Nicknamed "The Big O", was an influential American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll, whose recording career spanned more than four decades. In 1949, at age 13, he organized his first band, "The Wink Westerners", and when not singing with the band he spent his time playing guitar and writing songs. Johnny Cash, advised them to seek a contract with his record producer, Sam Phillips, of Sun Records. Sam turned him down and only added him to Sun Records' roster after hearing a recording made at Norman Petty's studio in Clovis, New Mexico. Many of the earliest songs he recorded were produced by Sam Phillips, who also produced Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. Back in 1957, Roy Orbison met songwriter Joe Melson Together, they created a sound unheard of in rock and roll at the time: the dramatic rock ballad. The common misconceptions that he wore his trademark dark glasses because he was blind or nearly so is not true. Orbison's trademark sunglasses were a fashion statement arising from an accident early in his career. Due to go onstage in a few minutes, Orbison had left his regular glasses in an airplane. Unable to see without corrective lenses, the only other pair of glasses he had available were darkly tinted prescription sunglasses. "I had to see to get onstage," so he wore the glasses throughout his tour with the Beatles, and he carried on with it for the rest of his professional career. "I'll just do this and look cool. By the mid-1960s Orbison was internationally recognized for his ballads of lost love, rhythmically advanced melodies, characteristic dark sunglasses, and sometimes distinctive usage of falsetto, typified in songs such as "Only The Lonely", "In Dreams", "Oh, Pretty Woman", "Crying" and "Running Scared". " Orbison maintained his success as the British Invasion swept America in 1964. His single "Oh, Pretty Woman" broke the Beatles' stranglehold on the Top 10, soaring to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The record sold more copies in its first ten days of release than any 45rpm up to that time and would go on to sell more than seven million copies. Shortly before his death 1988, brought Orbison to the attention of a younger generation, Orbison joined Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty to form the Traveling Wilburys, achieving substantial commercial and critical success. He subsequently recorded a new solo album, Mystery Girl. Orbison, who smoked most of his life, had triple heart bypass surgery on January 18, 1978. On December 6, 1988, at the age of 52, he suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting his mother in the Nashville.