By the time Barbara Jakobs met Roy Orbison at an English club in 1968, the singer's career was in decline. In the age of Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, Orbison's high-gloss psychodramas seemed part of another world entirely. It would take an unlikely series of events — aided, of course, by the convolutions of hip taste that no one can accurately predict — to put Orbison back on top, and Barbara Jakobs did much to make Roy Orbison into a modern artist. Before the Texas rock 'n' roll legend died in 1988, he was regarded as a maestro of mysterious longings and a great singer — he made what is arguably the comeback of all comebacks.
Born in Bielefeld, Germany, Jakobs married Roy Orbison in 1969. After a fallow period in the 1970s, Orbison began to attract a new generation of fans by the end of the decade. Linda Ronstadt covered "Blue Bayou" in 1977 — Orbison had co-written the song and released it in 1963. The over-the-top style Orbison had perfected remained in the popular mind, with heavy-metal band Nazareth doing an effective version of "Love Hurts," another song Orbison had recorded in his glory days.
