Roy Orbison
The Last Concert, and Black & White Night (Roy's Boys / Sony Legacy)
Reviewed by Tim Stegall, Fri., Dec. 13, 2013
Roy Orbison
The Last Concert (Roy's Boys/Sony Legacy)Roy Orbison
Black & White Night (Roy's Boys/Sony Legacy)From a company founded by his sons to preserve the legacy of rock's greatest operatic talent comes a pair of releases from the end of Roy Orbison's timeline (1936-88). The self-explanatory Last Concert CD/DVD package remasters the sights and sounds of an Orbison performance two days before he died of a heart attack at 52. In contrast to the fine audio of Orbison's last hour onstage, plus an interview from the same night and early-Eighties concert footage, there's the incredible Black & White Night. Beautifully filmed for television in (yes) black & white, it captures Elvis Presley's TCB Band and an all-star cast including Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and k.d. lang giving the Vernon native spirited and affectionate backing. It plays as a cinematic work, heightening the drama inherent in Big O nuggets like "Running Scared" and "It's Over," and making these guest stars (especially an overjoyed Springsteen) look like unabashed fans and thus making everyone appear all the more human.
