Before “Oh, Pretty Woman,” before “Only the Lonely,” Roy Orbison was a young singer at Sun Records in Memphis who had yet to land a big hit. His first real break as a songwriter did not come from a record label or a contract. It came from a few minutes backstage with the Everly Brothers, and the lid of a shoebox.
Everyone Else Was Pitching
By then, Don and Phil Everly were one of the hottest acts in America. Backstage, songwriters crowded in, each hoping to get a song in front of the brothers. Roy was there too, but he hung back while the others pitched.
Then the Everlys asked whether he had any songs. Roy sang one he had named after his wife, Claudette, whom he had married the year before.
Roy later told the story himself. The brothers liked the song very much, he said, and they wrote the words down on the spot.
“…wrote the lyric down on the top of a shoe box.” – Roy Orbison
Just a song sung in a crowded room and copied onto cardboard. The brothers took it home to Nashville.
Memories That Don’t Quite Match
Like many stories from those days, the details shift depending on who tells it. Phil Everly remembered it happening in Chicago. Some retellings say it was the brothers’ father, Ike Everly, who asked Roy if he had a song. Others place it on a tour where Buddy Holly was playing his own songs for the brothers while Roy waited his turn. What every version keeps is the same simple picture: Roy holding back, being asked, singing “Claudette,” and the words ending up on a box.
From a Shoebox to a No. 1 Record
Roy had already cut a demo of “Claudette” at Sun Studio on January 10, 1958, but he never released his version at the time. The Everly Brothers did not wait. On March 6, 1958, they recorded it at RCA’s studio in Nashville, with Archie Bleyer producing.
In April 1958, Cadence Records put “Claudette” on the flip side of “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” The A-side reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts that May. “Claudette” climbed to around No. 30 on its own in America. In Britain, the New Musical Express listed both sides together at No. 1, where the record stayed for seven weeks that summer. Roy always counted it as a No. 1 he shared.
What That One Song Bought Roy Orbison
For a young man trying to support a family, being on the back of a No. 1 record meant real money. Roy used the royalties from “Claudette” to buy his way out of his contract with Sun Records.
The song also put him in front of the right people. Wesley Rose, the Everly Brothers’ manager, signed Roy to the Acuff-Rose publishing company and became his manager. Within a couple of years, Roy Orbison would be singing his own hits in that soaring voice the whole world came to know.
Roy never forgot where it started. Decades later, he recorded “Claudette” again for his 1986 collection In Dreams: The Greatest Hits, and he sang it at the famous A Black and White Night concert in 1987.
Do you remember hearing “Claudette” on the other side of “All I Have to Do Is Dream”?