Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Teenage Kings by Caspar Vega Roy Orbison … "The Greatest Singer in the World," Said Elvis
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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Teenage Kings by Caspar Vega Roy Orbison … "The Greatest Singer In the World," Said Elvis. One Saturday morning in the spring of 1961, I faced one of the most agonizing decisions of my young life. Earlier that morning, my mother had given me my weekly allowance of $1. With that dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket, I hurried downtown to the hot spot for record sales in Spokane, The Music Box, where I began scanning the wall racks for a “45” to buy. I narrowed my choice down to two records—“Surrender” by Elvis and “Blue Angel” by Roy Orbison. I only had enough money to get one, so I had to make a decision. In a booth I listened to both records over and over, and after changing my mind several times, I put my dollar bill on the counter and walked out with … the Roy Orbison record. It wasn’t just my allowance that Presley and Orbison competed for in those days. From 1960 through 1964, the two singers battled for supremacy on the pop charts. By 1963 Elvis had won me over to his side, but I remained a fan of Orbison, as well, until the “British Invasion” sent him tumbling down the charts, along with many other successful pre-Beatles American acts. At age 12 in 1961, I was unaware of the past professional and personal relationships shared by my two favorite singers. In April 1936, Roy Orbison was born in Texas, just a little more than a year after Elvis entered the world in Mississippi. Musically, both were influenced in their youths by the wide variety of musical styles being played on the radio. There was one major difference, however, in the kind of music they heard. “Elvis was surrounded by black music almost exclusively,” Roy explained years later. “Black music and country music were just beamed every day in his area. But in my area (white West Texas), that wasn’t the case.” From his early teens, Roy play his guitar and sang for small audiences around Wink, Texas, where his family lived. After graduating from high school, his conservative values led him to enroll at North Texas State University at Denton near Fort Worth. He was soon infected, however, by rock ’n’ roll, as it swept its way across the country. He’d heard Elvis’s “That’s All Right (Mama)” on the radio and heard talk about his wild stage show. • Orbison on Elvis: “What comes out is not show” On April 16, 1955, Roy drove the family car to Dallas to catch Presley’s act at the Sportatorium. “I couldn’t overemphasize how shocking he looked and seemed to me that night,” Roy recalled. “He told jokes that weren’t funny, and his diction was real coarse like a truck driver’s. [There was] pandemonium in the audience because the girls took a shine to him and the guys were getting a little jealous.” Orbison came away realizing, “what comes out is not show. There are a lot of people who are good actors at singing to that they make you think they sound good but, with Elvis, he lives it altogether.” While Presley’s gaudy appearance and wild stage antics challenged Roy’s conservative upbringing, the music converted him. “I really loved hearing it and couldn’t wait for the next records to come out,” he admitted. “At the same time, I was kind of ready to go myself.” And so Orbison’s local band, the “Wink Westerners,” included a couple of subdued rock ’n’ roll numbers in their country repertoire. At a free college concert soon afterwards, Roy heard a song that would put an end to his book learning. It was “Ooby Dooby,” written by Dick Penner and Wade Moore. After the show, they told Orbison it was “rockabilly.” The Westerners added “Ooby Dooby” to their act, and the crowd reaction soon led to the band’s total conversion to rockabilly. The group became The Teen Kings and Roy became Elvis for awhile. “I was very much an extrovert, sensation-seeking fellow,” he said of his new persona on stage. “I moved around more than Elvis or anyone.” • Sam Phillips summoned Roy Orbison to Memphis. In 1956 Roy Orbison received his big break when Cecil Hollerfield, an Odessa record store owner, acted as a go-between with Sam Phillips. Hollerfield played a demo of Roy singing “Ooby Dooby” over the phone for Sam, who asked that a copy be sent him so that he could study it. Later Sam called Hollerfield and