Madonna has paid an emotional tribute to her former collaborator William Orbit, saying “in many ways you were my ray of light”.
Orbit, whose real name was William Wainwright, died at home on July 23 at the age of 69. His passing was announced yesterday (August 7), although no cause of death was shared.
His working relationship with Madonna shot him to stardom in the late ’90s, winning him three Grammys – two for 1998 album ‘Ray Of Light’ and one for the song ‘Beautiful Stranger’.
Madonna has now reflected on their time together in a moving tribute on her Instagram, where she said she had “an epiphany” when she started working with him.
“I realized that music did not have to fit into categories or genres,” she wrote. “So we created our own. You pressed a magic button inside of me and I fell into a galaxy of unrealized dreams. Your music gave me a magic carpet to fly on and I visited many places. Sad and joyful.”
Posted alongside their Grammy acceptance speech for ‘Ray Of Light’, she continued: “I say in ways I’d never sung before. I used words without caring if they made sense or not. In may ways you were my Ray Of Light – as was my daughter Lola, who was born around this time.”
“I was starting a new chapter. I was choosing another road to walk down – and you were right by my side with your crooked teeth and your genius way of hearing music. The studio was often church-like and I would sit in silence, waiting for your ideas to explode out of your keyboard or your guitar and then I would run with them…”
She continued: “I miss those days. Only you could inspire me to write a song like ‘Drowned World’ or ‘Swim’. You were so otherworldly. So singular. The years passed and I moved on to make music with other people, but I have never forgotten you or the magical time we spent together.”
“Goodbye Billy Bubbles,” she concluded. “I was so lucky to have known you and fallen down the rabbit hole with you.”
Madonna began working with Orbit after he remixed her songs ‘Justify My Love’ and ‘Erotica’, and was recruited to produce ‘Ray Of Light’ after sending her a cassette of instrumental tracks in 1997.
His incorporation of techno and trip-hop-inspired beats into Madonna’s music helped to rejuvenate her career, with the album selling over 16million copies around the world.
Earlier this year, he said he had written a “successor” to ‘Ray Of Light’, but said he had had “nil response” from Madonna despite reaching out to her. He made it clear that there were “zero hard feelings” between them, though, saying he would “always love that woman” and crediting her for making his career.
In an obituary for Orbit, NME noted: “After ‘Ray Of Light’, Orbit found himself in hot demand. He co-produced Blur’s most experimental and intimate album to date, 1999’s ’13’, which yielded the lovely, gospel-flecked single ‘Tender’, and worked on hits by All Saints (‘Pure Shores’, ‘Black Coffee’), U2 (2002’s frenetic ‘Electrical Storm’) and Pink (2003’s retro bop ‘Feel Good Time’).”
“However, he later confided that he felt unable to capitalise on his post-‘Ray Of Light’ purple patch. ‘A cleverer person than me would have gone: ‘You’ve won the lottery! You’ve made a record everyone loves and made a shitload of money. Stop right now with all the remixes. Get a plan together to take it to the next level,’ Orbit told Classic Pop in 2022. “But I never did. I let it slip away’.”
See a range of other tributes to Orbit here.
