When that happened, everything changed.The article, which was slated to be a regular feature story, became a Rolling Stone Interview.  It also became a cover story. And rather than having a month or so to finish it, I had less than a week.  But then, after almost a decade of writing for Rolling Stone, I was used to eleventh-hour changes.

    I worked on staff in Rolling Stone's Los Angeles office from 1979 to 1984, when the days of legendary indulgences were mostly gone.  We worked in a gleaming, thoroughly corporate Century City high-rise, and the wildest thing that happened was when a remarkable editorial assistant celebrated her resignation by dancing nude on her desk, after insisting that I take photos for Random Notes.  (She didn't make it into Randoms, although the section's then writer, Kurt Loder, was anxious to see the photos anyway.)

        It was an odd time at the magazine, which was coping with the record industry's early Eighties bust and having one of its periodic crises over how best to cover rock music and whether it still deserved to be the magazine's focus.  For reasons having to do with that and other stuff, I was eventually fired, a fate entirely typical of Rolling Stone staffers. In short order, though, I started freelancing for the magazine; again this is typical, the only difference between my story and lots of others' being that I was pissed at the magazine for a few weeks before returning to the fold, whereas the usual period of estrangement is measured in years.

        By the time Rolling Stone asked me to write about Orbison in 1988, I was writing as much as I ever had for the magazine and making more in freelance fees than I ever did in salary.  In a two-year burst of activity, I'd done or was about to do cover stories on the Who, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M. and several others - but Orbison was in many ways my biggest thrill.  He was also the nicest guy.

        We first met in the fall of 1988, when Orbison was near the end of the sessions for what was to be his comback album, Mystery Girl.  I vividly remember him standing in the recording studio the first time we met, clad all in black except for a pait of bright red shoes.  Of course, the mind can falter in the presence of a legend as durable as Orbison's:  I just checked my notes from that day, and he was actually wearing a white shirt along with his black slacks and red shoes.  Plus, of course, his famous spectacles, which were slightly tinted but so thick they seemed to be sunglasses.

        Between his unearthly voice, an eleven-piece string section and the man's gentle magnetism, it was as breathtaking a recording session as I've ever attended.  The trouble was, it was a session for "Windsurfer," the slightest and silliest song on Mystery Girl.  At the time, I didn't even notice that it was a pretty terrible song; inretrospect, though, it's one of the regrets of my life that I didn't take Orbison up on his invitation to return any time, because the following night he recorded "She's a Mystery to Me," a song as sublime and a performance as astonishing as anything he'd done since, say, "Crying."  I saw Orbison regularly over the next two months or so, and much of the interview took place on the run: in an airplane between Phoenix and L.A.,  in my car on the way to the recording studio.  He was so polite, sweet tempered and modest to a fault; walking through an airport at one point with a custom-made, black and silver garment bag that had his name on the side, he took care to turn the name toward himself so as not to be conspicuous.  "A friend made this specially for me," he said, "and I haven't the nerve to ask him to take my name off it."

        At first we both worried that the story wasn't coming together.  But our last session was our best.  I picked him up at his hillside house in Malibu, and we drove to a nearby beach-front restaurant; along the way he asked me to stop at a convenience store, where he bought a pack of Camel filters.  He didn't want Barbara, his wife and manager, to know about his smoking, he said, though he knew he wasn't really fooling her.  Over breakfast he smoked a few cigarettes and we finished the interview; his reticence faded somewhat as he tried to speak openly and honestly of his personal tradegies, while at the same time emphasizing that what he had was on the whole a happy life.

        When I pulled up at his door a couple of hours later, he grinned sheepishly and took the cigarettes out of his pocket.  "Can I leave this with you?" he said."I don't want Barbara to see them."He left for Europe that afternoon, and two weeks later Iflew to Memphis to work on another story.  That's where I got the phone call from my wife early one morning; the night before, shesaid,Orbison had suffered a fatal heart attack in Nashville.

        Orbison's death was big news, of course, especially since he was then atopthe charts as a member of the Traveling Wilburys, and the magazine's editors quickly decided to put him on the cover.  They also decided that my story should run as a Q&A rather than a regular feature, a decision that bothered me because I hated to lose the good scenes I would have used in a feature.  But it didn't take long to realize that they were right: The tribute needed to emphasize Orbison's words, not mine.  Besides, it's easier to write a Q&A on a tight deadline.

