Roy Orbison sing, making the voice ring, and I just kept doing it. And I think that somewhere between the time of "Ooby Dooby" and "Only the Lonely", it kind of turned into a good voice." Its success transformed Orbison into an overnight star and he appeared on Dick Clark's "Saturday Night Beechnut Show" out of New York City. When Presley heard "Only the Lonely" for the first time, he bought a box of copies to pass to his friends. Melson and Orbison followed it with the more complex "Blue Angel", which peaked at number nine in the US and number 11
Roy Orbison going to pick up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac. Orbison wrote "Claudette"—about Claudette Frady whom he married in 1957—and the Everly Brothers recorded it for their subsequent release as the B-side of their smash hit "All I Have to Do Is Dream". The first, and perhaps only, royalties Orbison earned from Sun Records enabled him to make a down payment on his own Cadillac. Increasingly frustrated at Sun, he gradually stopped recording. He toured music circuits around Texas and then quit performing for seven months in 1958 after touring with Patsy Cline, Eddie Cochran, and Gene Vincent.