Artist: ROY ORBISON
Album: LOVE SONGS REMASTERED (CD)

Release date: 1960-65/ 2006
Media type: CD

With his geeky, black-rimmed glasses and pasty, pudgy-faced visage, Roy Orbison was never exactly heartthrob material. Nevertheless, his poetic lyrics, quavering tenor, and impassioned vocal delivery made him one of the most romantic singers in pop history. The Orbison addition to Columbia's LOVE SONGS series is an excellent cross-section of the enigmatic performer's aesthetic, capturing the dreamy, yearning essence of his music perfectly. From the opener, "Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)," the listener is struck by the singer's ability to blend rich melodies, string-sweetened arrangements, and pop hooks in a powerfully effective way.

This distinctive style carries through on the building drama of "Running Scared," the misty-eyed fantasy of "Blue Bayou," and the definitive relationship curtain call, "It's Over." Each gem here achieves the dimensions of a mini-epic (particularly the surreal, aching masterpiece "In Dreams") via swelling strings, backing vocals, and escalating dynamics. Through it all is Orbison's superb, reverb-touched voice that virtually drips with love, heartbreak, loneliness, and longing. Orbison's vocals and music are so closely connected to the more tender emotions, if fact, that this well-selected LOVE SONGS--save a couple important omissions (namely "Pretty Woman" and "Crying")--plays like a greatest-hits collection.

Recording information: 1960 - 1965.

TRACKLIST:

01. Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)
02. Running Scared
03. In Dreams
04. Love Hurts
05. Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)
06. She Wears My Ring
07. Legend in My Time,, A (I'd Be)
08. Borne on the Wind
09. Blue Bayou
10. Falling
11. All I Have to Do Is Dream
12. You're My Girl, (Say)
13. It's Over
14. Goodnight

LINE-UP:

Charlie Mccoy - harmonica
Floyd Cramer
Roy Orbison - vocals, guitar
Harold Bradley
Bob Moore - bass instrument
Wayne Moss - guitar
Marvin Hughes - piano
Jerry Arnold - drums
Anita Kerr Singers - background vocals
Dana King - French horn