Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 6, 2005

Roy Orbison was one of the most influential American singer-songwriters and a pioneer of rock and roll whose recording career spanned more than four decades. By the mid-1960s, he was internationally recognized for his ballads of lost love, rhythmically advanced melodies, three octave vocal range, and characteristic dark sunglasses. Notable hits written and recorded by Orbison on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time include "Only The Lonely", "Oh, Pretty Woman", "In Dreams" and "Crying". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Orbison suffered a heart attack and died just before midnight on 1988 December 6 at the age of 52. In 1989, Roy Orbison was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.