The 'Big O'; my very first vinyl

Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ album was the very first 12 inch vinyl I ever bought.  Why?  Because I liked (and still do) his voice and his songs.  In particular at that time I really liked the singles ‘Blue Bayou’ and ‘In Dreams’, so when I first ventured into my local record shop in Brixton, South London, it was this one that caught my eye and separated me from my saved up pocket money.

Of course I didn’t have a record player at the time and so had to ‘borrow’ my parents Dansette player and play the album to them as well.  Remember that the modern ‘Vinyl’ album had only been introduced a mere 13 years before my first purchase – Columbia Records unveiled the new format records made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in June 1948 (so roughly same age as yours truly!), replacing the Shellac 78 rpm of the pre-war era.  Just for interest the first ‘vinyl’ album released to the market was a recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (needless to say, I do not have a copy; although I do have a complete set of Mendelssohn’s works on CD).

OK, so the Big ‘O’; sadly ‘In Dreams’ is the only vinyl I have of Mr. Orbison as my tastes rapidly changed as the 60’s progressed, with British music dominating the scene.  But as one grows older there is at times a tendency to look back and re-evaluate early loves and particularly early dismissals.  Like so many of my generation we tended to dismiss what went before so in the day I did not take to Elvis, Buddy Holly and the like (yes, I know, Idiot) nor sadly to the great range of American Blues and Jazz, all mistakes that I have now corrected!!

In particular, why did the Blues and Jazz scene escape me when half if not more of the music I loved was actually influenced by those genres?!  Mind you by the time I got to university I was well into the Blues and some jazz (mainly Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Jimmy Smith).  But as for Mr. Orbison, although my parents and I had a few of his single 45rpm releases, it was only when The Travelling Wilburys formed in the late 80’s that my interest in him was revived and indeed enhanced.  Not only did he have one of the all time great voices of modern music but he also wrote most of his songs, unlike many of his contempories.

So my sincere thanks to those influential ‘fans’ who helped resurrecting the Big O’s career and bringing him back to the forefront of the music scene in 1986, including David Lynch, Bruce Springsteen and jeff Lynne.  Tragically this resurgence was all too brief due his untimely death in 1988; although he did get to release two more albums – “Mystery Girl” and, posthumously, “King of Hearts”; I have, and love, both.  I also recommend trying the more recent compilation albums, remixed with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: “A Love So Beautiful” and “Unchained Melody”.