From the S&S archives:
Roy Orbison, still warbling after 25 years

UM, DUM, DUM, dumdee-doo-wah
Obee-ay-yay-yay-ah
Oh, woh, woh, woh-oh-ah
Only the lonely

Not many performers can get away with using such lyrics to string together an hour-plus show of Top 40 hits. Roy Orbison can — and did in the base gym at RAF Mildenhall, England, in July at the end of his 20th trip in as many years to the United Kingdom.

Sha-la,la
Doo-be-wah
Bum, Bum, bum, yeah yeah
Oh, Blue Angel

In all fairness, Orbison has forgone these background warblings of his 1950s beginning to maintain popularity during a 25-year career.

But his one-set performance here was sprinkled enough with these utterings to remind the 600-strong audience of his roots in early country western turned rock 'n' roll.

On this tour of Britain, he said he played for three solid weeks in near-packed houses from stops in London's new Barbican Centre and Southend to three gigs in Scotland, on top of filming a television program at a festival in Bulgaria.

"About two months back we were in England and did mostly the south, so this is actually the second half of our April-May tour," he said.

Orbison said his spring tour was sold out completely, but this trip he worked with several different promoters. "Some of the houses haven't been total capacity, but it's been really good business."

How does he still pack 'em in after 25 years?

"I've been lucky enough to have hits over four decades — the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s," said Orbison, originally from Vernon, Texas. He named Ooby Dooby in 1956, followed by Only the Lonely; Oh, Pretty Woman and last year's Grammy-winning That Old Loving You Feeling duet with Emmylou Harris. "Three were about 35 or 40 records, so I couldn't name 'em all," he joked, during an interview before his Mildenhall concert.

His long-standing popularity, he said, is due to song writing and staying close to the business, getting an early start — and luck.

"When I was about six years old, I started playing and did it non-professionally for 10 years," he began. "It turned out I could make a living out of what I loved doing instead of trying to go into the profession to make money. I'd still be doing it if I wasn't making any money.

He said the money still is good, but inflation plays a big part. "The money is bigger than it ever has been. If you're lucky enough, as in my case, to be a songwriter-singer, as opposed to just a singer, then you start building up a catalog of songs" (for himself and many other artists). "For instance, Pretty Woman is No. 4 (at the time of the interview) in America. About two years ago, Cryin' was the No. 1 record in the world. A year or two before that, Blue Bayou was the No. 1 record in the world. Inflation, I guess, is the reason I'm doing better than I did," he laughed.

"If you earn a few hundred dollars per song every year — I'd make a guess that 300 songs of mine have been recorded — some making $60,000-$70,000 a year, altogether it makes things very nice. You earn a lot of money, but it takes a lot more. That's why I mentioned inflation. It takes a lot more to fly — it's quadrupled — and hotels have gone sky-high."

He has another secret to success. "I've been the kind of artist that doesn't take all the money out of a place the first time he goes in. Some artists do.

"For a huge fee, they'll play one time, but they're not planning on being around for a long time because no one makes a lot of money that way. I've been to England 20 times in 20 years, to Australia at least 12 times, Canada 15 times, Europe 10 times. It's a repeat business and each time you come back for a little more than you did each year before."

Looking all of his 46 years, his black hair obviously dyed to match his trademark black costume and wearing his ever-present sunglasses, Orbison said he now appeals to three generations of fans.

"Each year you've got a hit record you've got that many children born. If there's a girl who's six years old who liked one hit record, 10 years later she's bought your records when she's 16. Twenty years later you've got moms and dads bringing kids and kids bringing moms and dads. Three are easily three generations of Roy Orbison fans — the younger ones may not be true fans yet, but I hope they will be."

After his U.K. tour, Orbison flew directly to Los Angeles for a 10-day stint in California before a rest at his home in Nashville. He said he tries to tour about 10 days each month, but 10 years ago he toured for seven months straight with only nine days off.

"I'll never do that again," he sighed, looking back on the tour that began in London and took in the Continent, Australia and Asia before ending in New York's Madison Square Garden.

"The singing can go on almost indefinitely," he said. "Touring, we've slowed down. Instead of going overseas every year, we might go every other year. We just finished going to Sweden, Holland, Switzerland and Germany — and they want us to come back in 10 months. So we may do that, playing Berlin and Frankfurt in those monstrous big halls for 15-20,000 people.

For a much smaller audience of 600 in the Mildenhall gym, Orbison had little dialog among 17 songs in a 70-minute show. The introductory chords or words (or warblings) of each number brought recognizing applause and cheers that settled into silence until each song's end.

Orbison's falsetto notes sometimes just weren't there, but his mid-range vocal strength was true to form as he worked through his other hits — Dream Baby, in Dreams, Candy Man, Hound Dog Man, That Old Loving You Feeling and Move on Down the Line, the first song he wrote.

An hour into the set, Orbison signaled the show's climax with the vocal strains of It's Over and jamming with his-backup band for Oh, Pretty Woman, saving the teenage-love ballad Runnin' Scared for his finale.

A standing ovation brought a two-minute replay of his last number, but no more, probably because he'd sung all of his hits.

If Orbison's touring philosophy proves true, however, promoters will bring him back to the U.K. next year after his tour of the Continent — and he'll probably sing the same songs, which his fans come to hear.