Rhapsody in Black: The Life and Music of Roy Orbison Hardcover – May 1, 2013

As a long time fan of Roy Orbison I was really interested in this book. I found it an easy read but poorly proof read. This was the first time that I'd heard mention of the Orbison ancestors being from Northern Ireland but as I know of at least four inaccuracies in the rest of the text, can I believe the piece about Northern Ireland?First inaccuracy is the statement that the single after "Blue Angel," ("I'm Hurtin") was written by Don Gibson. No, it was written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. The Don Gibson song was "(Yes) I'm Hurting" and was completely different.Second, it was '(I'd Be) A legend In My Time" and not "...In My Own Time."Third, in 1965 Marianne Faithful toured AUSTRALIA with Roy and the Rolling Stones. She wasn't part of the British tour with Roy and the Rocking Berries. I know because I was at a couple of the British concerts that year and have never seen Marianne Faithful perform on stage, and also the photograph of Roy without his glasses was taken during the Australian tour and subsequently shown in UK newspapers.Lastly, if the Newbeats who, "Opened Roy's UK tours," are the same group who sang "Bread and Butter" and were on the Monument label, well, no, I never saw them either and I went to at least one British concert during every tour. They may have been a replacement at some stage of a tour for a night or so but certainly didn't open for Roy's UK tours (plural).Apart from that it's probably a book worth reading.

I enjoyed this book. It'd better than the one written many years ago, "Dark Star". As some people noted it's not entirely accurate but so what. Most of it is excellent. Roy's life was different than all of the early rock guys. He liked rhythm and blues but he also loved ballads and orchestration and was one of the best ever. His voice was unique and his sound was so different because it was untrained. He adapted so many of his songs to fit his voice rather than the other way around. Pretty solid guitar player too.The music scene and our culture has changed so much since those days and it's interesting to read about the trials and battles of the great Roy Orbison.

First off let me admit to being a Roy Orbison aficionado. I have been a fan since I heard Uptown in 1959. I know exactly where I was the first time I heard Only the Lonely and how it affected me. I am very biased. I am a die hard loyal fan. But I do not elevate him to sainthood. He was a frail human just like all of us, full of faults, failures, and mistakes. I accept that. I have always separated the man and his music. There have been two previous attempts to tell the Roy Orbison story: "Only the Lonely" was pretty good, "Dark Star" pure junk journalism. "Rhapsody in Black" is a mixture of the two.There are several inaccuracies that just jump out at a seasoned fan like me. One example is on page 155 where the author attempts to review Roy's LP "The Big O". He states "Recorded live at the Batley Variety Club in Yorkshire and released on London Records...". While it is true it was recorded live, that performance was not used on the LP. The powers to be were not happy with the live recording and had Roy go into the studio and re-record all the songs. This information is common knowledge. Terry Widlake, whom the author quotes extensively, knows it. After all he was a member of the band backing Roy at the Batley Club. That may seem like nitpicking to some but my point is if he couldn't get that detail right what else has he goofed up?And consider the opening paragraph of the book where an eight year old Roy on an August afternoon grasps an empty coke bottle using it as a make believe mic and sings into it "until something inside of him suddenly erupted, something strange, volcanic, burbling up from down below...". Oh yes, it's a colorful story but is there any truth to it? It can't be any more than a fictional appeal to the senses to engage the reader. How could anyone possibility know this actually happened without it coming directly from Roy who, I know for a fact, has been unavailable for an interview for almost 25 years. Any one who listened to the Roy Orbison of Sun Records knows that the voice was yet to evolve. It certainly was not there at age eight. And for crying out loud, there are over 60 words in the second sentence of the first paragraph. Sixty Words! By the time you finish reading the sentence you have to go back and reread it because you can't remember what you read. That alone should put the reader on notice that this book is going to be as much about the author impressing you with his writing as it is his subject.Another issue with me is the author's apparent lack of depth to his interviews. He seems to have garnered just enough information to justify a quote with out digging deeper to find out all the facts. Take the interview with Sammy King. The author tells a wonderful story (that I had never heard) about Sammy playing a demo tape for Roy and Penny Arcade being chosen by Roy as his next release. Only problem is the author states that two of Sammy's other songs were outright rejected: "After Tonight" and "I Got Nothing". While it is true that neither was commercially released until many years later, they both were recorded by Roy about the same time as Penny Arcade. Nitpicking? No! If I knew it, with my only access to facts being my sincere desire to know all I can about Roy's music, why shouldn't a man who places himself in a position of "expert " by boldly evoking the names of twenty-three friends and acquaintances of Roy as his sources. In fact the author used YouTube as one of his research tools and After Tonight has been there for over three years. Where is the journalistic integrity for facts instead of assumptions? And the sad part is all the author had to do was consult a long time fan and these mistakes would not be in print. A post on any Roy Orbison forum or a comment to a video on YouTube would have produced several names of fans who have forgotten more about Roy than this author will ever know.A final gripe are the senseless attempts to analyze each and every song. Peter Lehman did a very good job of that in his book and Mr. Author, you don't have the credentials of Mr. Lehman. Here is an interesting quote from page 71: "I didn't know Roy personally, but is seemed like he was very introverted. You get the feeling like he must have been asking himself, `why and I so successful?'. But you don't write music like that with you ego hanging out on a limb," observed Charlie Calello arranger/producer best known for his work with Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, and the Four Seasons."Well why in the world would you interview and quote a man who admits he didn't know Roy, and use these quotes to analyze a song. Pure insanity.Now to the tragically disgusting part that totally turned me off to the entire book. I will quote two paragraphs from page 69 so no one will have to buy the book just to find out what I am talking about."Only the Lonely had a lot of angles to it, some of them unimagined by Roy and his crew...Rock journalist turned DJ Dave Marsh's take on the song was both surprising and undoubtedly shocking to Roy's fiercely devoted fans. Though the track was `not a song about masturbation,' Marsh wrote years later, `masturbating may be the only solace for an artist whose persona is as desperately paranoiac as Roy Orbison's.' Dave felt the singer's overwhelming sense of longing and isolation created `the perfect setting for the utter self-pity that so often accompanies wanking.' Sad and hilarious as Marsh's theory is, he has a point. Beyond the obvious lyrical metaphor, the song's gentle rhythm steadily bumps the melody along until it reaches a strenuous crescendo. As the song builds to its glorious climax, Roy hits an impossibly high note that, as Dave writes, `shrugs off all the agony.' Perhaps Monument should have released Only the Lonely with a pair of cigarettes and a complimentary lighter."If you are not totally disgusted by the above you know nothing about Roy Orbison, Only the Lonely, or the millions of us who were there when the song came out in 1960. Marsh was only ten years old when the song broke into the charts and maybe he did "wank" to the music, but I promise you none of us did. It never crossed our mind, male or female. Yes there were as many girls who were Roy fans as were boys. Only a fool with a sexually perverted mind could force his egotistical deviance into the simple innocent minds of girls and boys of May 1960. Unlike the youth of today, and quite a few adults, we were innocent. It was not until President Kennedy was assassinated that we began to loose that innocence. Roy never intended the song be interpreted this way. In fact the song released is not the original one Roy wrote while still in Wink Texas. There were two songs, the original OTL and another about a boy wishing his dead girlfriend could "Come Back to Me My Love." The author addressed this on page 65 but he obviously either didn't ask Fred Foster the right questions or more likely, heard only what he wanted and ignored the rest. Fred would have straightened him out. I know because I have met Fred and heard from his own lips how much he adored and admired Roy and knew him to be a deeply religious, spiritual man. How can a writer make such an outrageous observation about a song's intent without any evidence? Zero! Natta! How can anyone take a writer seriously when he uses quotations from a deviant and not see the sheer stupidity of it. To me this is totally unforgiveable. In my opinion it puts the author in the same class as a sleazebag just trying to make a few bucks at someone else's expense.All the above is pretty sad because the author does a pretty good job in most areas of the book. If he could have only separated his ego and his own insecurities from the task at hand he might have written a good book about Roy Orbison. There are some interesting things covered in the book that no one else had dared to. If it were not for the sexual perversions assigned to Only the Lonely I could have overlooked the bad research and unfounded assumptions. But that totally ruined it for me.To the hard core fan like me, I cannot recommend the book unless you are willing to wade through the junk just to read a little bit more about Roy. To the casual fan, or the mildly interested about Roy, read with extreme caution. Realize that what you read is as much fiction as truth. If you cannot distinguish the difference don't quote from the book. You just might be wrong.

