Sings Lonely and Blue [US Bonus Tracks]

Performer: Roy Orbison
Engineer: Bill Porter; Bill Porter
Producer: Fred Foster; Fred Foster; Gregg Geller (Reissue)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Recorded from 1959 to 1960. Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's "Super Bit Mapping" system. Personnel: Roy Orbison; Grady Martin, Hank Garland (guitar); Lillian Hunt, Wilda Tinsley, Jane K. Norris, Alline Fentress, Verna Richardson, Solie Fott, George Binkley III, Brenton Banks (violin); Howard Carpenter (viola); Marvin Hughes (piano); Joe Melson, Anita Kerr Singers (background vocals); Boots Randolph (saxophone); Floyd Cramer (piano); Buddy Harman (drums); Harold Bradley, Jerry Byrd, Bob Moore . Liner Note Author: Boudleaux Bryant. Recording information: RCA Victor Studios, Nashville, TN (09/18/1959-09/17/1960). Time and familiarity -- through multiple reissues -- may have muted the seeming significance of some of what's here, but in 1960 Sings Lonely and Blue was not only a breakthrough for Roy Orbison as his debut LP, but also for rock & roll. Up to that point, apart from Elvis Presley -- who was in a class by himself -- few white rock & rollers had even tried to make as bold a use of the LP as what we hear on this record. Orbison, his collaborator Joe Melson, and producer Fred Foster turned the singer's debut long-player into a huge canvas for a sound that combined rock & roll's beat, Nashville's countrypolitan sound, and the singer's unique multi-octave range and operatic intensity into something unique in music. The single "Only the Lonely" may have been the most accessible and commercial side of this new sound, but the whole album was packed with great moments and different permutations of that sound: the powerful lead vocal and the Boots Randolph sax break on "I'll Say It's My Fault"; the haunting Orbison-Melson "Come Back to Me (My Love)," which was like a mini-movie script, a vest-pocket romantic melodrama sung with operatic depth and played to a light rock & roll beat; Don Gibson's "I'd Be a Legend in My Time," and "I Can't Stop Loving You," both filled with larger-than-life musical attributes and emotions behind Orbison's extraordinary singing, Orbison treating the former almost like a Verdi aria while a sax solo, the Anita Kerr Singers, and a dense string section hold it in the realm of pop music; and "Bye Bye Love" given the new Orbison treatment and sounding like a country-pop symphony. The material was uniformly strong and consistent, probably due, in part, to the fact that Fred Foster was able to draw from nearly a year's worth of recording activity to assemble the contents of the album, and he also took advantage of the album's stereo release to devise a crisp, discreet, two-channel mix that brought out all of the details of this sound in notably sharp relief, creating one of the earliest stereo rock & roll albums that was actually superior to its mono equivalent. Indeed, Sings Lonely and Blue was among the first rock & roll LPs to attract the interest of serious audiophile enthusiasts. ~ Bruce Eder Finally, Roy Orbison gets the CD remastering treatment he deserves. For those who bought the big three-disc box a decade ago and were appalled by the shoddy sound, these reissue discs (Sings Lonely and Blue, In Dreams, and Crying) have a couple of reasons for picking them up. The first is the music itself. Sings Lonely and Blue was an album featuring a couple of singles rounded out with filler. Whether this was intentional or not makes no difference; in the end, the original 12 cuts here are stellar. Here is Orbison's fine-as-silk pop voice, filled with all that cloudy, foggy darkness swirling inside it, singing "Only the Lonely," "Bye Bye Love," "Cry," "Blue Avenue," "Blue Angel," and "I'm Hurtin'," just to name a few. The production elements are beautiful, too, with the Anita Kerr Singers backing him and whirling strings that stroll along with Roy's rock & roll croon. Featured are Floyd Cramer on piano, Boots Randolph on saxophone (check his solo in "Blue Avenue" that runs counterpoint to the strings), Bob Moore on bass, and Jerry Byrd on pedal steel (on cuts like "Cry"). Only Orbison could make a record drenched in syrup feel like a spooky film noir tearjerker. Sings Lonely and Blue is an early masterpiece, as Orbison was in full control of his gifts as a singer. Fred Foster's production may have been standard Nash Vegas for the time period, but Orbison's voice and songs (Orbison and Joe Melson wrote or co-wrote seven of the 12 tracks here, Don Gibson wrote a couple, and Gene Pitney wrote "Twenty-Two Days") carry the track selection into the shadowy dark of risky emotions. Check Orbison's read of Gibson's "I Can't Stop Loving You," and see if he doesn't take back what has always been recorded as a saccharine tune and claim it hard for rock & roll. These new editions also contain bonus cuts, and there are four here: the original 45 version of "Uptown" is included (proving Orbison could rock with the best of them), as are B-sides "Pretty One," "Here Comes That Song Again," and a great read of Pitney's "Today's Teardrops." Amazing. ~ Thom Jurek

Roy Orbison, a seminal rock & roll singer who initially recorded for the legendary Sun Records, created some of the most enduring hits of the 1950s and '60s. His near-operatic voice and dark, broken-hearted songs influenced a generation of artists. His songs and arrangements, almost symphonic in scope, set the template for pop sophistication in the early-to-mid-'60s. After a late-'80s comeback that included collaborations with Bono and Elvis Costello and a stint with the rock super-group the Travelling Wilburys, Orbison died of a heart attack in 1988.

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