Roy Orbison
started out doing rockabilly, with one minor hit (“Ooby Dooby”) on the
legendary Sun record label. He achieved his greatest success and fame in the
first half of the 1960s, mostly with ballads (“Only The Lonely”, “Running
Scared”, “Crying”, “In Dreams”), although his biggest hit was the atypically
upbeat “Oh, Pretty Woman” (which Van Halen would desecrate quite a few years
later) in 1964.
I didn’t
really start listening seriously to rock music until late summer 1965, just in
time for “Ride Away”, which is still my favorite Orbison track, as well as the
first single I remember buying. It was the first single he released after his
ill-fated switch from the Monument record label to MGM; he had 9 Top 10 hits on
the former, while not even cracking the Top 20 with any of his MGM singles. It’s
still one of the great road songs ever; its melody is deceptively simple, but
I once spent hours trying to work out all of its chord changes on guitar,
especially the song’s bridge. (Give it a try, but no fair looking it up on the
Web.)
[UPDATED 3/11/2015 -- now a Geico commercial!]
[UPDATED 3/11/2015 -- now a Geico commercial!]
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