Anthony King Orbison was the son of Roy Orbison, an American singer, songwriter, and musician, and his wife Claudette Frady. Orbison is known for his distinctive singing style, black glasses, and black dress matching his hair. He rose to prominence with Monument Records. His 22 songs reached the Billboard Top 40 from 1966 to 1966. “Only the Lonely” (1960), “Crying” (1961), “Running Scared” (1961), “In Dreams” (1963), and “Oh, Pretty Woman” (1964) are among his top ten songs that he wrote or co-wrote.Â
Anthony King Orbisonâs Family Background
Anthony and his older brother Roy Dewayne were killed in a house fire in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Anthonyâs father was born on April 23, 1936, in Vernon, Texas to nurse Nadine Vesta Shults and Orbie Lee Orbison, an oil-well driller and car mechanic. Orbisonâs parents moved to Fort Worth in 1942. He attended Denver Avenue Elementary School before returning to Vernon due to the spread of polio. Orbisonâ started playing guitar at the age of 7. He became interested in country music and started singing on a local radio show at age 8, which he also hosted in the late 1940s. He formed a music band Wink Westerners with his friends when he was in high school. The band played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and performed at a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit, Texas. They stuck a $400 contract to play at a dance.
By the time he started attending Odessa Junior College, two members of the band left, and two new members joined. They won a talent contest and began performing on their own television show on KMID-TV in Midland. He married his girlfriend Claudette Frady in 1957.
Anthony King Orbisonâs CareerÂ
After the group Wink Westerners renamed Teen Kings was disbanded due to a split among members, Anthonyâs father Orbison was forced to work for songwriting company Acuff-Rose in the late 1950s. Orbison was among early artists who played “Nashville sound”. He joined the group The Nashville A-Team, and recorded “Paper Boy”. Thereafter Orbison recorded âUptownâ for RCA Victor Studio B, which peaked at 72 on the Billboard Top 100, number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 in the UK and Australia. In the 1960s Orbison collaborated with Joe Melson to write the song “Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)”The duo released another hit song “Blue Angel”, which reached number nine in the US and number 11 in the UK. “I Can’t Stop Loving You” peaked at number 27 in the U.S.
Anthony King Orbisonâs Family Net WorthÂ
Anthonyâs family members inherited a wealth of $20 million left by Orbison when he died in 1988. For Traveling Wilburysâs debut album “The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1,” Orbison and his fellow artists received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Orbisonâs song “Ooby Dooby” released in May 1956 peaked at #59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold 200,000 copies across the U.S. After its success he appeared on Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beechnut Show. His song “You Got It” (1989) released after his death became the first hit to reach the US & UK Top 10 in 25 years.
