Roy Orbison Tribute to Benefit the Homeless : Pop Music: Orbison’s widow organized the concert, featuring an all-star lineup that includes Bonnie Raitt’s first appearance since her Grammy triumph.

“Roy always said that inside each rock performer there’s a homeless person, because you start out by sleeping on people’s couches,” said Barbara Orbison, speaking about her late husband Roy. “Now Roy’s music is actually helping people maybe to have a place to put their heads at night.”

The widow of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was discussing Saturday’s Universal Amphitheatre tribute concert to Orbison--a benefit for the homeless that will mark Bonnie Raitt’s first performance since her Grammy sweep on Wednesday.

She’ll be joined by a lineup that includes John Fogerty, Emmylou Harris, B.B. King, John Hiatt, Iggy Pop, Patrick Swayze and original Byrds Chris Hillman, David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. Pete Townshend will made a video appearance from London, as will Johnny Cash from Nashville, and surprise appearances are expected. Actor Dean Stockwell will serve as host.

Roy Orbison may have been the singer laureate of the lonely, but he was obviously anything but lonely. The roster is testimony to the legacy of Orbison, a veteran of the ‘50s Sun Records glory years with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis who in the early ‘60s achieved fame with such enduring songs as the haunting “Only the Lonely” and the lusty “Oh, Pretty Woman.”

Before he died at age 52 of a heart attack on Dec. 8, 1988, Orbison had again become a star following his induction into the Hall of Fame and as a member of the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, who just won the rock group vocal Grammy. The quintet’s album went to No. 1 following Orbison’s death. The bespectacled singer’s own “Mystery Girl” album, recorded shortly before he died, was also a posthumous success.

The idea for Saturday’s concert, said the show’s executive producer Barbara Orbison, came after Royal Crown Cola approached her last year about using “Only the Lonely” in a series of public service advertisements about the homeless, the soft-drink company’s official charity. She was in favor of it, but the rights to the song could not be obtained from the publisher.

But the offer nudged Barbara to go ahead with a concert tribute, with Royal Crown as corporate sponsor. The event will be taped for later airing as a one-hour Showtime cable television special.

Orbison had wanted to mount such a venture ever since her husband’s death, but first had to get over some emotional hurdles.

“It wasn’t like I got up one morning and said I wanted to do this,” she said. “The last year has been the most special and toughest of my life, walking through without Roy.”

Barbara Orbison, 38, was born and raised in Bielefeld, West Germany, where her father owned a candy store. She met the singer when he was living in London in 1968. They were married the next year and had two children (Roy Kelton, 19, and Alex, 14) in addition to raising Wesley, Roy’s son by his first wife, Claudette, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1966. (Two other of Roy’s sons died in a fire in 1968.)

The point of the show, Orbison said, is not so much to have stars say how much they owed her husband, but to act out what he stood for.

“To really put musicians where there is a bond going on, this is what it is all about,” Orbison said, sitting in her publicist’s West Hollywood office. “Renewing old friendships and making new ones and remembering what music is all about.”

Accordingly, the format of the concert will differ from the standard parade-of-stars tribute. The music will be handled by two backing bands--the musicians who worked on Roy Orbison’s “Black and White Night” 1988 cable TV special under the direction of T Bone Burnett, and the band Was (Not Was). Most numbers will involving groupings of stars rather than individuals.

One spot that Barbara Orbison is especially looking forward to will feature a group of female singers assembled by k.d. lang (who won the female country vocal on Wednesday, and shared a Grammy with Roy last year for their duet “Crying”) to perform “Oh, Pretty Woman.” Among those joining her will be Raitt, Harris, Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth, Michelle Shocked and rocker Cindy Bullens.

The concert is just one of several Orbison memorial projects in the works. Barbara Orbison is putting the finishing touches on a book about Roy’s life, which the singer himself started before his death, and a movie is planned. Barbara is also working on a documentary about Roy. But perhaps her favorite is the upcoming videocassette release of Roy’s lone movie, the corny, singing-cowboy flick “The Fastest Guitar Alive.” The mere existence of this strictly grade-B concept (Orbison totes a hybrid guitar/rifle) helps deflate the solemnity inherent in memorials.

Barbara laughed heartily when asked about the movie. “Roy and I watched it two years ago. It was really funny watching it with him and our sons. He had a great ability to laugh at himself, and we all kidded him about the movie unmercifully.”