roy orbison's first number one hit in the us hot 100 and canada was "running scared".
roy orbison's first number one hit in the us hot 100 and canada was "running scared".
what was roy orbison's first number one hit in the us hot 100 and canada?
"running scared"
running scared (roy orbison song)









































"running scared" is a song written by roy orbison and joe melson and sung by orbison. an operatic rock ballad, the recording of the song was overseen by audio engineer bill porter and released as a 45rpm single by monument records in march 1961 and went to number one on the "billboard" hot 100 chart. "running scared" also reached no.9 in the uk singles chart. it sold over one million copies in the us alone. the song was included on orbison's 1962 album "crying" as the final track on the album.
running scared (roy orbison song)
roy kelton orbison was born in vernon, texas, on april 23, 1936, and he grew up in wink, texas. his parents orbie lee and nadine, gave him a guitar for his sixth birthday and taught him the chords to "you are my sunshine". roy orbison grew up around country music and later stated it was a great influence to him. “i grew up with country music in texas. the first singer i heard on the radio who really slayed me was lefty frizzell. he had this technique which involved sliding syllables together that really blew me away.” by the time orbison was eight years old he was performing on local radio shows, and at thirteen years old he formed the band the wink westerners. the wink westerners obtained local notoriety and performed mainly country and pop songs. he began singing and playing guitar professionally in his teens with the band the wink westerners. the wink westerners had a weekly television show for them on kmid-tv. roy orbison attended north texas university after high school, and it was there where he discovered rock and roll and began to write more pop oriented songs. orbison stayed at north texas for only a year stating he felt like he was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.” he left and moved to odessa, texas where he formed the teen kings. the teen kings consisted of roy orbison, james morrow, jack kennelley, billy pat ellis, and johnny “peanuts” wilson. the teen kings got a job on a local television show and they recorded “ooby dooby” (written by two fellow north texas state students dick penner and wade moore) for a local label. in 1956, singer/songwriter johnny cash appeared on the show and on his advice orbison and the teen kings signed with sun records in memphis. shortly after signing a new version of "ooby dooby" was recorded and became a hit in 1956. "ooby dooby" did well nationwide, reaching #59 on the billboards hot 100 and sold roughly 200,000 copies. according to the official roy orbison discography by marcel riesco, the follow-up single was "rockhouse" b/w "you're my baby", and shortly after this release the teen kings disbanded, and orbison remained under contract to sun as a solo artist. orbison continued recording using the sun house musicians. not unlike several other artists at sun, roy orbison was unhappy with the direction sam phillips was taking. orbison noted that he wasn't quite comfortable with rockabilly but later stated he enjoyed the freedom in the studio that came with being a sun artist. sun’s musical director bill justice gave orbison the song “chicken hearted.” released in december 1957, it was orbison’s last shot at remaining a contracted artist for sun. shortly after the failure of "chicken hearted", orbison moved back to texas with his first wife claudette frady. sam phillips later stated having regret in not promoting orbison more than he did. orbison began to question rather or not he still wanted to be a performer and began to focus more on writing. as a writer, orbison scored a hot 100 hit for warren smith with "so long i'm gone" and he did even better when jerry lee lewis recorded a new version of "go!, go!, go!", renaming the track "down the line." the greatest writing success orbison had was due to the everly brothers recording the song "claudette". the success of "claudette" gave orbison enough money to buy himself out of his contract at sun and he signed over all of his copyrights in exception to "claudette". roy orbison played lead guitar in all of his sun records recordings, creating a breakthrough sound which became such a big part of rockabilly music.
roy orbison's sun recordings