{"id":545427,"date":"2026-03-26T01:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/545427\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T01:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:20:10","slug":"on-this-day-in-1960-roy-orbison-recorded-his-first-hit-a-song-originally-intended-for-elvis-presley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/545427\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1960, Roy Orbison Recorded His First Hit\u2014a Song Originally Intended for Elvis Presley"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (March 25) in 1960, Roy Orbison<\/a> stepped into RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, to record \u201cOnly the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel).\u201d It went on to be his first top 10 hit. Moreover, it was one of the biggest hits of his career. However, Orbison didn\u2019t initially intend to record the song. Instead, he hoped to pitch it to Elvis Presley or the Everly Brothers.<\/p>\n

Orbison\u2019s recording career began in 1956, when he was a member of a group called the Teen Kings. One of their singles, \u201cOoby Dooby,\u201d reached the Billboard charts, peaking at No. 59 in 1956. After going solo, he reached the charts once with \u201cUp Town\u201d in 1959. It peaked at No. 72.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: On This Day in 1964, Roy Orbison Was at No. 1 With a Song That Would Be at the Center of a Landmark Federal Lawsuit]<\/a><\/p>\n

Orbison co-wrote \u201cOnly the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)\u201d with Joe Metson. At the time, he hoped to get a more successful artist to record the song. Presley was still hot at the time. So, he was high on the list of artists to pitch the song to. Additionally, the Everly Brothers had already recorded Orbison\u2019s \u201cClaudette.\u201d Their rendition of the song peaked at No. 30 on the Hot 100 and went to No. 15 on the country chart. As a result, he chose to pitch the song to them as well.<\/p>\n

Roy Orbison Records His First Hit Song<\/p>\n

Both Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers passed on the song that Roy Orbison brought to them. However, the Everlys didn\u2019t just turn it down. They insisted that he record it, according to Songfacts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)\u201d was one of Orbison\u2019s first recordings for Monument Records. It was a departure from the rockabilly he previously recorded for Sun Records. Produced by Fred Foster and featuring the Nashville A-Team, this hit saw him leaning into the then-popular Nashville Sound. The string arrangement and backing vocals from the Anita Kerr Singers helped send this track to No. 2 on the Hot 100.<\/p>\n

Featured Image by Evening Standard\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (March 25) in 1960, Roy Orbison stepped into RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[24911,88,216,68852],"class_list":["post-545427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-roy-orbison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}