Today would have been Roy Orbison's 75th birthday, and it's interesting to consider what his career might have been like if he hadn't passed away back in 1988.
At the time of his death, Orbison was in the middle of a career resurgence thanks in large part to his role with the Traveling Wilburys, an MTV-beloved supergroup also featuring Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. He'd even recorded Mystery Girl, his first solo album in almost a decade, which would be released after his death and chart at #2 in the U.S.
Orbison's "comeback" predated similar later-in-life revitalizations of his contemporaries by several years. Johnny Cash's 1994 American Recordings, Loretta Lynn's 2004 Van Lear Rose and Jerry Lee Lewis's 2006 Last Man Standing all owe some of their concept to the critical success Orbison had with Mystery Girl, which counted Lynne, T-Bone Burnett, Bono and Tom Petty gutarist Mike Campbell as producers (Petty, Campbell and the rest of the Heartbreakers would also play a role in Cash's resurgence).
This comeback also came earlier in his life, when Orbison was in his early 50s. Cash was 64 and less than nine years away from his own death when he made American Recordings with Rick Rubin. Lynn was 70 when working with Jack White on Van Lear Rose, and Lewis 71 when his smoking series of duets was released. Had he not passed away, would Orbison have been able to follow Mystery Girl with similar success, as Cash did with the later "American" albums?
A lot of things leaned that way -- for example, Orbison's style of music went well with the songs he was singing. Cash did the same throughout the entire "American" series, as did Lynn. Although still talented and gifted beyond most folks' wildest dreams, both artists realized they were not teenage rebels any more and so they didn't sings songs that pretended they were.
But Lewis and the then-66-year-old Ringo Starr just sound creepy singing "Sweet Little 16" on Standing, (even though Lewis and Merle Haggard kick quite a bit of younger artist booty with "Just Bummin' Around.") A misfit between the singer and the songs is even more harmful to the Jack-White produced The Party Ain't Over, Wanda Jackson's 2011 album. When a 73-year-old woman sings about "quivers down my backbone/Got me shakin' in my thighbone," cringes follow. Septuagenerians have natural sexual desires and urges, of course, but expressing those desires in a manner more apt to those bipedal collections of hormones called teenagers is just a little skin-crawly.
Orbison, on the other hand, didn't sing anything weird, squicky or just plain creepy on Mystery Girl. As in most of his career, his songs were about loves gained and lost rather than hot mamas tumbled or not. Even his major libido-laden 1963 hit Oh, Pretty Woman is about an adult woman, not a girl.
It would certainly have been interesting to have seen how Orbison's voice would have handled the last 20 or so years, and what kind of material he might have added to his catalog as he dealt with the probable diminishing of that magnificent gift. Perhaps he would be contemplating a kind of retirement after 20 or more years of high creativity and quality output. Perhaps he would now be making a second comeback, having faded away again sometime after that 1988-89 high spot. No way to know.
In any event, we have the music he did release and it's a large and impressive enough group of songs to satisfy old fans and reward new listeners as well.
Edited to change post title -- I misquoted Mr. Orbison.
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