Customer Reviews

Black & White Night

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This CD came from the 1988 Live HBO Special that was one of the best musical performances to come along in quite awhile. Roy is joined with many musical greats in both vocal & instrumental talents. This CD is the highlight of Roy Orbison's career. If you own this CD, then you must buy the DVD. To see the performance live is a very special treat.

This is all you need to have of Roy Orbison, a fantastic televised concert that featured Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, among many others. It is very nice to see the CD and DVD released once again. Orbison's voice carried the evening on such immortal songs as Dream Baby, Ooby Dooby and Pretty Woman. At the same time he was doing fantastic work with The Traveling Wilburies. It was a veritable Roy Orbison revival in the late 80's. Unfortunately, he passed away all too quickly and didn't have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his labor. His voice is one of the quentessential voices of rock and roll, and this is a stunning tribute to the man behind the dark sunglasses.

this may be the CD for you! I watched the special on PBS and bought the CD on the basis of that. For me, the video version was better than the CD version. I found myself wanting to hear the original or album version, rather than live songs. However, many will be attracted to the mystique of having legendary music greats such as Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and others as the back-up band on this CD.

Black and White Night is an outstanding tribute to the legacy of Roy Orbison and will provode a lifetime of music to any Orbison fan. His music is assisted by some of the greatest artists you could gather in one band. Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and Jackson Browne are to name but a few of them. I would highly recommend this CD to anyone that ever tapped their feet to Orbison's music.

AS A TEENAGER I GREW UP LISTENING TO ROY ORBISON. HE'S THE BEST. I LOVE HIS BLACK AND WHITE CD...IT HAS ALL HIS GREATEST HITS. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS CD FOR ALL THE KIDS GROWING UP IN THE 1960'S.

Seven superstars paying tribute to a legend - usually these affairs are more reminiscent of a punch-drunk heavyweight rope-a-doping for one last payday as he gamely sings into a dead microphone while his more famous mates gently prop up their mentor. Well, on Black and White Night Roy Orbison had a different idea - taking everyone to school and making it our privilege to sit in on the lesson.

With his multiple octave range on full display and his all-star band in support-mode only, Orbison tore and growled though his complete canon with a force and passion that was as unexpected as it was transformative and essential. Orbison is one cool cat and the only human being that should ever be allowed to wear sunglasses at night. Breathtaking.

Roy Orbison was incredibly talented and unique. He has been called the only operatic rock-a-billy singer. What a voice. There is a rumor regarding Roy and Elvis Presley. In the very early days, when Roy and Elvis were both at Sun records. It's been said that Elvis was so impressed by Roy's voice he tried to emulate him. Listen to both closely and see what you think. By all accounts he was also a very quiet, humble, and personable man. Who knew he would be leaving us so soon after this was made. And what a wonderful tribute this is. All his hits are here. And the performances are superb. The who's who of backup muscians and singers is impressive. The sound quality is awesome. This is as good as these songs have ever sounded, and it was live! The video quality does vary a bit. Mostly sharp, it is sometimes soft or grainy looking, maybe intentionally? During the songs it's mostly excellent. It's in between songs where the picture quality fluctuates. I had tickets to see Roy in 1975 at a relatively small venue close to where I live. Unfortunatley, it was cancelled, and I never did get see him live. I wish I had. Anyway, I remain a lifelong fan of Roys. This is as an outstanding concert and tribute to him. A must have for all fans.

This is a perfect Roy Orbison CD. It has all his well knows greats. I must for any fan. The DVD version is also good.

I've always been a casual Orbison fan---while enjoying his radio hits, I never felt drawn to buying a whole LP. Finally, I invested in this disc, from a kind of a comeback concert televised in 1987. On it, Roy gets subtle help from a bunch of good guest artists, but the main attraction, as always, is his distinctive voice, songwriting skills, and arranging artistry. He was in good vocal shape on this occasion, and his big hits do not sound much different than the original 45-rpm singles did which began coming out more than 20 years earlier. In fact, the best performances captured here are those big hits: "Only the Lonely" and "Blue Bayou" and "Running Scared" and "Oh, Pretty Woman." The tunes I was less familiar with, "Leah" and "The Comedians" for instance, I found much less interesting. If you, like me, know that Roy had come a long way from Wink, Texas through Clovis, NM and Memphis, TN to superstardom, and you wanted him represented in the music that reflects your younger days, this is as good a choice as any. (Although I was a kid in Jersey when Roy had his first hit single, I now live halfway between his boyhood home in Wink and the site of his first recordings (not hits) at Norman Petty's studio in Clovis. Roy's initial success came from his association at Sun Records in Memphis, however, which must have seemed like a grand metropolis to the geeky looking kid from Wink.)

How's this for a backup band? JD Souther, k.d. lang, T-Bone Burnett, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Warnes, and more. Good Lord. And they all adored Roy, and this CD is why.

This album, evening, & event showcases the unparalleled talents of one of the all-time best rockers and songwriters and singers. He was called The Voice, and you have only to listen to Running Scared to know why. The Beatles opened for him in 1963. Opened! His performing career spanned four decades; this evening's concert was recorded not long before his untimely death in 1988. He'd just been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and released The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (there was no vol. 2), The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1, a CD by a delightful band comprising Roy, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne.

Bob Dylan, though I can't properly attribute this, was thought to have said of Roy that he sang in "three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff." Something like that.

Only rarely has anyone come close to writing or composing such deeply textured, emotional, fully human songs, and this is why we still listen in awe to his astounding works. He speaks to the deep, dark, scary places in us all that we keep secret, as well as to the rapturous heights of requited romantic love. Sidelong glances at what could have been, haunted narratives of rejections, gleeful celebrations of never expected acceptance. All the stuff we started to understand as adolescents and have never stopped learning.

If you can afford only one Roy Orbison disc for your library, this should be it. The DVD, Roy Orbison - Black & White Night (DVD & DVD Audio), is another great. You can see the largely younger audience wilding it up over their first experience of Roy, amazed and thrilled. It doesn't get old.

A lot of us just start tripping over our words trying to express how awesome is this man's work. It's a superlative salad, but it means something, and it's all true.