Roy Orbison at the Rock House


Roy Orbison at the Rock House is the first album by Roy Orbison on the Sun Records label, released in 1961 at a time when Orbison had already moved to the Monument label. Sun Records owner Sam Phillips had a collection of songs Orbison had recorded at Sun during 1956–1958. Phillips capitalized on the national recognition Orbison had achieved at Monument through three major hit singles in 1960 and 1961 that had gone to the top of the Billboard charts.
Most of the songs on Roy Orbison at the Rock House were written by Orbison but the songwriting credits were assigned to Sam Phillips, and are in Sun's traditional rockabilly style. Notable exceptions are compositions by other Sun artists Harold Jenkins and Johnny Cash. "Rock House" is credited to Orbison and Jenkins. the album was released as The Exciting Sounds Of Roy Orbison for its release in the UK in 1964, and it spent its two weeks on the album chart there at number 17. before being retitled as Roy Orbison - The Original Sound in The USA in 1969. Bear Family included also the album in the 2001 Orbison 1955-1965 box set.
For this release, all tracks except "Devil Doll" have been overdubbed with background vocals or additional instruments.
Avid Rock 'n' Roll labels included this CD in a box set entitled 3 Classic Albums Plus and was released on February 3, 2017.

Reception

Bruce Eder of AllMusic said that the album "is downright bracing and exciting, though it's easy to see why it never succeeded at the time -- numbers like "You're Gonna Cry" and "Problem Child" were a little too intense and ambitious as rock & roll, with too many changes and involved lyrics, to hold that audience en masse."
Billboard enjoyed Orbison's "exciting rocking dramatic style".
In its review of the album from October 1964 as The Exciting Sounds Of Roy Orbison, Cashbox stated that the album "contains such hits as "Rock House" and "Devil Doll."
Record World as Roy Orbison, The Original Sound raved, Orbison fans will find this an indispensible part of their collection."

Track listing

This album was only released in US.

Personnel

;The Teen Kings
;Additional musicians
  • The Four Roses – backing vocals
  • uncredited – guitar, bass, piano, drums; overdubbed guitars, bass, piano, drums, backing vocals