Roy Orbison was on a four-year roll in the early 1960’s. When it was over in 1964, the native Texan (born in Vernon, high school in Wink) would have 22 Top 40 hits to his credit. But it was on June 5, 1961 that an Orbison single climbed to the top of the Billboard chart for the very first time, and that song was “Running Scared.”
The year was 1890 and the place was Fort Worth, a boom town of 23,000. The former frontier outpost had never had a real disaster nor a bona fide hero until that tragic night.
This is the subject of my column for the week of Wednesday, June 5 thru Tuesday the 11th. Check your local paper, which hopefully carries “This Week in Texas History,” to read the fascinating story of the Spring Palace fire.
Roy Holley has been nice enough to give us permission to post a recording of the interview from Saturday’s “Talk about Texas” for you. Click here to have a listen!
I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s appearance on Roy Holley’s “Talk About Texas” radio show. It airs every Saturday morning from 9:30 to 10:00 on KKYX 680 AM, a 50,000-watt San Antonio station with 100-county coverage. Or to put it another way, Holley’s show can be heard in two out of every three Texas counties!
I strongly encourage my readers to give “Talk About Texas” a try. If you like my newspaper column “This Week in Texas History,” it’s a safe bet you will get a kick out of Roy’s show.