Above: c1962….The Wink Westerners with Roy Orbison & Slim Whitman. Photo by Harry Bruce.
Wink Westeners (band)
Formation: Wink, Texas
Genre: Country, Rock
In high school, Orbison and some friends formed a band, the “Wink Westerners”. They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit. When they were offered $400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized he could make a living in music.
After graduating from Wink High School, he enrolled at North Texas State College in Denton, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay.
When he heard that his schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, it further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician. While at North Texas State College, Roy heard a song called “Ooby Dooby”, composed by Dick Penner and Wade Moore, and after his first year of college, he returned to Wink with “Ooby Dooby” in hand and continued performing with the Wink Westerners. Orbison then enrolled in Odessa Junior College.
As two members of the band quit, two new members were added, and the group won a talent contest and obtained their own television show on KMID-TV in Midland, Texas.
The Wink Westerners kept performing on local TV, played dances on the weekends, and attended college during the day.
Roy Orbison would soon see Sam Phillips and the rest is history.