Sons unite to create new Roy Orbison song

Roy Orbison’s three sons Wesley, Roy Jr. and Alex Orbison have helped create a new song by their father which will appear on the 25th anniversary reissue of Roy Orbison’s final album “Mystery Girl.” They stumbled across an old vocal track of a song called “The Way is Love” originally recorded on a boombox and were able to use technology to reclaim the song and finish the work with the help co-producer John Carter Cash.

“It really brought us closer together in a lot of ways,” said Alex Orbison, who contributed drums and backing vocals to the track. “We were able to finish it up and get it out by Father’s Day which was obviously special to us.”

“Mystery Girl” will be re-released May 20th with nine previously unheard songs including “The Way is Love”. At the time of the original release of “Mystery Girl” Roy Orbison was going through a career renaissance, he had just received massive attention for working with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jeff Lyne. The album had contributions from Jeff Lyne, Bono of U2, Elvis Costello and many more friends. His wife and then manger Barbara even sung backup on the album. Orbison was excited about the new album. Sadly, Roy Orbison passed away two months before the release in February 1989 at age 52.

Almost quarter of a century later his sons got to experience the same excitement their father did, although they were not able to record with their father it was definitely a family moment that will live on in their hearts forever.

“We all just wanted to not stop recording,” Alex Orbison said. “That was the first thing: ‘When are we going to do an Orbison Brothers record? We had so much fun. It was really too much fun.”

This is a special thing Creative is glad to hear happening.