Orbison

Recorded at the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles, Roy Orbison: Black & White Night is a marvelous concert celebrating one of the most popular music singers of the 20th century…

This DVD features the late great, singer/songwriter performing with a variety of bands, and spanning multiple decades. Here, footage culled from a live concert shows Roy Orbison leading some rockabilly-style jamming with a young Bruce Springsteen. This set also features Elvis Costello playing a cheesy sounding electric keyboard, and Tom Waits strumming an acoustic guitar. The performances are in black & white or color film footage…

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter known for his distinctive, impassioned voice, complex song structures, and dark emotional ballads…

This is a fine 3CD set containing 45 of Roy Orbison's most famous tracks. The music is great, and if you don't already have a decent Roy Orbison compilation, this would be a decent, good value choice. Although he shared the same rockabilly roots as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison went on to pioneer an entirely different brand of country/pop-based rock & roll in the early '60s. What he lacked in charisma and photogenic looks, Orbison made up for in spades with his quavering operatic voice and melodramatic narratives of unrequited love and yearning. In the process, he established rock & roll archetypes of the underdog and the hopelessly romantic loser. These were not only amplified by peers such as Del Shannon and Gene Pitney, but also influenced future generations of roots rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Chris Isaak, as well as modern country stars the Mavericks.

Recorded at the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night is a marvelous concert celebrating one of the most popular music singers of the 20th century. Joined on stage by a number of well known musicians - Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, T Bone Burnett, J D Souther, James Burton, Tom Waits, Steven Soles, Jennifer Warnes, K.D. Lang, Jackson Browne, Jerry Scheff, Ron Tutt, Steven Soles, and Glen Hardin – Roy Orbison performed seventeen of his greatest hits, including "Dream Baby", Blu Bayou", "Candyman", "Go, Go, Go (Down The Line)" and "Oh Pretty Woman".

Although Roy Orbison made some great rock'n'roll recordings on the Sun label, his career only really became significant after he joined Monument. On that label, he was considered mainly a singles artist, but for those who want more of his music than just the hits, he recorded a few albums too. He mixed some but not all of his hits with other original songs plus cover versions of country and rock'n'roll songs. This particular album marked his Monument debut and the 2006 re-mastered version includes four bonus tracks, all recorded during the sessions in which Roy recorded the tracks that appeared on the original album.