The singer Bruce Springsteen said was out of everybody’s league
A beacon of songwriting excellence for over half a century, at this point, it is fair to say that Bruce Springsteen has presided over one of the most legendary, utterly beloved careers in musical history. Nevertheless, there are still a select few figures that even ‘The Boss’ himself can never hope to rival when it comes to sheer vocal prowess.
It is worth noting, right off the bat, that Springsteen’s own vocal talents are far too often overlooked. While, admittedly, it is his songwriting mastery and iconic performance style that tend to grab the attention of audiences first, his voice is rather powerful in its distinctive, guttural style. He might not have the same range as Diana Ross, but the New Jersey songwriter still boasts one of the most instantly recognisable voices in the entirety of American rock and roll.
That being said, Springsteen – particularly during the early days of his career – often harboured a desire to replicate the vocal tones of his own musical influences, spanning the spectrum from Bob Dylan to James Brown. One particular voice that had accompanied the budding young songwriter from his youth in New Jersey to the commercial breakthrough of his Born to Run era, though, was the one and only Roy Orbison.
One of the most emotive, recognisable voices of both the rockabilly age and beyond, Orbison seemed to have a kind of universal power, with nobody immune from the effects of his extensive discography. Springsteen, somewhat unsurprisingly, has always been an ardent devotee of the Texan songwriter and even attempted to replicate his distinctive vocal tones at one of the most crucial moments in his career.
Back in 1987, during Orbison’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Springsteen espoused his adoration for the bespectacled songwriter, recalling, “In 1975, we went into the studio to make Born to Run. I wanted to have words like Bob Dylan and sounded like Phil Spector, but most of all, I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison.”
Like with many of Springsteen’s recordings from that early period, Dylan’s influence on Born To Run is utterly undeniable, and his endless appreciation for the production stylings of Phil Spector is pretty unavoidable, too. As anybody who has listened to that 1975 album can attest to, though, Springsteen sounds nothing like Roy Orbison.
As ‘The Boss’ himself pointed out during that gushing speech, though, “Everybody knows that nobody can sing like Roy Orbison.” Truer words have never been spoken; the power of Orbison’s performances lies not just in his technical skill, but also in the incredibly identifiable nature of his voice. Try as they might, nobody can replicate those distinctive tones, not even Springsteen.
Although the songwriter’s plans to evoke the same vocal power as Roy Orbison never quite worked out, the rockabilly star nevertheless played a crucial role in inspiring Springsteen’s own incredibly emotive style of writing and performance.
Orbison was always able to pack a lot of feeling into every word he sang, and it doesn’t take much of a stretch to connect that quality with the expansive worlds created by Springsteen’s narrative masterpieces.
