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An interesting idea that works well enough to merit attention from Orbison's fans and students of rock history,
Roy Orbison: The Anthology provides a home for desultory clips of the much-missed pop pioneer in live and lip-synched performances. The emphasis, of course, is on the midnight dreams of his familiar canon: "Only the Lonely" (from an
American Bandstand appearance), "Oh, Pretty Woman" (an odd film of Orbison meandering through a Spanish villa), "In Dreams" (a music video piggybacking shots from David Lynch's
Blue Velvet, which featured the song prominently). But what really makes this a special project are interview highlights with a number of Orbison's more famous admirers: k.d. lang, Bono, Robert Plant, Don Was, the Bee Gees, and Raul Malo of the Mavericks among them. Rather than merely rummage through personal thoughts and memories, these talking heads bring their focused craftsmanship to the table and offer eloquent appreciations of Orbison's unique gifts. Bono speaks of a certain masculine freedom imparted by Orbison's powerful falsetto, the way it leaves "a man open" to a fuller experience of emotion. Lang marvels at her late friend's songwriting construction on "Running Scared," and Plant ingeniously sums up the solitary, nocturnal appeal of Orbison's classic hits as "pillow talk" for the wounded. For dessert, there's a clip of the star performing "Blue Bayou" in concert, and the late-'80s video of Orbison and lang locked in an impassioned duet on "Crying."
--Tom Keogh