        Before I went home to write the piece, I spoke to some Memphis locals who'd known Orbison during his mid-Fifties days on Sun Records.  It was during one of these interviews that I felt more uneasy about representing Rolling Stone than I have at any other time over the last thirteen years.

        The subject was Jerry Lee Lewis, the mercurial piano-playing madman-cum-genious who is in many ways Orbison's tempermental opposite. I showed up at Lewis' house with more than a little trepidation: Lewis, after all, is known for a hair-trigger temper and a fondness for firearms, and the last thing Rolling Stone has written about him - "The Strange and Mysterious Death of Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis" - made a convincing case that Lewis had murdered at least one of his five wives.

        Lewis entered the room reeking of cologne, having for some reason been expecting a female reporter.  He spoke fondly, if briefly, of Orbison. He talked about the movie Great Balls of Fire, which I'd come to Memphis to cover and for which he had high hopes, though the film turned out to be laughably inept .And then I asked him whether he ever felt that rock & roll was indeed the devil's music, a view of his that had long ago been documented on underground tapes of recording-sessions dialogue.  "Who says that, now?" he shouted, and his conversation got both louder and more confused.  He began yelling at his wife, who'd been searching for his favorite bottle of whiskey without any success.  (It was in the car.)  "I tell you what, I have never in my life been so humiliated," he mumbled and suddenly turned, looked at me in the eye and said, "What, you from Rollin' Stone Magazine?"        "Uh, yeah," I said  The Killer considered me carefully, then slowly nodded.  "It's a great magazine, innit?"

        It occured to me that this could be a trap, so I hedged my bets. Sometimes I liked it, I said, sometimes I didn't. Really?" he said.  "I've always found it pretty interesting."  This may have been an underhanded dig, but it sounded awfully sincere.  Then, a few minutes later, he returned to the subject.  "You writers, I don't know how the heck you do it," he said.  "To be a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, you gotta be on top of it. I admire people like that, that can move into Memphis and deal with the local people and the local rock & roll piano players.  And then go on down the road and deal with this one, deal with that One......it's hard."

    Sometimes it's hard.  And sometimes it easy.  Roy Orbison was easy. Incidentally, I kept those cigarettes he left in my car.  An artist friend of mine used them in a sculpture.  Adios Roy, she called it 
 

        The country music community has always considered Roy Orbison a member of the family.  After all, emotional honesty is the soul of every great country song, and Orbison's heartfelt vocals made the rock and roll pioneer a natural favorite of country fans.  Some artists - like Ricky Van Shelyon, for example - have brought Orbison's songs to the country music public. His many years as a Nashville resident underscored Orbison's appreciation of country music.

        Orbison's wide ranging appeal has never been more apparent than on "King of Hearts," his newest and last album.  The eight new songs defy categorization, vaulting the boundaries of rock music and crossing over into country territory.  Also with its new material, "King of Hearts" includes, by popular demand, updated versions of two Orbison classics: I Drove All Night and Crying, his duet with k.d. lang which won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.

        Unlike many other artists' posthumously released recordings, "King of Hearts" is as passionate and srticulate as any work Roy ever produced. "If you want my opinion," admits producer Don Was, "I think this is a better album than "Mystery Girl."  Everyone shared the idea 'let's make a great record the way Roy would have made it if he were here.'"

        Barbara Orbison is responsible for the creation of "King of Hearts." As Roy's wife and manager, Barbara played an enormous dual role in his life, and "King of Hearts" represents the most recent chapter of a long running emotional and creative partnership.  With Barbara as his personal manager, Roy enjoyed the most successful years of his career: she was the
behind-the-scenes force during his work with The Traveling Wilburys and his landmark 1989 "Mystery Girl" album.

        "I started managing Roy in 1986," Barbara notes.  "The making of "Mystery Girl" was a dream that Roy and I shared.  The goal was to do an album that would truly honor Roy and his music.  I think my biggest contribution as a manager to the artist Roy Orbison was that I found a way to present him to the world with a heightened integrity and importance."  Through Barbara's efforts, many of the friends and collegues who worked with Orbison on "Mystery Girl" have once again come to Roy's aid, bringing his musical ideas to fruition on "King of Hearts."

