The
POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR continues with Day #6 - as well as the Tuesday Timeline entry. It's the first one for the month of
December, and I'll tell you something...I had no shortage of topics to choose
from. The clincher is that I wanted to
try and make this Christmas themed...and that was the hardest part. But, I think I've found a way to do
that...even if it means talking about the final day of one singer's life.
Before
we get to that, let's have a look at some of the other events that took place
on the 6th of December.
1768 - The first edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica is published
1790 - The United States Congress relocates to
Philadelphia from New York City
1865 - The ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution effectively bans slavery in the
United States
1877 - The Washington Post is printed for the
first time
1884 - Construction of the Washington Monument is
completed
1897 - London, England becomes the first city in
the world to host licensed taxicabs
1900 - Actress Agnes Moorehead (d. 1974) is born
in Clinton, Massachusetts
1907 - 362 coal miners lose their lives following
a mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia
1917 - A munitions explosion occurs near Halifax,
Nova Scotia, killing 1,900 people
1947 - The Everglades National Park is dedicated
1953 - Vladimir Nabokov completes the novel,
"Lolita" - one of the most controversial pieces of literature ever
written
1955 - Baseball player Honus Wagner dies at the
age of 81
1967 - The first human heart transplant is
performed by Adrian Kantrowitz
1971 - The diplomatic relations between India and
Pakistan are severed, leading up to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
1989 - Fourteen women are gunned down by an
anti-feminist gunman at an engineering school in Montreal, Quebec
1993 - Actor Don Ameche passes away at the age of
85
2006 - NASA reveals photographs taken by the Mars
Global Surveyor that suggests the presence of liquid water on Mars
2010 - Canadian reporter and CityTV personality
Mark Dailey dies of kidney cancer, aged 57
2011 - Singer Dobie Gray passes away, aged 71
And,
for celebrity birthdays, we have the following people turning one year
older. Happy birthday to Patrick Bauchau, JoBeth Williams, Wendy Ellis Somes, Tom Hulce, Steven Wright, Nick Park, Judd Apatow, Torri Higginson, Ulf Ekberg, Craig Brewer, Noel Clarke, and Ryan Carnes.
So,
how far are we going back in time this week?
Well,
how about three decades less two years?
That would make the date December 6,
1988.
As
I mentioned before, this date is a sad one in the music industry. This was the day in which a real music
legend lost his life...and it came at a time in which he was experiencing what
could be considered one of the greatest comebacks in the industry.
Now,
for some artists, they make comeback albums every three or four years or
so. It seems like it's almost a joke of
sorts. But in actuality, this was an
entertainer who was in his prime in the late 1950s and early 1960s and hadn't
had another hit until 1988. Not only
did he have success as a solo artist, but he had joined a supergroup that had
formed the year before with Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and George
Harrison.
Who
knew that Roy Orbison would have had such a
career resurgence at the age of 52?
Even he seemed surprised at the idea of people responding so well to
him. After all, this was a man who
started his career in 1957 with a voice that was unlike any other male voices
heard on the radio at that time.
Whereas most of the male artists at that time had a defining masculinity
about him which could be heard in their vocals, Orbison's voice showed a little
bit of vulnerability, and almost seemed operatic in comparison.
And
yet, it seemed to fit in very well during the early 1960s. He had hit after hit with songs like
"Only The Lonely", and "Crying", and "Oh, Pretty
Woman". He even released a few
Christmas singles such as the one heard below.
Throughout the 1970s, his career stagnated a bit, but by the time 1988
rolled around, he had jumped in full swing with his work with The Traveling
Wilburys, as well as recording a brand new album entitled "Mystery
Girl". By late 1988, the tracks
were all completed and Orbison was set to release the album sometime in
1989. It was the first new album that
Orbison had released in ten years, and thanks to his work with the Traveling
Wilburys, fans were anticipating the release.
But
what the public didn't know was that Orbison hadn't been feeling very well in
the weeks leading up to his death. In November
1988, he had been experiencing chest pains.
He confided to his friend, Johnny Cash, about this and Cash had
reportedly encouraged Orbison to get checked out by a doctor, but Orbison
decided to ignore the advice and went ahead to Europe. There, he accepted an award as well as
performed in Antwerp, where he performed one of his newest singles, "You
Got It".
From
there, he conducted a series of interviews for television, flew back to the
United States to perform shows, and by the 4th of December, he was physically
exhausted from the stressful schedule.
He returned to his home in Henderson, Tennessee to recuperate from it
all. He planned to stay there until
after the holidays were over, and from there, he would fly out to London to
film some more videos for the Traveling Wilburys. At least, that was what the plan was.
Sadly,
two days later, on December 6, 1988, Orbison suffered a massive heart attack at
the age of 52. The tabloids had
suggested that Orbison had worked himself to death, but Orbison had had heart
troubles as far back as ten years prior to his death. In many ways, the stress certainly didn't help him out, but my
opinion is that Orbison's health had been a ticking time bomb for several
years, and it's unfortunate that he died when his career was going so well.
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