uDiscover: TOP TEAR SERVICE: ORBISON’S ‘CRY SOFTLY NO MORE’
If 1967 signalled the Summer Of Love for the counterculture, Roy Orbison could still be found heartbroken and yearning… bursting with emotion on an album that easily stands among the best of his work.
As summer turned to autumn, Orbison released Cry Softly Lonely One, an anomaly in his MGM catalogue – much of which saw him revisit his country roots, whether through recording tribute albums to heavyweight icons such as Hank Williams, or establishing his own place in the country-rock hierarchy of the late 60s/early 70s. Yet Cry Softly Lonely One, issued in October 1967, is notable for Orbison’s revisit of his “classic” early sound. With sumptuous string arrangements by Bill McElhiney, the album is a mid-period counterpart to Orbison’s early 60s releases Lonely And Blue, Crying or In Dreams…
