Roy Orbison

Description by OLDIES.com:

Roy Orbison's sudden death in 1988 was regarded by many as the last scene in a tragedy that had already seen his first wife and two eldest sons taken in separate accidents in the mid 1960s.

Yet Orbison's life was as triumphant as it was sorrowful. Possessing a soaring, cowboy-operatic baritone, and an immobile, entrancing stage presence, the man Elvis Presley called "the greatest singer in the world" began his career behind the scenes as a Nashville songwriter but went on to score more than thirty Top Forty hits in his own right, among them "Oh! Pretty Woman," "Crying" and "Only The Lonely."

After almost two decades out of the charts, he made a stunning return in 1988 when, as a member of The Traveling Wilburys - alongside Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne - the group's debut album sold an amazing two million copies. Suddenly a new generation of pop star admirers, including U2 and KD Lang, were clamouring to work with him just as The Beatles, Elvis and Johnny Cash had decades earlier. Indeed, a Top Ten comeback with "You Got It" and the release of the posthumous Mystery Girl album to critical acclaim suggested that, had he lived, the Big O's best may have been yet to come.