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Roy Orbison in dark glasses beside the headstock of his guitar
Roy Orbison, Amsterdam, 25 March 1965. Jack de Nijs (Anefo) · CC0

Vernon · Wink · Nashville · Slough · Los Angeles

His producer said one of his biggest records had no verses and no chorus, only a long crescendo. So does this page. Hold the note.

pp to fff · 1945 to about 1961

No verses, no chorus.
Just a long crescendo.

  1. ppVernon
  2. pWink
  3. mpKermit
  4. mfClovis
  5. fMemphis
  6. ffStudio B
  7. fffStudio B

Silence. Hold the button and the note swells; let go between marks and it falls back.

Seven places wait in the hairpin: Vernon, Wink, Kermit, Clovis, Memphis and two takes at Studio B.

Winkler County, West Texas · from 1946

One room on Hendricks Boulevard.
One street with his name.

A small white storefront museum with Orbison painted on its walls
The Roy Orbison Museum on Hendricks Boulevard, Wink, 2014. Photograph: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress. Carol M. Highsmith (Library of Congress) · Public domain

The Roy Orbison Museum · Hendricks Boulevard, Wink

It is one small room, about 20 feet wide and 15 deep. It holds 45s including Only the Lonely and Crying, a neighbour’s guitar he played, and newspaper cuttings from his career.

It also holds his last pair of prescription sunglasses, worn at his final concert in 1988.

Free, and opened by appointment: call 432-527-3743 before you drive out. A note on the door gives a number to ring if it is shut. A visitor who found it shut rang the number on the door and a volunteer came to open it.

Score notes
Roy Orbison Museum, Wink

The Roy Orbison Museum

Wink, Texas · Free · by appointment, 432-527-3743

One room on Hendricks Boulevard: his 45s, a borrowed guitar and his last pair of prescription sunglasses. Free; ring ahead and a volunteer opens up.

Plan a visit
A wide, empty main road through a small West Texas town
Wink, Texas, 2014: the town, not the family house. Nicolas Henderson · CC BY 2.0

North Roy Orbison Drive, Wink

His family moved often and had settled in Wink by 1946. They lived on Langley Way, the street now called North Roy Orbison Drive.

In high school in Wink he formed his first band, the Wink Westerners; the estate dates it to 1949, when he was 13. His 1954 Wink High School yearbook gave his wish as leading a Western band.

The state marker stands on the street. The family’s house is private and is not identified or shown; the photograph is the town. The Texas Historical Commission put up its Roy Orbison marker here in 2009.

Score notes
A painted portrait of Orbison on a museum wall
Orbison painted on the side of the museum in Wink, 2014. Photograph: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress. Carol M. Highsmith (Library of Congress) · Public domain

Music Row, Nashville · 18 September 1959

Too shy to be heard over the band.
So: the coat rack.

Uptown, the first take: his voice sinks under the band.

A low brick studio building with an RCA sign
RCA Studio B, Music Row, Nashville, 2007. Cliff · CC BY 2.0

RCA Studio B · Music Row, Nashville

Built in 1957, Studio B became known as a birthplace of the Nashville Sound. Uptown was recorded here on 18 September 1959, with Fred Foster producing for Monument.

By guided tour only, with admission to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: tours leave the museum daily between 10am and 3pm, transport included. Arrive 15 minutes early.

Score notes
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Historic RCA Studio B tour

Music Row, Nashville · Daily 10am–3pm · with museum admission

Stand in the room where Uptown and Only the Lonely were made. Tours leave the museum by bus, only with museum admission.

Book the tour
Union Station Hotel

The Union Station Nashville Yards

1001 Broadway, Nashville

Nashville’s old railway terminal at 1001 Broadway, now a 125-room hotel with its stone walls and clock tower, and live music nightly in the Bar Car. Not an Orbison address; a base for the museum and Studio B. Pictured: Studio B.

Check rooms

England · 18 May to 9 June 1963

Top of the bill with the Beatles.
And the wrong glasses.

A young Roy Orbison in a suit and clear-rimmed glasses sitting astride a chair
Roy Orbison on the cover of Cash Box, 3 September 1960, in his clear-rimmed glasses. Monument Records (publicity photograph on the Cash Box cover) · Public domain

1960: clear frames on the cover of Cash Box.

Score notes

Adelphi Cinema, Slough · first night

The house wants him back.

Score notes
A brick cinema building with arched windows and a bingo sign
The former Adelphi on Bath Road, Slough, as a bingo hall in 2022. Jim Osley · CC BY-SA 2.0

The Adelphi, Slough · Bath Road, Slough

On 18 May 1963 his British tour with the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers opened at the Adelphi Cinema here. The Adelphi became a bingo hall in 1973; Buzz Bingo closed in April 2023 and the building is to become a banquet and wedding venue.

