Barbara Orbison, widow of rock-and-roll pioneer Roy Orbison, dies at 60

Press, Published: December 8

Barbara Orbison, the widow of rock-and-roll pioneer Roy Orbison, died Dec. 6 on the 23rd anniversary of his death. She was 60.

She died of pancreatic cancer at a Los Angeles hospital, according to publicist and family spokeswoman Sarah McMullen.

Since the 1980s, Mrs. Orbison devoted her time to managing her husband’s estate and keeping his legacy alive.
With her son Roy Kelton Orbison Jr., she co-produced a four-CD box set of her husband’s 107 recordings. “Roy Orbison: The Soul of Rock and Roll” was released in 2008 and contains all of his hits and 12 previously unreleased tracks.

The package marked the first all-inclusive body of Roy Orbison’s work from his earliest recordings to his last live performance. He died in 1988 at age 52 in the midst of a comeback with the Traveling Wilburys.

In 1998, Mrs. Orbison issued a collection of previously unreleased live recordings from the Netherlands and France made in 1965, “Combo Concert,” on her Orbison Records label.

Mrs. Orbison accepted the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award on her husband’s behalf in 1998.

Her Nashville-based music publishing company, Still Working Music, was recently awarded BMI’s 2010 Song of the Year for Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.”

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