Reader Tips

Reader Tips 33 Comments

Roy Orbison wasn’t a technically great singer — he was “pitchy”, and his signature sound formed in his throat and head as much as in his chest – but like Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday he was profoundly musical in a way that could elevate his songs into a magical realm nearer to dreams than reality. In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips, we listen to his 1963 release Blue Bayou.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

33 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  3. Roy Orbison played in Calgary about two weeks before his passing. I was fortunate to be able to go to the dinner/concert at the Stampede grounds. He always sounded great to me. Quite the shock to hear of his passing shortly after seeing him live.
    Cheers and have a good new year.

  7. My fave Roy Orbison creation:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH-AafkQPEo
    That’s the studio version. It’s the best production of the song (Mr. Orbison always recorded all of his songs in one take). That High A is legendary.
    This version below, however, is the most impressive rendition of the song ever (you have to endure the early-80’s C&W production values – watch it all the way to the very end for the pay-off):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLXGoBPOQ_s

  11. We used have a 8 Track tape(remember those?)with several of Orbisons songs on it thats before his big hit OH PRETTY WOMAN

  13. Roy Orbison “In dreams”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbVF8MjFBgE live version
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJT-4kenVo
    Not to quibble too much, but the “BIG O” shows his sonorous artistry here in his classic rendition of ‘In Dreams’ giving a full throated operatic ballad of unrequited love. In contrast to EBD’s statement that he was ‘pitchy’ head and throat sound, this song demonstates his great command, power, range and tonal quality.
    Happy New Year & Merry Christmas!
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group ‘True North’

  14. .
    “Running scared” is one of my favorite Orbison songs
    Play that one here tomorrow !!!

  15. Almost wiped them off the map..
    The HarperCollins publishing house apologized for omitting Israel from maps in atlases that it sells to English-speaking schools in the Middle East.
    “HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas. This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologizes for this omission and for any offense caused,” it said in a statement released late Wednesday.
    –
    Iranian Abnerdinnerjacket would have been proud..

  16. Victim in Calgary New Years shooting identified as Abdullai Ahmed.
    Police are appealing to the Somali community for help in identifying others involved.
    http://www.cbc.ca

  17. My favourite was Gene Pitney. Saw him once at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. What a class act. He was even more popular in England than in North America. Might have been even more popular but devoted a lot of time to his kids. Also wrote Rubber Ball for Bobby Vee and Hello Mary Lou for Ricky Nelson.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zugy2rkSM7g

  19. Mine had to be Roger Miller, 1968
    saw him in Australia, R&R from SEA.
    He sings like a washboard scrubbing clothes,
    But that ‘little green apples’ made my date cry.
    Then we rode a bus to her apt. and heard one of the best political arguments of my life.
    We had friendly fired/torched one of their Australian troops ships and killed dozens of sailors.
    How in the hell anyone could mistake an Australian troop ship from a frigging Sampan is unholy?
    But anyway, one side of the bus told me to desert and live with them,
    the other side of the bus told me to get back into the war and kill those SOB.
    They finally started punching each other and the women were slinging purses,
    I sat there and kept my mouth shut until we reached her stop.
    I love Aussies…

  20. AGW RIP.
    H/T Great White North.
    …-
    “Brutal Cold to Invade Midwest, East Next Week”
    “Southern Plains Winter Storm Continues”
    “Snow, Arctic Blast to Return Across Northern Plains This Weekend”
    “Colder Weather Impacts Crops in California”
    “Oklahoma Bracing For Ice”
    http://www.accuweather.com/

  24. If Orbison was not “technically a great singer” then the science is wrong, and it says nothing about Roy.

  25. “Will the mysteries of the universe be revealed by this computer simulation? Amazing ‘machine’ can even go backwards and forwards in ‘cosmic time'”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2892624/Could-mysteries-universe-revealed-computer-simulation-Amazing-program-backwards-forwards-cosmic-time.html
    …-
    “Gnosticism from a Non-Voegelinian Perspective, Part I”
    “The trend of politics in the Western nations since Eric Voegelin’s death in 1986 has made his work increasingly relevant to any philosophically rigorous conservatism or traditionalism. In particular, Voegelin’s argument that liberalism and its Leftwing metastases constitute an evangelical religious movement, mimicking and distorting Christianity, has gained currency.”
    “The sudden experience of Leftwing triumph attests that, indeed, utopian radicalism draws its strength from a deep well of resentment that puts it in conflict, not merely with those whom it regards as heterodox, but also with the inalterable structure of reality.”
    http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4440

  26. To me he was the greatest singer of those times, he had a marvelous voice. Thank you for linking those two songs….just love listening to Roy. Every singer is pitchy except for todays singers cause they use the computer to level them out. That is why so many cannot sing live….todays singers are phonies compared to those of the fifties and sixties….just my opinion and I do sing.

  27. I’ve read this beefore and is a GOOD READ,
    Part of the problem is that underclass black women begin having babies at age 15 … They plan their entire lives around the expectation that they will always get free money and never have to work
    I think this is Liberals keeping them on the plantation.

