“A quiet man in black”: How Roy Orbison got his signature look
Everything Roy Orbison wished to share with the world was communicated through the music, sung in his unforgettable voice that reached octaves beyond comprehension, and while he never set out to be mysterious or unknown to the point of being unrecognisable, as a figure in rock history, he stood as an enigma, a guitar-wielding, all-black-wearing musician with a near-indecipherable visage.
However, no matter how signature the look became, its origins were less complex than one may think. From a young age, Orbison was quite self-conscious, dying his naturally white-blond hair a darker shade of jet-black, and he grew increasingly quiet, but was always polite. He found a source of confidence in his voice, and its ability to soar beyond his contemporaries would prove to be astounding.
“Once I started singing, it was sort of a wonder,” Orbison remarked to Rolling Stone in 1988, just three weeks before his passing, “It was a great feeling, and it didn’t hurt anybody, and it made me feel good, and some people even said, ‘Roy, that’s nice’.”
By his account, he was infatuated with the ways he could manipulate his voice into a remarkable sound. “I’ve always been in love with my voice,” he continued, “It was fascinating; I liked the sound of it, I liked making it sing, making a voice ring, and I just kept doing it. And I think somewhere between the time of ‘Ooby Dooby’ and ‘Only the Lonely’, it kinda turned into a good voice. Though it was always nice to me.”
‘Only the Lonely’ would earn Orbison his breakthrough single in 1960, and he began his evolution as a musician that opened the door for the likes of ‘Crying’ and ‘Dream Baby’ to develop his empathic sound, as he traversed across country, blues, rockabilly and pop with a singular approach. In tandem, his look evolved, too, turning into something of a cross between Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, with a sensitivity that coursed its way into his music. Both elements created who we now perceive as ‘Roy Orbison’, foundational to rock ‘n’ roll.
Orbison’s customary stage uniform can be dissected into four parts: an all-black outfit, matching jet black hair, styled into a pompadour, a guitar attached to his person and dark sunglasses clouding his face. Altogether, he presented with a mystique that preceded him. Life magazine once described him as an “anonymous celebrity”, as he seemed to constantly be cloaked in a dark vision that allowed the emotion of his songs to take centre stage. Such a persona was, by his account, something of an accident, for he “wasn’t trying to be weird. I didn’t have a manager who told me to dress or how to present myself or anything, but the image developed of a man of mystery and a quiet man in black, somewhat of a recluse, although I never was, really.”
His strictly all-black outfits, as normal as ever today, were somewhat surprising for the time, and he would see his likeness imitated for decades to come. Whether he realised it or not, his look was pivotal in shaping the image we associate with rock ‘n’ roll, with a sort of cool remove that allowed space for the music to take shape.
Where Orbison’s legendary sunglasses are concerned, they became an unexpected staple. With vision problems starting at a young age, he wore thick glasses from the age of four, becoming a necessary fixture, until years later, in 1963, while on tour and travelling to Alabama, he accidentally left them on a plane. The next day, he was set to travel to the UK for a co-headlining tour with The Beatles, and was left to resort to his prescription Faosa sunglasses that he’d performed in Alabama with.
On their infamous opening night in Buckinghamshire, Orbison opted to go before the Fab Four: “It was an opening night to end all opening nights,” he recalled, quoted in Ellis Amburn’s Dark Star: The Roy Orbison Story, “I walked on stage with my sunglasses on, and all over Europe, we were an instant success. Big time.” Orbison found that he liked the look of the sunglasses while onstage, acting as a sort of shield from his apparent stage fright, and by the time the singer-songwriter returned to the States, the sunglasses became his signature.