        The intriguing story behind "King of Hearts" began with "Mystery Girl," which Orbison had just completed recording at the time of his death in December, 1988.  The record proved to be an artistic and commercial break-through, and the prolific "Mystery Girl" recording sessions yeilded numerous songs intended for Roy's next album, to be released at a later date.  The substanial body of material included tracks in varying stages of completion - from master sessions to demos - and these songs form the core of "King of Hearts."  Three years after Roy Orbison's death, Barbara assembled an extraordinary group of musicians and producers to polish and complete the music he had left behind.  Luminaries recruited by Barbara for the "King of Hearts" album include producers Jeff Lynne, Robbie Robertson, Don Was and T. Bone Burnett, along with musicians k.d. lang, Clarence and Jeff Porcaro.

        Don Was produced three tracks of "King of Hearts:" We'll Take the Night, After the Love Has Gone and his award-winning duet with k.d. lang, Crying. He describes how Roy's gifts as a songwriter and singer made the album possible.  "The album is full of magnificent songs, just fantastic songwriting.  Fortunately, although they were in varying degrees of development, Roy was such a great singer that he never sang a bad vocal," comments Was.

        Robbie Robertson (guitarist from The Band) recalls how he was recruited to produce the song Love in Time.  "When Barbara Orbison called me, she explained that this tape had been lost and nobody knew it existed.  In the eleventh hour, it was discovered, and they asked me to produce it.  How could I say 'no'?" he says.  "I'd never done anything like this before; I looked at it as a bit of a challenge. "We all felt Roy had an unusual, amazing voice," Robertson admits, "but I had an admiration for this guy all the way around.  Roy was also a great writer and played a mean guitar solo, and I really tried to play it for Roy - a personal thing from me to him.  It was a show of respect for the man's talent, a show of admiration."

        Don Was also speaks candidly about his high regard for Orbison.  "He set a wonderful example.  he had done so much and created such an incredible body of music, and yet he had a total sense of humility about him.  From the hours and hours of discussions I had with him - about what he liked and the kinds of records he wanted to make - I think Roy would have been really proud of this one.  I tried to cast the sessions with people who knew Roy, and it was really like he was there.  It was a litle eerie, but it was also comforting to the guys who knew him, kind of like having him back in session."

        k.d. lang sums up the feeling of all who had the opportunity to meet and work with Orbison.  "To sing with him was rewarding not only professionally, but personally and spiritually," she states.  "He was probably the most gentle person I've ever met."

        The honesty and warmth of Roy Orbison's personality permeates "King of Hearts," and country music fans who mourned his passing now have an opportunity to spend some quality time with an old friend.

Country Music City News    March, 1993
 

     In the beginning, rock & roll was about sex.  The very phrase was a black euphemism for a good roll in the hay.  Chuck Berry wrote three-minute odes to teenage mating rituals, and what Elvis Presley did with his hips onstage most people dared not do even behind bedroom doors.  Then a quiet, thoughtful Texan named Roy Orbison came along and proved to the world that rock & roll could also be about love - the cryin', achin', heartbreakin' kind, the once-in-a-lifetime, through-trouble-and-  strife  variety.

     Blessed with a rich, mellifluous voice that shivered with operatic vibrato and soared to extraordinary heights, Orbison could sing like a man on the edge of orgasmic ecstasy or on the verge of tears, sometimes in the same song. He brought to rock & roll a spectrum of emotion as wide as his octave range, and he showed not only that it was okay for a grown man to cry but also that one could find strength through sorrow. When Roy Orbison sang "Only the Lonely," you could hear a trembling, bittersweet tenor that he was singing for all the lonely.  Suddenly, you didn't feel so alone anymore.

     That Orbison touched a highly sensitive nerve among rock & roll fans is evident from his career statistics: twenty-two singles on the Billboard charts, including eight in the Top Ten, between 1960 and 1966; more than 30 million records sold, according to Orbison's own estimate.  But numbers are hardly an adequate measure of his real achievements.  Roy Orbison was a pioneering stylist, marrying lush orchestration and propulsive rock & roll arrangements.  He created a sumptuous yet eerily introspective sound ideally suited to his minioperas of love and pain - "Crying," "Running Scared," "Blue Bayou," "Leah," "In Dreams," "Only the Lonely."  He was fearlessly eclectic, heightening the melodrama with sophisticated rhythmic devices, like the martial bolero beat of "Running Scared," and elaborate choral flourishes in which a mere "dum dum dum dum-bedoo-wah" ("Only the Lonely") could speak volumes.

