Review: 'Roy Orbison: The Ultimate Collection'

Roy Orbison was one of the few truly great artists to make an impact between Rock & Roll’s first wave and the British Invasion. That doesn’t mean he didn’t make worthwhile records before and after that brief window of roughly five years. In the fifties he wrote hyper swingers like “Ooby Dooby” and “Claudette”, a hit for The Everly Brothers, while with Sun Records before maturing into the more dramatic, near-operatic style that made him pop’s King of Tears. After having the final big hit of his key phase, “Pretty Woman”, which married the hard rhythms of his earliest records with the more melodic and complex riffing of the burgeoning Mersey sound, Orbison never stopped making records, and enjoyed a major resurgence in the late eighties when he joined Jeff Lynne’s stable as a Traveling Wilbury and solo artist.

Sony Legacy’s new collection, The Ultimate Roy Orbison, boasts of being the first compilation to incorporate tracks from all of the artist’s phases, though this isn’t true since Legacy’s four-disc Soul of Rock and Roll box set from 2008 had already done that. The big difference here, besides the fact that Ultimate distills Orbison’s career down to a single disc of 26-tracks, is that it jumbles the chronology. I generally prefer this approach to boring old chronological order, though the eras represented on this set are so vastly separated that it makes for a bit of a jarring listen when, say, the rockabilly “Ooby Dooby” gets sandwiched between the peak-era gut punch “It’s Over” and the Lynne-era “Heartbreak Radio”. With all due irony, it points out how the slick eighties stuff now sounds a bit dated while the fifties and sixties tracks remain as fresh and timeless as ever.

Still, unlike a lot of classic artists who attempted comebacks in the eighties, Roy Orbison never embarrassed himself. “You Got It” may not be as indescribably essential as “Dream Baby” or “Crying”, it’s still a damn good song, and this collection does do a fine job of highlighting the man’s consistent quality control. Plus, even though The Ultimate Collection covers an expansive period, the only missing track that really hurts is the luxurious non-hit “Shahdaroba”. Of course, Roy Orbison would not deserve to be called The King of Tears if he didn’t make us feel a little pain.

Psychobabble's 100 Favorite Songs of the Fifties!

Attention, attention: Psychobabble is having a hop tonight, and you and yours are invited. So grease up your D.A. and pull on your boogie shoes. Those soles are gonna get a real work out because we’ve lined up the hottest rockers, hippest jazzbos, and wailingest blues bruisers to make you flip your lid. Get ready to jive and jump to… 

100. “Dim, Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)” by Bill Haley & His Comets

The party starts now, so let’s get this shack together, Daddy-O! Nail down the furniture, snap the lock off the liquor cabinet, and for christ’s sake, dim, dim those damn lights… I want some atmosphere. Bill Haley eases us in with one of his smoothest unions of rock and swing, but don’t worry, things are about to get crazy, man, crazy.

99. “Rockin’ Bones” by Ronnie Dawson

Psychobabble’s 10 Greatest Singles of 1960!

1960 is generally regarded as a rough time for Rock & Roll. Although it was the year Elvis Presley’s Army stint ended, the new recordings he made that year were not his most dynamic. Chuck Berry was beset with legal problems because of his dirty-old-man peccadilloes. Buddy Holly had died the previous year. Little Richard was in the midst of a serious Jesus addiction.

These are the clichés often trotted out to dismiss that dry period between the ‘50s’ end and the start of the British Invasion. The fact is that with the exception of Elvis, none of these hard Rockers ever dominated the charts. Featherweight jokers like Pat Boone, Debbie Reynolds, and Paul Anka were scoring massive hits during Rock & Roll’s late-‘50s golden age. That the biggest hits of 1960 were novelties like “Running Bear” and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”, pop fluff like “Teen Angel” and Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool”, and saccharine pap like “Theme from ‘A Summer Place’” wasn’t much different from the previous decade’s situation. And it sure doesn’t change the fact that some great records slipped out in ‘60ar. Here are ten of them…


10. “Chick A’ Roo” by Rick Wayne and the Flee-Rakkers

Like Phil Spector, producer Joe Meek— not the singers and groups he chose to record— was the star of his recordings. Unlike Spector, Meek displayed remarkably poor taste when it came to choosing singers (supposedly, many of his choices were driven by his desire to have sex with cute guys rather than a yen for genuine vocal talent). Yet Meek’s records are great because he draped them with such startling otherworldly effects that he could have made Mickey Mouse sound like Elvis. Rick Wayne was a particularly lousy singer, but “Chick A’ Roo” is a killer chunk of vinyl because of its charmingly goofy hipster lyric and some hard-driving backing from The Flee-Rakkers, who also released a couple of excellent, Meek-produced instrumentals that year, including a surf update of “Green Sleeves” called “Green Jeans”.

9. “Bye Bye Johnny” by Chuck Berry

As mentioned above, Chuck Berry was not having a great year in 1960, but that didn’t stop him from cutting a handful of very good records. None of them matched the power of his ‘50s recordings (though his mojo would return the following year with stellar stuff like “I’m Talking About You” and “Come On”). Of course, sub-par Chuck Berry still smokes most of contemporaries. “Bye Bye Johnny” is the