Roy Orbison's Widow Recalls His Love of Music, Style and Film on His 75th Birthday

He dressed like he was in mourning. His life was marked by tragedy, and his biggest hits were exquisitely broken-hearted. Yet Roy Orbison, who would have been 75 on April 22, led a rich, happy, contented life before his premature death in 1988.

"He'd say, 'They need one man to be sad and lonely, and they gave me the crown,'" says the singer's widow, Barbara Orbison. Like his peers, such as Bob Dylan and Keith Richards (both of whom were in awe of the farsighted Texan in the thick glasses), Orbison knew he had a role to play.

Not that he was fond of it. He had his sons, his dogs, his classic cars. "I have the greatest life," Barbara recalls her husband saying.

Listen to 'The Monument Singles Collection' for Free

After years of rehashed greatest hits collections, Mrs. Orbison, with help from Roy Jr., has just overseen the release of 'The Monument Singles Collection.' The two-disc, one-DVD package restores to the original mono mixes all of the Big O's lush, astonishing songs from his creative peak in the early 1960s -- 'Crying,' 'It's Over,' 'Only the Lonely' -- and their B-sides.

"I told them, I can't do another 'Greatest Hits,'" she says. "I'm here to do one thing -- to pass on the history of this incredible man and artist called Roy Orbison."

The German-born Barbara Wellhoener Jakobs married the singer in 1969, three years after his first wife, Claudette (pictured on the left), died in a motorcycle accident, and just a year after the tragic deaths of two of his sons in a house fire. Roy and Barbara had two sons together, Roy Jr. and Alex, drummer for the L.A. band Whitestarr, and they raised Wesley, Orbison's surviving son from his marriage to Claudette.

Though he was known for wearing dark glasses, Roy loved movie theaters. On tour, he often rented cinemas after hours so he and his crew could watch first-run films after a gig.

"In fact, his close friends would have told you he probably should have been a director," says Barbara.

His eye for storytelling spilled over into his songwriting. "That's what he did -- he told a story in song," says his widow. Whether 'Running Scared' or 'Oh, Pretty Woman,' his best songs were artful vignettes.

"He saw," says Barbara, pictured on the left. "That's what Roy was really great at." When he forgot his reading glasses and wore his sunglasses onstage for the first time, he knew instantly he'd created a look: "When the photos came back, he knew what he had. He was very sure-footed as an inventor."

After a brief period with Sun Records, Sam Phillips's rockabilly label, in the 1950s, Orbison almost singlehandedly redeemed the early 1960s from the era's treacly pop hits with his elegant, almost operatic productions. He headlined tours with the bands that would soon dominate the rock 'n' roll resurgence, from the Beach Boys to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Bruce Springsteen, an unabashed fan, inducted Orbison into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. When the Traveling Wilburys formed on a lark, the members of the supergroup -- Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, ELO's Jeff Lynne -- all bowed to the master singer. (In 'Chronicles: Volume One,' Dylan wrote that his friend "transcended all the genres ... He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop.") And when Orbison recorded his extraordinary comeback album, 'Mystery Girl,' Bono and the Edge contributed a song, as did Elvis Costello.

"Roy transitioned well from the '50s into the '60s," says his widow. "In the '70s he was basically rebuilding a life. He didn't want to do anything except be somebody in love, with a little money and lots of fun. By the '80s, he was ready again."

When he recorded 'Mystery Girl,' which would be released two months after his death, he knew he had to deliver an album that stood up to the Monument singles. "He never had a throw-away hit," Barbara says. "He either had a hit, or he didn't."

If he were alive today, she says, her late husband would say he had yet to write his best song. Considering the songs he left behind, that'd be quite a statement.