Identifier9833518
Created AtTue May 23 2023 23:54:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Trades Allowed
Performance
Roy Orbison 1939-??-?? Remembering The Big 'O', Various, Various
Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
CommentMarking the 20th anniversary of the death of Roy Orbison in 1988, this programme celebrates both the singer's extraordinary talent and his relationship with his most loyal and enduring fans - British musicians and the British public.

The documentary includes interviews with Roy's widow (and erstwhile manager) Barbara Orbison, as well as some of the greats from the world of music, including Bono, Elvis Costello, Robin Gibb, Bill Wyman and Bernie Taupin.

The programme also charts Orbison's career, from sharing the bill in 1963 on a major tour with The Beatles to his resurgence in the 1980s (where a who's who of musicians joined him for Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night - see trailer) and on to the collaboration with lifelong friend George Harrison on the Traveling Wilburys project in the late 1980s.

Harrison said at the time of the 1963 tour: "The audience was just enthralled with him. It was a very frightening thing to be behind the curtain waiting to follow Roy Orbison. He just killed them. We were in awe of him."

But his life was not without tragedy - in the space of just a few years during the 1960s, he lost both his first wife and two of his sons in terrible accidents, thus lending his trademark emotional ballads an intensely soulful quality for ever more.

Effortlessly cool and musically sophisticated, Orbison - known affectionately as The Big O - became the ultimate "musician's musician", whose legacy continues to captivate both fans of his music and performers today.