Roy Orbison mix from the top down rather than from the bottom up, beginning with close-miked backing vocals in the foreground, and ending with the rhythm section soft in the background. This combination became Orbison's trademark sound. "Only the Lonely" shot to number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and hit number one in the UK and Australia. According to Orbison, the subsequent songs he wrote with Melson during this period were constructed with his voice in mind, specifically to showcase its range and power. He told "Rolling Stone" in 1988, "I liked the sound of [my voice]. I liked making it
Roy Orbison commercial failure of Orbison's work at MGM. Engineer Bill Porter agreed that Orbison's best work could only be achieved with RCA Nashville's A-Team. Orbison's first collection at MGM, an album titled "There Is Only One Roy Orbison", sold fewer than 200,000 copies. With the onset of the British Invasion in 1964–65, the direction of popular music shifted dramatically, and most performers of Orbison's generation were driven from the charts. While on tour again in the UK in 1966, Orbison broke his foot falling off a motorcycle in front of thousands of screaming fans at a race track; he performed his