.

She said, "Roy Kelton, your dad died last night."

# I was all right for a while

# I could smile for a while

# But I saw you last night

# You held my hand so tight

# As you stopped to say hello

# Oh, you wished me well

# You couldn't tell... #

You can't describe what it's like to lose someone that special

and so quickly and so, you know,

it was earth-shattering for me as a son.

Something kind of beautiful happened that night

because my mom was far away and the press was attacking so much,

the record company, Virgin, and all the record companies, they...

They hired limousines to form a wall down the street

so the press couldn't get there

so they blocked off the whole street with 30 or 40 long limousines

so we had a wall of limousines protecting us from the press

and then my mom got the next flight out

and she flew and came to be with us.

Getting to hear the record was a little less than happy news.

It was kind of, you know, this heavy, heavy bit of music

that was new, but it was also kind of a...

..an end, as well.

This was all of the new music he was going to do.

This was kind of maybe a gift, if you will.

So, I didn't get to listen to it with him.

It took a couple of days for the dust to settle,

then I put it on and, of course, the first track is You Got It.

And, man, oh, man... Gosh, it was...

You know, just so wonderful to hear how good...

# Anything you want

# You got it

# Anything you need

# You got it

# Anything at all

# You got it, baby

-# Anything at all

-You got it

# Baby... #

When I see the home videos,

the one thing it really drives home is we were so loved.

There's a little footage of my dad following me over to the beach

and he's videotaping and he's trying to get a candid shot of me,

I want to jump up and down and do all this stuff.

There's one chance that he gets when I'm looking at the waves

and he's filming me and, er...

ROY LAUGHS

It's... It's all there in one moment. It's really, er...

Cos I felt loved and I do feel loved,

but it's been a long time and you forget a little bit.

For 20 years, we were together and at the time when he passed away,

we had found a way of living where we concluded each day

with one another so there was not that...lots of regrets.

There weren't any and I always said that I told Roy everything

that I needed to tell him during those 20 years, you know,

whether I loved him or what I didn't like about him

and we laughed lots so there was a feeling of completeness

when he passed away,

-which kind of helps with the grief, you know.

-Absolutely.

And I have incredible boys and I feel more sad for them

because I don't think they got to conclude

because they were 13 and 18 and 22.

After my dad had died, we looked at photos

and laid them all over the floor

and so they had all these wedding pictures

and it was probably the first time in my life I had ever thought

about someone other than myself and I just thought, "Holy shit!"

You know, "Holy crap, what my mom is going through at this time!"

And then these things keep happening -

the Grammy for Pretty Woman...

-Roy Orbison.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I know it was one of the great honours of Barbara's life

to accept the Grammy Award on Roy's behalf in 1991.

I was there, too.

I got up on stage and stood just a little to the right

and every achievement was another milestone.

It was kind of like that part was a game, that was the game.

And Mom had accepted Dad into this Songwriters Hall of Fame.

This is truly an honour to be here tonight

and accept this award on behalf of Roy the songwriter.

Her first thought was probably that there was a song...

There was an outtake of Careless Heart

and she started looking for this outtake of Careless Heart

and she realised that there were enough outtakes

that she could make a great album.

I didn't even know if I wanted to finish this album

and I arrived at the studio

and everybody had gone and just Don and the engineer were at the studio

and I looked around and it was very quiet and at that moment,

Don turned on the controls

and I heard the words that Roy was singing -

"reach out and let it touch your soul".

# And give in to love... #

And I don't know what happened to me.

I knew that the album would be all right without Roy actually

checking every little detail.

For us as a family, my mom was going to live forever.

She was just a tank and she was so, you know...

When she pursued something, she pursued it so wholeheartedly

and she would just get the answer that she wanted a lot of times

and so you see Roy Orbison in these amazing places and, yeah,

he's the most incredible singer ever known to man,

but a lot of those situations were just

because Barbara wouldn't take no for an answer and so, you know,

people don't know because my mom didn't tell anyone

that she was sick, but she died super-unexpectedly,

like the same thing happens again, you know?

We think that we're getting her out of the hospital and we're not.

# Golden days before they end

# Whisper secrets to the wind

# Your baby won't be near you any more... #

The first time that Wesley and Roy and I had actually seen each other,

we were just so happy to be alive and to love each other as brothers

and so the obvious thing would be to carry the torch

and to do what our family has done

since 1944.

She had, you know, five or six big things

that we had worked on for 20 years,

things that my dad had worked on and not quite completed

so she felt this obligation to him

to make sure that this man's great works were completed

and now we have the same obligation to her.

There was a really dark time after Barbara had died

where literally everyone was wondering,

"Are these guys going to pull this off?"

And, I mean, everything. You could see there was just like a...

And slowly but surely, I think that we've been doing well.

-Listen, guys, shall we play that take back?

-Yeah, yeah.

It sounded great, I thought.

Things are really going good for us

and it's wonderful to be working with my brothers,

telling the story and expanding the legacy, having children

and being a family together.

The latest project with the Royal Philharmonic

is another one I'm really, really proud of.

We got to play with the orchestra and be with my brothers.

It's really terrific.

# Pretty woman, talk a while

# Pretty woman, give your smile to me

# Pretty woman, yeah, yeah, yeah

# Pretty woman, look my way... #

With the Royal Philharmonic project, the sessions were so amazing.

I mean, we're talking Number 2 Room at Abbey Road.

That's The Beatles' room and then in Nashville,

Wesley, Roy and I got together

at the studio that my dad owned when I was born.

This is the place that my dad would have spent the most other time

besides at home playing with us kids

and so here we are, 40 years later, all together.

In the middle of all of this,

baby Roy had a suit that looked similar to this.

It was like a little vest or something, you know.

The kid is so talented at keeping time and clapping.

We need to have him on the record and so Papa Roy,

in this case, which is Roy Orbison Jr,

gets a guitar and puts it on the floor

and the guitar's perfectly tuned and Baby Roy strums the guitar.

And it's the first thing that you hear on Oh, Pretty Woman

and so you have these, like, three generations of Orbison men

and you have all three Roys on this one recording

and it's a surreal feeling.

My dad would say, "I love you," and I would say, "I love you, too."

One time, he told me really seriously,

he said, "Son, you'll never know how much I love you..."

He said, "Son, you'll never know how much I love you

"until you have a son of your own."

And I didn't fully realise what he meant

until I saw little Baby Roy playing music

on this Royal Philharmonic song Pretty Woman

and it was like a chain of lightning that...

You know, I felt that that's that torch we're talking about,

that's that music.

I felt that chain of lightning going through me as I looked at him

and through that, I know what he would have seen

by Alex and Wesley and I playing on this album.

He would have shed a tear over that, for sure.

# There goes my baby

# And there goes my heart... #

He was just really a terrific person to have known

and those of us who were lucky enough to love him,

we really got something special, you know.

# Know why I-I

# I cry... #

To experience life through the prism of those songs,

they were the lessons that we learned about relationships

and love and heartbreak.

They were the soundtrack to our lives

and we ended up living the sadness in those songs.

# Only the lonely

# Only the lonely... #

It's crazy to find your real calling later in life

and, you know, I'm a drummer by trade, but...

..looking after my dad and my brothers is my true calling.

# Maybe tomorrow

# A new romance... #

They would always ask him, "Roy, how would you like to be remembered?"

And he would just say, "I would just like to be remembered."

# You gotta take

# If your lonely heart breaks

# Only the lonely. #

CHEERING