Editor's note: This column is Part 2 on Roy Orbison and part of the continuing series on Texas musicians. Roy Orbison, by 1958 and still just 22, began to settle into a life of a sometimes performer ...

If you wanted to assemble a time-lapse movie of rock 'n' roll's development, you could begin by illustrating the way riffs have often defined rock's great songs and performances. Elmore James kicked ...

Fred Foster thought a young Roy Orbison—pale, scrawny and exceedingly reticent—was the antithesis of a rock star when the two met in early 1959. Orbison wasn't overly excited about meeting Foster, ...

Here's Bob Dylan, writing in his Chronicles, Volume One memoir, about hearing his future Traveling Wilburys bandmate Roy Orbison singing "Running Scared" on the radio, back when the song was new: He ...

From a puff of smoke at center stage, the legendary crooner appeared, in dark glasses and a gray suit with a black shirt underneath, and his silver crusader cross necklace. He held a red Gibson guitar ...