There's A Cat In Town That You Might Know........ to page 3
In 1956, Roy
teamed up with The Roses for shows in West Texas. By Autumn 1956, The Rose
were a vocal trio made up of Robert Linville, David Bigham and Ray Rush.
They accompanied
Roy to Memphis to record 'Sweet And Easy To Love' / 'Devil Doll' (Sun 265
and 353) on December 14th 1956. Robert Linville recalls that Roy took the
group to Clovis at Easter 1957 but no recording details are known.
According to Robert, The Roses
rehearsed with Buddy Holly at this time but doesn't think tapes were running;
certainly nothing has ever surfaced.
Petty was
sufficiently impressed that he asked The Roses to return to Clovis to become
session vocalists when they finished college that summer. This
they did and it's puzzling that Petty didn't team them up with The Crickets
until the following year.
Roy
Orbison was never happy at Sun because his desire to sing ballads was denied
by Sam Phillips who seemingly saw him as a shouting rocker. Roy made several
trips tp Clovis to test out new songs which feature full bands but were
probably intended as songwriting demos because any release by Roy would
have conflicted with his Sun contract.
Two decades
ago Norman Petty told John Beecher he didn't have rights to issue his Roy
Orbison tapes but stated that he would be happy to lease them if Roy approved
the deal.
Sadly, Orbison
refused with the standard disclaimer that their release would 'harm my
career'. Those fortunate to have heard the Clovis tapes will know Roy made
a mistake as the material is as good as anything he cut in his entire career.
The Orbison
co-compositions 'Cast Iron Arm' and 'You've Got Love' were recorded by
Peanuts Wilson on May 26th 1957 with unissued alternatives existing for
both songs.
The commonly
quoted July 16th 1957 is actually the date Brunswick purchased one version
of each song, not the recording date; they were released on Brunswick 55039.
Peanuts was on vocals and rhythm guitar
with Jack Kennelly (bass), Billy
Pat Ellis (drums), either Jimmy seals or James Morrow (sax) and The Roses
(backing vocals), with aural evidence suggesting Roy on Lead guitar.
Jerry MacNeish and I found nothing to suggest that Roy cut his own versions
of the two songs.
Roy recorded
'A True Love Goodbye' in Clovis on several occaisions, including June 23rd
1957 and probably August 20th 1957. The song exists with varied instrumentation;
some takes including celesta which was presumably played by Vi Petty.
The Nor-Va-Jak
publishing contract, showing Orbison and Petty as composers, is dated August
26th 1957. Another Orbison/Petty composition,
'You've Had It', was filed with Nor-Va-Jak on the same date but we found no evidence of any recording. Could this have been converted into the Wilson/Orbison song 'I've Had It' which was filed with 'My Heartbeat'
(same composers) on November 12th 1957? Peanuts had recorded both songs a couple of days earlier.