{"id":604170,"date":"2026-07-25T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T22:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604170\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T22:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T22:07:14","slug":"66-years-ago-today-roy-orbison-scored-his-first-hit-with-the-song-elvis-presley-and-the-everly-brothers-passed-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604170\/","title":{"rendered":"66 Years Ago Today, Roy Orbison Scored His First Hit With the Song Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers Passed On"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day in 1960, Roy <\/a>O<\/a>rbison<\/a> struck gold on the charts with \u201cOnly The Lonely\u201d, his first hit. The song peaked at No. 2 in the US and gave him his first chart-topper in the UK.<\/p>\n

The song not only took Orbison to new heights, earning him a spot on American Bandstand and a tour with Patsy Cline, but it also set the standard for his future songs, which were written with his voice in mind.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI liked the sound of [my voice]. I liked making it sing, making the voice ring, and I just kept doing it,\u201d he explained to Rolling Stone<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think that somewhere between the time of \u201cOoby Dooby\u201d and \u201cOnly the Lonely\u201d, it kind of turned into a good voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before this song made Orbison a star, though, it was passed around to other acts. Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers were both offered the song but turned it down. At the suggestion of The Everly Brothers, Orbison chose to release it on his album, Lonely and Blue.<\/p>\n

However, Presley did admire Orbison. He would later call him, \u201cquite simply, the greatest singer in the world\u201d\u00a0in 1976 at one of his shows in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Roy Orbison Sees Elvis Presley Live<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In 1955, the year before Roy Orbison got his big break with the song \u201cOoby Dooby\u201d, he took himself to see Presley perform in Dallas, Texas at 19 years old.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Orbison would become influenced by Presley to play more rock music with his band, the Wink Westerners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t overemphasize how shocking he looked and seemed to me that night,\u201d Roy once recalled<\/a> of that night. \u201cHe told jokes that weren\u2019t funny, and his diction was real coarse like a truck driver\u2019s. [There was] pandemonium in the audience because the girls took a shine to him and the guys were getting a little jealous.\u201d Orbison continued, saying, \u201cWhat comes out is not show. There are a lot of people who are good actors at singing to that they make you think they sound good but, with Elvis, he lives it altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the summer of 1956, Presley and Orbison had become good friends.<\/p>\n

Photo by: Greenwell\/Daily Mirror\/Mirrorpix via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day in 1960, Roy Orbison struck gold on the charts with \u201cOnly The Lonely\u201d, his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[32752,18,117,19,17,337,981,6321,17289],"class_list":["post-604170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-pop-music","tag-rock-music","tag-roy-orbison"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116982897604968492","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}