  28. No, Obomber’s disinterest in and quitting on Iraq and mishandling of Syria enabled IS. He threw away a hard-won US victory with great potential for the future.

  29. Yes, he was pitchy. You can hear it in the first two
    bars of Blue Bayou. On the other hand he wrote great
    songs like In Dreams. Try writing an ever unfolding
    song that does not repeat verse and chorus. I’ll
    wait right here.
    And, physically, that’s a very difficult song to sing.
    When it gets to “just before the dawn” it sounds like
    his uvula is in a blender.
    I have sung that song for years, in full voice and
    always, even at my best, had difficulty really belting
    out those parts. You need very strong upper register
    and wide range to do so.
    And then I watched a video of him doing it live.
    He didn’t even break a sweat. So, physically, he
    was very powerful.
    The pitch thing…hey Tony Bennett plays with
    a couple of shades under the note evocatively
    all over the place.
    I give Roy a pass on the pitch thing.
    Emmy Lou Harris not so much.

  30. Updated my blog with a post: Thoughts on blogging about renewable energy alternatives, Energiewende and how BC can do better.
    I enjoyed the SDA comments and views from last time and am pretty sure this one will bring out positive and negative reviews from this corner.

  31. You lose people when you advocate sympathy for the Green party (don’t be fooled), advocate time of use hydro billing (the energy gets used, whether its at 6pm or 11pm, and advocate government support of renewables (ie: subsidizing).
    So long as the Ice levels at both poles remain healthy (and growing) as current observations support, and temperatures remain stable, instead of “rising uncontrollably” despite ever rising CO2 levels, reasonable people will be VERY skeptical of anything the green lobby says and does.
    Remember, the entire Green lobby supported Kyoto, and still does, and will seek to resurrect this abominable policy, wherein, it is a wealth tranfer to third world dictators, and has NOTHING to do with “Global Warming/CLimate Change”, except to use as a glaring distraction from the real purpose!

  32. Tom: well put, I actually agree with everything you say.
    Just to clear the air, Roy Orbison is in my personal Pantheon of all-time *great* singers. My post was a truncated, necessarily pared-down version of a (too long) one that explained more what I meant by “technically” not great, and made more clear that I was singing (no pun intended) his praises, not criticizing him.
    The short form of what I meant is that if an average singer taking vocal lessons attempted to sing like Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday (for example) they’d get corrected (quite rightly) because it wouldn’t sound good; the great ones can invent their own language and sonic palette.
    I know a woman with perfect pitch – in the one-in-five-thousand people sense – who says she winces whenever she hears the last soaring note of “Crying”, but to me, his “shading” (as you put it) of the notes – sliding up from a major seventh to the tonic, for example, or three-note melismas that don’t make any stops along the way – is part of an ineffable artistry of interpretation and creation that’s beyond the majority of pitch-perfect vocalists.
    Nick Cave’s moving live performance of God Is In The House is *incredibly* pitchy — way more than Roy Orbison ever was – but it wouldn’t be even a quarter as beautiful if it wasn’t. And Jonathan Richman’s five note descending minor chord scale melody in the opening line of this song slips and slides around, and kinda makes reference to the notes, or points at them, rather than hitting them. It’s gestural and easy and natural, and, ironically, a lot more musical and melodic than a more “in tune” performance would be.

  33. Thanks, EBD. I hear ya re sonic palettes and all that.
    Ray Charles said if you can’t sing in tune, trying to artistically
    sing out of tune is futile. I think the best slider up
    to and from notes person has to be Josh White. He makes it sound
    so easy. For it to work you have to have a very clean tone
    and amazing pitch.
    Re your friend with the perfect pitch, poor dear. I know there
    are plenty of things that hurt my ears. And heck yeah, the
    evocative singer…especially the one who pierces your
    heart is forgiven and then the listener leands their ear
    in a new way.
    And they can merely point to notes like Mr. Richman
    in the first couple of bars of that song you shared.
    Some people never got over some of Dylan’s weak
    points. But the man is a hell of a singer. I challenge anyone
    who thinks they are better to sing Lily Rosemary and the Jack
    of Hearts with a fresh spontaneous reading of a great melody
    with careful regard to the story telling 16 verses in a row live
    off the floor. If you can do that you are a great singer.
    When you talk about the technically strong singer taking
    a backseat, Diana Ross comes to mind. They must
    have hated that bitch. She had a little bell tingling voice,
    but connected totally in person and over the radio.
    The backup singers I’m sure thought they could
    sing circles around her. Power, range, pitch. It didn’t
    matter. She connected. Had hits. Ever after she is
    received a certain way.
    Re Piaf. Ha. I was sitting with a bunch of lawyers
    at a conference in Seattle several years ago, and
    we were all at least three glasses of wine in, and
    a music obsessed lawyer, now a judged asked me
    who I thought the greatest pop singer of the 20ieth
    century was.
    Hardly missing a beat I said Piaf.
    He sputtered…really? What about Ella.
    I said something like…..well, Ella is a wonderful
    girl and her chops are amazing and her 16 year old
    girl heart is so sweet and if she works hard
    every day for 200 years she might be good enough
    to carry Edith Piaf’s shitbucket.
    The dude spewed all over the table.

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