The Steel Guitar Forum

I watched a special recently about his musical career. He was a pretty simple man with incredible vocal range. Many have called him the greatest singer who ever lived period.I would have loved to hear him sing traditional country with pedal steel,twin fiddles and over-dubbing his voice.

<SMALL>Many have called him the greatest singer who ever lived period.</SMALL>

That's been my opinion for about 40 years now. But I consider such a thing VERY subjective, so I know others disagree. Of course there are other singers from other cultures who would vie for that position as well -- Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Sharem Nazari, Ima Sumac, Hamza Al Din, etc. -- but I still like Roy the best.

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Bob Shilling, Berkeley, CA--MSA S10, "Classic"

I worked in a band with a guitar player who grew up with Orbison in North Texas....said he was "kind of different" even when he was a kid, and went his own way in music instead of the western-swing that everyone else was doing at the time. (Btw...he is my wife's favorite singer)

Elvis once introduced Roy Orbison in Las Vegas as "the greatest singer in the world."

I worked for a Program Director many years ago in the radio business that was from the Midland – Odessa area of Texas, which I believe is where Orbison was from, and claimed that he actually played guitar in a band that Roy was in when they were high school kids. By his own admission he mentioned that he was not very good, nor was anybody else in the band except Roy! He told me that even as a kid Roy’s voice was incredible, but as Gene Jones mentioned, he was a little “different”. His roots were really “country”, and while it was a country band and they did that material all the time, Roy was attracted to the “Rock-a-Billy” sound.

I remember meeting Roy at a show years ago in San Antonio. One of the old “package” shows that used to tour the country doing one nighters. He kind of reminded me of Johnny Cash with sunglasses! Seriously, I remember him as being very tall (well, I am fairly short so he probably wasn’t 6’ 8” or anything…), dressed in a black suit white shirt and tie, quiet and shy, but a very gracious gentleman. If you could get him to say anything, he always had a good word for people.

He is to this day one of my favorite singers.

B. Bailey Brown

In the very late 70's or very early 80's my cousin and I bought concert tickets to one of country music's biggest stars. He shall remain nameless and is now deceased. We wanted to see and hear his steel player (who is still going strong and still one of the very best and is one of our favorites).

Roy was booked to open for 'country star'. I'm 48, and I pretty much missed Roy the first time around. Oh, of course, I knew 'Pretty Woman' and 'Crying', but I had not done any indepth listening to Roy, and his hits had come and gone. We assumed that we'd have to 'put up' with this opening act, and hoped to get to 'country star' as soon as possible.

I'm hear to tell you that Roy absolutely, positively BLEW US AWAY! No one has had more power and clarity and perfect pitch than Roy had that night. We still talk about that evening. When 'country star' came on, there was no comparsion.

But we did get to go back stage and meet 'country star's' steel player, who was and is awesome, and a most gracious and humble gentleman. So see, it really is steel guitar related!

Roy Orbison fan forever!

jmm

Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Sharem Nazari, Hamza Al Din ? Are they from "Ah'll Qill Ya"?

I forgot where the late N.F.A. Kahn is from, but I think it was either Pakistan or Afghanistan. He sang a type of Muslim devotional music. Very spirited. Nazeri is Iranian, and sings a lot of things based on the poetry of Alaludin Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet from Turkey (actually born in Balkh -- about 30 km from Mazar e Sharif in Afghanistan. His family fled when he was a boy to avoid the invading Mongols.) nazeri has one of the most beautiful voices I have heard (but not as good as Orbison.)Hamza al Din is Nubian. From Egypt. He plays fantastic oud and tar and sings as well.

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Bob Shilling, Berkeley, CA--MSA S10, "Classic"

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was from Pakistan
and was the leading exponent of the "Kawwali" style of singing. I was at concert of his at Radio City Music Hall in NYC shortly before he died. It was one of the most moving and beautiful musical experiences of my life.

I also have seen Roy Orbison and he had the audience wiping tears off there cheeks when he sang "Crying" acapella.
That man could sing !

At no point durring either of these shows did it ever occur to me that it would have been improved in any way by being more country

Bob

BTW: Bob Shilling, are you including Ima Sumac (actually spelled Yma Sumac or Amy Camus spelled backwards) the Aztec goddess from Brooklyn in with Nusrat and Hamsa ?<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 14 November 2001 at 11:48 PM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 15 November 2001 at 10:55 AM.]</p></FONT>