Roy Orbison - A Forgotten All-Time Great?

[Thorpe Groyney]

Recently I watched a film 'Dark Velvet' with Dennis Hopper in it. In one scene Hopper is beating up a drug dealer while Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" is being played constantly in the background.

I loved the track so I had bought his CD "Mystery Girl". Some absolutely superb tracks on it. "She's A Mystery To Me" and "You Got It" stands the test of time alongside anything he achieved in the 60's.

A brilliant artist, shockingly cut down at the peak of a wonderful resurgence in his career, yet is rarely spoken of. Am I over-rating The Big O or is he as great as I think he is?

 

[MK Shrimper]

Do you mean Blue Velvet directed by David Lynch?

Great performer indeed - you know until fairly recently I thought he was blind!

 

[Thorpe Groyney]

Do you mean Blue Velvet directed by David Lynch?

Great performer indeed - you know until fairly recently I thought he was blind!

That's the film, think it was made in the mid 80's. The drug dealer Hopper's beating up to the sound of 'In Dreams' is quite camp. You're probably confusing Roy with Lennie Peters though.

 

[MK Shrimper]

That's the film, think it was made in the mid 80's. The drug dealer Hopper's beating up to the sound of 'In Dreams' is quite camp. You're probably confusing Roy with Lennie Peters though.

Lol, no it was the shades that never came off! I can remember getting flutterings over Isabella Rossellini in that film.....woof!

 

[Dave Smiths Love Child]

His voice was proven in the Travelling Wilberries, what a line up that was !!!

Never a huge fan till then to be honest, but like most greats you never realise how good till they are dead

 

[Gremlin]

[Some absolutely superb tracks on it. "She's A Mystery To Me"

Written by Bono, wasn't it?

 

[osymandus]

One of only very few people in the world who could hit the top 8 octave so im told by musician chums .

And no his pretty widly still regarded SKy Arts , and Gold radio etc .

 

[Cricko]

Great singer, highly underated but sung some top choons. Luckliy he is in the Rock and Roll hall of fame, it would be sacrilege if he wasn't.

 

[Rob Noxious]

"A candy-coloured clown called The Sandman..."

Recently I watched a film 'Dark Velvet' with Dennis Hopper in it. In one scene Hopper is beating up a drug dealer while Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" is being played constantly in the background.

Am I over-rating The Big O or is he as great as I think he is?

You're not over-rating him, Groyney! That song in that film had a profound effect on me too...although not to the extent described here...

19. Roy Orbison - 'In Dreams'



"...that phrase, 'In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,' turned out to be the title of a poem by one of Mrs S' mentors at Syracuse University, a guy by the name of Delmore Schwarz. She'd grown up amongst the radical fringe and that's where she'd got turned onto all this healing, alternative therapy stuff back in the day. Well, once I'd had that hypnosis I was virtually in a dream-like state for years. Doc McNasty thinks I was hypno-programmed and there's been a lot of stuff written about 'mind control' experiments ever since the fifties. Do you remember that programme we used to watch on Saturday nights, Emp, after Simon Dee and The Monkees, called 'The Invaders'? There was a process called 'brainwashing' where the aliens got control of humans' minds and got them doing things they would never have done before. There's a theory that the guy who shot John Lennon was hypno-programmed, also the one who had a pop at Reagan the year after. Well, it was only when I was watching a film on Rettendon Ward at Runwell one Saturday night that things started coming back to me. It was 'Blue Velvet,' that weird and creepy David Lynch movie in which a guy is miming to 'In Dreams.' The character played by Isabella Rosselini also looked a bit like Mrs S and the two images fused again in my head. Whenever she said those words, 'In dreams begin responsibilities,' that sent me off into the dream world where I could never remember what had happened in between. Really weird stuff, mate - but it's all true. McNasty heard that the film had a big effect on me that night - the male nurses had to sedate me as I kicked off trying to smash windows and let out all my anger - and then got me talking about it by putting me under hypnosis all over again. He said I was programmed by an expert and it took even him a few years to get under the layers and layers of defences that had been built around my conscious memory for the events of those missing years. Now though when I close my eyes and drift away, I can see what happened. It's like watching myself as though I'm in a film as though the character I'm watching is disconnected from me. When I'm 'watching' what I did I have to do it in a linear fashion, the events have to unfurl as they did historically. I can't jumble them up, go fast forward or back, I have to 'see' them in the order they took place. So, I hope you've got a good seat Emp, 'cause your Captain's ready to roll with the projector...lights out!"

(from 'In A Broken Dream': A Pop Novel)

 

[Cricko]

I doubt there are many singers who touch the heart as Roy did....an iconic master.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6MH05zjb24&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMfQG4DejQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMfQG4DejQ&feature=related

 

[C C Csiders]

What a singer!

 

[pickledseal]

Get the black and white night on dvd. Awesome.