This book is quite good at analysing the writing behind the big early hits from the early 1960's and little else.From this early period, Roy's first wife Claudette barely gets a mention.The book is full of annoying misconceptions, for example, everyone knows that Elvis's time in the army in Germany was spent as regular soldier. This is one of the most universally commended time's of Elvis life. Yet, this author mentions twice in a derogatory fashion "while Elvis was entertaining the troops in Germany". If the author has such stupid misconceptions about Roy's contemporaries, how much of the material pertaining to Roy is also inaccurate.I don't think this book has been originally researched, even with the bits that are OK, most of the analysis of the song writing for example can be extrapolated from comments made by the likes of Bono and Bernie Taupin in DVD's.The author also refers to Roy's first album as "Blue and Lonely" rather than the correct title of "Lonely and Blue", just how bad is that.

I treated myself to this new book, decided I couldn't wait for the paperback version, as there are so few decent books about Roy Orbison.I enjoyed the book, although parts of it were annoying as they were written as if the author was there with Roy at the time, when he obviously wasn't, and written in annoying American slang that presumably was supposed to help 'set the scene' but didn't really work.Also there were some factual errors, such as how old Buddy Holly was when he died, which would be really easy to check, so that was a bit frustrating and makes you question the validity of other 'facts'.It does give a good insight into Roy's life and family, all of which is fascinating, and it covers the tragedies in his life, losing his first wife and 2 of his sons. I personally would have liked more information about Roy the man, and less detail about the music, but I know some readers would love the detailed information about the records and recording process.I would recommend the book but I think I could have waited for the cheaper paperback version, and I am not sure how many times I will re-read it.

Stumbled across this author whilst searching for other related Roy items.Could not put the book down as it captivated me and in my opinion relegated all the other books about Roy to an inferior level. Well done John Kruth.

Not at all what I expected, all right I new that Roy had much tragedy in his life, I read it cover to cover and was left very sad, as if there were great parts of his life left out .

Great read so sad he had to die young,