     Like his closest contemporary rival, Phil Spector, another would-be Wagner, Orbison brought a splendor to rock & roll that equaled its native energy with liberating spirit.  Orbison's songs expanded rock's emotional palette and broadened its musical vocabulary.  He could also rip it up with the best of them.  His biggest hit was 1964's "Oh, Pretty Woman," a masterpiece of horny prowl n' growl, and the flip sides of his ballads were often lowdown, swaggering rockers like "Candy Man" and "Mean Woman Blues."  His specialty, however, was the heart in rock & roll. And when he took aim, he rarely missed.

     To seeOrbison in oneof the vintage publicity photos from his early-60's hey-day, it was hard to immagine he was capable of expressing so much emotion, and with such dramatic immediacy Dressed in black from the tips of his shoes to the imposing crest of his high pompadour, gazing out from behind dark sunglasses with an enigmatic smaile, the soft-spoken balladeer looked more like an inscrutably hip mortician than a rock &roll singer. Orbison began his careerat Sun Records in the company of wild cats like Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, first scoring nationally with the rockabilly romp "Ooby Dooby."

     But Orbison was an anomaly along the first-generation rockers, awkward in the face of rock & roll's primal energy, more at home with the melodic comforts of pop and the confessional poignancy of country music.  To Orbison, rockabilly was a detour from what he considered his true calling. He grew up on a diet of smooth pop and classic country, and his first band, the Wink Westerners, had a repertoire that included "In the Mood," "Moonlight in Vermont," and country hits by Webb Pierce.  After three years at Sun Records, where Sam Phillips unsuccessfully attempted to mold him into another Presley, Orbison tried his luck with RCA, where he floundered under the misdirection of Chet Atkins.

     Finally, under the sympathetic aegis of producer  Fred Foster at the Nashville-based Monument label, Orbison hit his stride.  His third release,  "Only the Lonely," was a song he had written from his frequent collaborator Joe Melson; Itr had been turned down by the Everly Brothers.  Orbison's version went to Number Two in 1960 and sold a million copies.  That success allowed him to pursue his unique version of a rock & roll balladry.  The beguiling beauty of records like "Crying" and "Running Scared" belied the complex feelings of fear and paranoia encoded in Orbison's lyrics.  The love angst of his 1963 single "In Dreams," for example, borders on the surreal, Orbison's voice rising in simulated climax as he finally finds romantic solace in deepest slumber, courtesy of "a candy-colored clown they call the sandman."  That surreal quality came to the fore in Dean Stockwell's bizarre miming of the song in David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet.

     Orbison's hit streak ground to a halt in the late Sixties after he signed with MGM.  His records suffered from limp  production, and his own songwriting only tempts to break his slump - a 1977  LP with Foster; 1979's  Laminar Flow; 1985's class of '55, an anticlimatic Million Dollar Quartet  reunion with Orbison sitting in for the departed Presley - distinguished only by the irrepressible dynamism of Orbison's voice.  His fortunes turned  in 1980 with "That Loving You Feeling Again," a duet  with Emmylou Harris that became a country hit and won a Grammy.  At the time of his death, Orbison was finally back in the Top Ten - for the first time in over twenty years - as one-fifth of the Traveling Wilburys.

     Mystery Girl, Orbison's debut album for Virgin Records (not counting In Dreams: The Greatest Hits,a double album of re-recordings issued in 1987), was to have been the capper of this remarkable comeback.  The album was written and produced with a supporting cast of  all-star acolytes, including Elvis Costello, Bono, T Bone Burnett and fellow Wilburys Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty.  Orbison turned his singular voice loose on a classy selection of  ballads and rockers combining the epic gestures of  his old Monument hits  with the earthly production of the Traveling Wilburys album.  Mystery Girl  is classic Orbison, a timely reminder of then - and now a  final monument to -  the enduring power of his singing.  "Now everybody knows that nobody sings  like Roy Orbison," Bruce Springsteen declared when he inducted Roy Orbison into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.  Nobody ever will.