The building is changing hands and use, and its exact position is not checked here, so it is not on the map. Look from Bath Road.

Score notes
A pale stone civic hall with tall columns on a street corner
King George’s Hall, Northgate, Blackburn, 2011. Tim Green · CC BY 2.0

King George’s Hall, Blackburn · Northgate, Blackburn

The tour played its last night here, on 9 June 1963. The hall still stages concerts, comedy and pantomime.

Still a working concert hall: see the listings; box office at Northgate, 01254 582579.

Score notes
Roy Orbison in dark glasses with an acoustic guitar against wooden boards
Roy Orbison with an acoustic guitar in an MGM Records photograph, December 1965. MGM Records · Public domain

A rest in the score · 1966–1969

Two silences.

The marker records that his first wife, Claudette, died in a motorcycle accident in 1966, and that two of their three sons died in a fire in 1968.

It records that he married again in 1969; the estate says he and Barbara built a new home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Score notes
A modern school building beyond a lawn and a memorial wall
Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools on the Ambassador Hotel site, Wilshire Boulevard, 2010. Tedder · CC BY 3.0

3400 Wilshire Boulevard · 30 September 1987

A Black and White Night.
Springsteen, Costello and lang behind him.

His televised comeback concert, A Black and White Night, was made at the Cocoanut Grove. It was filmed on 30 September 1987, with Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and others behind him.

The Cocoanut Grove was the nightclub inside the Ambassador Hotel, opened on Wilshire in 1921. The school district began demolishing the hotel in October 2005; the porte cochère and one wall of the Grove were kept in the new campus.

Now public schools: see them from Wilshire Boulevard. They are not open to visitors.

Score notes

Highland Heights, Ohio · 4 December 1988

The last stage went round.
Five times.

A theatre in the round, the stage on a turntable.

A pair of black sunglasses in a museum display case
A pair of his dark glasses in a case at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, 2014: the nearest city to the Front Row’s lost site. Sam Howzit · CC BY 2.0

The Front Row Theater · Wilson Mills Road, Highland Heights, Ohio

It opened in 1974, seated 3,200 round a revolving stage, and closed in 1993. A guitarist who broke a string just before the curtain played Orbison’s own Gibson 335 that night.

Gone: the site is now a Home Depot, so it is not on the map. The photograph is his glasses in Cleveland, the nearest city.

Score notes
A small lawn cemetery with flowers on flat markers, office towers behind
Westwood Village Memorial Park, Los Angeles, 2005. Oleg Alexandrov · CC BY-SA 3.0

Westwood Village Memorial Park · 1218 Glendon Avenue, Westwood, Los Angeles

He died of a heart attack on 6 December 1988, aged 52. He lies in an unmarked plot here.

Open from 8am to dusk. His grave has no marker: please keep to the paths.

Score notes

Where it is now

8 places you can visit, in West Texas, New Mexico, Memphis, Nashville, Blackburn and Los Angeles. Vernon and Kermit are towns rather than buildings, the Adelphi is changing use and the Front Row is gone, so they are not on the map.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The state marker stands on the street. The family’s house is private and is not identified or shown; the photograph is the town.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Free, and opened by appointment: call 432-527-3743 before you drive out. A note on the door gives a number to ring if it is shut.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Tours are appointment-only, in small groups: ask by email at info@normanpettystudios.com.

  1. A wide, empty main road through a small West Texas town
    Wink, Texas, 2014: the town, not the family house. Nicolas Henderson · CC BY 2.0

    Roy Orbison Drive, between NE Second and NE First Streets, Wink

    North Roy Orbison Drive, Wink

    His family moved often and had settled in Wink by 1946.

    The state marker stands on the street. The family’s house is private and is not identified or shown; the photograph is the town.

    Score notes
  2. A small white storefront museum with Orbison painted on its walls
    The Roy Orbison Museum on Hendricks Boulevard, Wink, 2014. Photograph: Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress. Carol M. Highsmith (Library of Congress) · Public domain

    Hendricks Boulevard, Wink

    The Roy Orbison Museum

    It is one small room, about 20 feet wide and 15 deep.

    Free, and opened by appointment: call 432-527-3743 before you drive out. A note on the door gives a number to ring if it is shut.

    Score notes
  3. The low front of the Norman Petty Recording Studio on a quiet street
    The Norman Petty Recording Studio, West 7th Street, Clovis, 2017. Greg Gjerdingen · CC BY 2.0

    1313 West 7th Street, Clovis, New Mexico

    The Norman Petty Studio

    In 1955 he had recorded Ooby Dooby with college friends at Jim Beck’s studio in Dallas; Columbia passed on it.

    Tours are appointment-only, in small groups: ask by email at info@normanpettystudios.com.

    Score notes

Stay

Sleep near Music Row.

A hotel in Nashville’s old railway station, a short ride from the museum where the Studio B tours begin.