told him to have Roy and the Teen Kings in Memphis within three days to remake “Ooby Dooby.” When Roy showed up at the Union Avenue studio in Memphis, Sam immediately realized that he did not have another rock ’n’ roll head banger like Elvis on his hands. “I just found him to be an almost grown kid,” Sam recalled. “He had so much damn innocence about him—and he never really changed from that.” Roy was not greatly impressed with Sam’s assertive manner, but knowing how Phillips had built up Presley, Roy put himself in Sam’s hands. “He was like quite a few people who are successful in this business who can’t play an instrument, can’t sing a lick, can’t read a note, can’t even whistle,” Roy explained. Roy and the Teen Kings had recorded “Ooby Dooby” twice before in other studios, but at Sun Sam Phillips insisted it be done his way. “He wanted everything up, everything fast, everything with all the energy that was possible,” Roy remembered. Sam noted, “I was very much impressed with Roy’s infliction and the way he did ‘Ooby Dooby.’ And I think it impressed me more than it impressed Roy then.” To promote the new Sun single release, Bob Neal, Elvis’s former manager, arranged a tour in the summer of 1956 for Roy and the Teen Kings, with Johnny Cash topping the bill. Roy would never forget what happened at one show in Memphis that summer. At the conclusion of Roy’s set, Elvis ambled on stage. “Marvelous show,” he told the wide-eyed newcomer. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he added. “You’re that good that I’ll never appear on stage with you.” The polaroid photo taken of the two singers that night became one of Roy’s treasured possessions for the rest of his life. • “Ooby Dooby” put Roy Orbison on pop music map. “Ooby Dooby,” Sun Records #242, spend eight weeks on Billboard’s Top 100 pop chart, peaking at #59 in the summer of 1956. Roy Orbison was on the road to pop music success. It wouldn’t arrive in full bloom, however, for several more years. Meanwhile, Roy continued to toil at Sun Records and tour the South with the studio’s other stars—Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. “I’d go on stage,” Orbison remembers, “and I’d play everybody else’s stuff—Chuck Berry’s stuff, Little Richard’s stuff—then I’d sing my one hit record and get off.” While working at Sun, Roy spent many evenings hanging out with Elvis. According to Orbison’s biographer Alan Clayson, “Roy was enchanted to be in the King’s court; a confidant of the person, only a year older than himself, who’d become the voice of teenage escapism and aspiration. Presley’s fame and wealth had granted him a splendid certainty in everything he did or said. America was there solely for his pleasure.” Roy remembered one unusual episode during that summer: “One night, we went by to pick up Elvis’s girlfriend in his purple Cadillac—I think he was making twenty million a year at the time. When he knocked on the door, the girl said, ‘I’m sorry. You’re too late,’ and walked back in. We all went on to his house and had Pepsi Colas and potato chips. I couldn’t believe that some woman would turn down a date with Elvis Presley.” In addition to music, Elvis influenced Roy’s lifestyle in several ways. If he was going to stay within Presley’s inner circle, Roy decided he needed to buy a Cadillac and diamond ring. So he used his first royalty check from Sun to buy a white Caddy. Then he upgraded. “I got a little bigger Cadillac and a little bigger diamond ring.” There was no way, though, that he could keep up with Elvis. “That’s foolish,” he finally realized, “and I stopped.” • Elvis gave Roy a love for motorcycles. Elvis’s love of motorcycles also rubbed off on Roy. “It was Elvis who, without knowing it, made me a motorcycling fan. I saw a cycle outside Sun Records studio … somebody told me it belonged to Elvis. I finally managed to get to take a cycle ride with the fellow who bought that machine from Elvis and that was the start of it.” At Sun, Roy was never again able to match the success of “Ooby Dooby.” The three other Orbison records released on Sun went nowhere. Roy became discouraged. “I’d sort of quit recording,” he explained. “Sam had released a couple of songs that I didn’t think he should have … I lost all interest and quit, for seven months I just ambled around.” In addition to artistic differences, money and copyright conflicts arose. “Sam sounded like he … wanted a little too much,” Roy explained. “So I left then.