The Classic Roy Orbison is the ninth studio album recorded by Roy Orbison, and his third on the MGM Records label, released in July 1966. The single taken from it, "Twinkle Toes", would be Orbison's last US top-forty single during his lifetime, scraping in at #39. It also reached #24 in Australia and #29 in the UK.
Some of the songs were leftovers from The Orbison Way sessions, Whilst the album was due to be complete Orbison went to England and promoted the single “Twinkle Toes”. On Easter Sunday 1966, he was riding his motorbike at Hawkestone Park in Birmingham when he fell off the bike and injured his foot. He performed a concert that week in a cast. Three weeks after the album was completed on June 6, 1966, Orbison and his wife Claudette rode on their motorbikes to a drag race in Bristol, Tennessee. They rode back the same night turning off Interstate 40 onto Highway 109 toward Gallatin for a shortcut back to Hendersonville. Roy led the way with Claudette behind him. Roy then heard sirens of emergency vehicles before he realised that Claudette wasn’t with him. He turned around to find out that she had been struck by a lorry and died later in the hospital.
Track listing
The album reached No. 12 in the UK. All tracks composed by Roy Orbison and Bill Dees, except where indicated.
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