Union Station Hotel

The Union Station Nashville Yards

1001 Broadway, Nashville

Nashville’s old railway terminal at 1001 Broadway, now a 125-room hotel with its stone walls and clock tower, and live music nightly in the Bar Car. Not an Orbison address; a base for the museum and Studio B. Pictured: Studio B.

Check rooms

Go there

Stand in the rooms.

Studio B, Sun, the Petty studio in Clovis, the museum in Wink, and Nashville by tour.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Historic RCA Studio B tour

Music Row, Nashville · Daily 10am–3pm · with museum admission

Stand in the room where Uptown and Only the Lonely were made. Tours leave the museum by bus, only with museum admission.

Book the tour
Sun Studio

Sun Studio tour

706 Union Avenue, Memphis · Daily 10am–5.15pm · adults $20

Forty minutes in the studio whose label signed him in 1956; the tour tells his story with Cash, Perkins and Lewis.

Plan a visit
Norman Petty Studios

Norman Petty Studio tour

Clovis, New Mexico · By appointment · info@normanpettystudios.com

Small groups, by appointment, in the studio where the Teen Kings cut Ooby Dooby in 1956.

Ask for a tour
Roy Orbison Museum, Wink

The Roy Orbison Museum

Wink, Texas · Free · by appointment, 432-527-3743

One room on Hendricks Boulevard: his 45s, a borrowed guitar and his last pair of prescription sunglasses. Free; ring ahead and a volunteer opens up.

Plan a visit
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Nashville music tours

Nashville

Live marketplace results for music-history tours in Nashville. Check each itinerary for Music Row and Studio B.

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What’s on

Back in Blackburn.

The hall where the 1963 tour ended still has a season of shows.

Checking current event dates…

Take it home

Books and records.

His sons’ book, a study of his songs and image, and In Dreams on the British and American LPs of 1963.

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The Authorized Roy Orbison

Alex, Roy Jr. and Wesley Orbison

His sons’ book, published in 2017, with the story of the glasses.

Find the book
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Roy Orbison: The Invention of an Alternative Rock Masculinity

Peter Lehman

A study of his songs and image.

Find the book
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In Dreams

Roy Orbison · LP, London Records, 1963

The British LP of 1963, the year of the tour with the Beatles.

Live marketplace search · listings and condition change

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In Dreams

Roy Orbison · LP, Monument, 1963

The American Monument pressing.

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Find a copy

Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.

The score notes

Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.

12 of 12 places · 15 of 15 Moments

  • Vernon, Texas

    Wilbarger County, north Texas

    • Born in Vernon

      He is born in Vernon, Texas.

    • A contest on KVWC

      He wins a contest on the Vernon station and gets his own weekly show.

  • North Roy Orbison Drive, Wink

    Roy Orbison Drive, between NE Second and NE First Streets, Wink

    • The Wink Westerners

      At 13 he forms his first band in Wink.

  • The Roy Orbison Museum

    Hendricks Boulevard, Wink

    • KERB, Kermit

      Kermit, Winkler County

      • A weekly show on KERB

        The band plays regularly on the Kermit station, then gets a weekly show.

    • The Norman Petty Studio

      1313 West 7th Street, Clovis, New Mexico

      • Ooby Dooby in Clovis

        He records Ooby Dooby again at Norman Petty’s studio, for Je-Wel, after a first try in Dallas.

    • Sun Studio

      706 Union Avenue, Memphis

      • Sun

        Sam Phillips signs him; Ooby Dooby reaches number 59.

    • RCA Studio B

      Music Row, Nashville

      • Behind the coat rack

        Fred Foster records Uptown at Studio B, his quiet voice kept apart behind a coat rack.

      • Only the Lonely

        Only the Lonely reaches number two in America and number one in Britain.

      • A G above high C

        On Running Scared he sings the top notes in full voice and ends on a G above high C.

    • The Adelphi, Slough

      Bath Road, Slough

      • Fourteen encores

        The tour with the Beatles opens in Slough; he takes 14 encores on the first night.

      • The glasses left on the plane

        He leaves his regular glasses on a plane and wears his dark pair in England, and the photographs fix the look.

    • King George’s Hall, Blackburn

      Northgate, Blackburn

      • The last night of the tour

        The tour ends at King George’s Hall, Blackburn.

    • The Cocoanut Grove site

      3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Koreatown

      • A Black and White Night

        His televised comeback is filmed at the Cocoanut Grove with a band of admirers.

    • The Front Row Theater

      Wilson Mills Road, Highland Heights, Ohio

      • Five turns of the stage

        His last concert, on a stage that turns full circle five times.

    • Westwood Village Memorial Park

      1218 Glendon Avenue, Westwood, Los Angeles

      • Westwood

        He dies two days after the Front Row show and is buried in an unmarked plot in Westwood.

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