Rating: Summary: As good as having been there Review: Content is excellent. Sound levels, however, from both the Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sources are not mixed well in that the voices of the background singers coming from the left and right rear channels overwhelm everything else from the three front channels. I had to really increase the center channel level just to hear Roy himself singing. Bass accompaniment is good with the LFE channel on almost continuously. Once adjustments are made to compensate for the mixing, the sound is as good as having been there.
Rating: Summary: Truely a classic! Review: I felt like I was in the room with the musicians.It was a moving event. I would recommend it to all- across generations.
Rating: Summary: Orbison, the man who influenced 3 generations of musicians Review: When Springsteen wrote and created his Born To Run album he explained to critics that he wanted "to have an album with lyrics like Dylan, singing like Roy Orbison, and a sound like Phil Spector." If you're 25 or older and you can only give your children one snapshot of popular music, circa '60-'90, buy them a copy of this tape. Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Warnes, k.d. lang, John David Souther, Jackson Brown and Steven Soules sing backing vocals. Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen and T-Bone Burnett, among others,play instrumental second fiddles. And they all do it for The Man. Roy Orbison. The architect of the symphonic, Ravel-like love song. The singer of singers. Just weeks before he died he played a concert in Boston and the local critic said, (I paraphrase) "he repeated that last line, in his falsetto voice, over and over and over as if to say, 'I'm still here and can do it...anytime.'" The videotape is revelatory. Stephen Burton (gtr) shows, over and over again, why he is to studio musicians and especially to guitar players, an icon non-pareil. He is Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Bucky Pizzarelli, all in one. The tape does a tidy review of Orbison's hits. More remarkable than the performance of those hits is the reverential looks and obvious excitment of Springsteen, Costello, lang, Raitt, Browne, etc. as they accompany him on his tour of transistor radio hits. Forget the Wilbury's. This is Roy's night. Deservedly. Roy knew how to constrain all that emotion behind his words until he was ready to release it. In the last moments of the tape Roy sings "Pretty Woman" and it opens up into a jam-for-all. Noteworthy is how Springsteen acquits himself in a mano a' mano guitar trade with Burton. First they trade twelve bar solos, then they raise the stakes and trade four bar exchanges. Springsteen shows that all those hours spent in his bedroom paid off, ("..well I got me a guitar and I learned how to make it talk...") not topping Burton but filing a tasty, even nasty, testament of his own licks and sources. Perhaps most easily, and unjustly, overlooked in a star studded vid like this is Elvis Costello who plays, no, contributes in a huge way, turns as a harp (harmonica) player, guitar player, singer and pianist. But instrumentally, Burton, Springsteen and Alex Tutt (long-time Orbison drummer) truly set themselves apart. And...It's a real hoot to see k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt and Jennifer Warnes doing "steps" and singing "sha la la la" and "doo wah doo wah doo wah" and obviously loving it. It is a video to love. And that doesn't even begin to address Orbison's lyrics: "A candy colored clown they call the sandman; tiptoes to my room every night; just to sprinkle star dust and to whisper: "go to sleep, everything is alright." Dylan, Springsteen, Orbison, ..... Quick. Name three more lyricists of that stratum. Buy the tape. Re-learn what was good and true (men "do" cry") about popular music in the sixties and the seventies.
Rating: Summary: Absolutely Fantastic Review: I found this VHS in a discard at the local Blockbuster Video for $3.00. I would gladly have paid 20 times that much for it. An almost unbelievable backing group with the outstanding Orbison vocals.
Rating: Summary: ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING ORBISON! Review: Anybody who doesn't rate this Orbison video a five star just doesn't get it. This guy was right up there with Elvis (or was Elvis right up there with him?). The backup is exceptional including J.D. Souther, K.D. Lang, Springsteen and a bunch more. This was a love fest between Orbison and some of his professional peer performers/fans. I had taped this from the original broadcast, inadvertently recorded over some of it and am now ordering two copies from Amazon just in case something bad happens to one of them.
Rating: Summary: Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen together! WOW! Review: I have been a Roy Orbison fan from way back and then a Bruce Sringsteen fan from the 80's on. To have two of the greats in the one fantastic video, what a gift. The only other great missing from my line up is Don Mc Lean.
Rating: Summary: It is the best music video I've ever seen. Review: I watched this video twice, for the first time, last night. I've seen lots of music videos, and this one is the best ever. The entire production, the camera work, the orchestra and back up singers and musicians, were all perfect. Roy's voice was flawless, and it is obvious everyone playing with him was mesmerized by his talent.
Rating: Summary: One of the great "Send-Up" videos of all time. Review: I first stumbled onto this hummer late one night during a PBS fund-raiser, and came in about half way through. Okay. That's Roy Orbison, the back-up band is all in late 50s outfits, and this is a B&W print, so it must have been shot in a nightclub in the fifties. But wait a second! Roy looks older and more prosperous, and there's no way in hell that those foxy ladies and black people would have been in a 50s nightclub! Very strange.But great music. Sit back and enjoy.
Rating: Summary: an outstanding music video Review: This tape is great! The real fun in watching it is to check out the backup singers and band, and to try to identify them. All of them seem thrilled to be performing with Roy.
Rating: Summary: Yes, yes, yes, .....get it now! Review: I've always loved Roy Orbison, ever since my high school days in the late 50's, and this video brings back all those memories. Some of you might remember: parties in basement rec rooms, proms held in the high school gym, and hanging out at the Jug and Frisches. Anyway that's what we did in Middletown, Ohio. There is an Orbison CD in my car stereo right now. He was a great, great talent and this video is superbly produced in black and white. Just perfect.
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