• Track Listing

For Roy Orbison's 85th birthday, Bear Family releases this unique CD compilation of originals and rare cover versions of famous Roy Orbison songs in it's 'Connections' series!

Songs from Roy's early rockabilly years and from the sixties, when Orbison found his true passion, pop ballads.

With 34 selections from the years 1955-1978 we prove the enormous influence of the great Roy Orbison on pop culture!

Included are his colleagues at SUN Records in Memphis like Johnny Cash, Narvel Felts, Billy Lee Riley, Vernon Taylor and Jerry Lee Lewis!

We deliver several, partly rare versions of his most legendary hits Ooby Dooby, Dream Baby, Crying, Down The Line, Claudette, Rock House and of course Only The Lonely - even a Brazilian version!

Plus: rarities, like an extremely rare overdub version of the rare demo recording You're My Baby, written and recorded by Johnny Cash in 1955.

Artists from five nations, singers from the USA, Great Britain, France, Australia and Brazil.

The 36-page color booklet includes the story on the subject, written by noted music journalist Bill Dahl, with many photos and memorabilia, some rare.

In the 1950s Roy Orbison, then still under contract with SUN Records in Memphis, stood for pure rockabilly. This is also shown by a number of excellent cover versions, especially of Ooby Dooby, Orbison's first hit. We deliver here three versions, yes: read correctly, three! They could hardly be more different. The most famous version is by Janis Martin, followed by the one on Columbia by Sid King and The Five Strings, and at the end there is perhaps the rarest version by the Schneider Sisters from Australia. But Roy Orbison's other rockabilly classics are not neglected here, especially the late version of You're My Baby by former SUN colleague Billy Lee Riley from 1978.