Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night (1988)

This show was filmed on September 30, 1987, approximately fourteen months before his death, at 52yo of heart attack while returning from a tour with the The Traveling Wilburys a supergroup formed by George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.

This show of the documentary is a collection of Orbison's hits at the then Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles, with the backing band being the TCB Band, which accompanied Elvis Presley from 1969 until his death in 1977: Glen Hardin on piano, James Burton on lead guitar, Jerry Scheff on bass, and Ronnie Tutt on drums.

Male background vocalists, some of whom also joined in on guitar, electric organ and keyboards were Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther and Steven Soles.

The female background vocalists were k.d. lang, Jennifer Warnes, and Bonnie Raitt. During the end credits, several of the band members are shown talking about how Orbison influenced them.

Other celebrity admirers of Orbison were in the audience, including David Lynch, Billy Idol, Patrick Swayze, Billy Bob Thornton, Sandra Bernhard and Kris Kristofferson.

Some curiosities about Orbision that I always admired while being a reclused personality and one of the most incredible male voices after Elvis Presley: he always used black tinted eyeglasses because of poor eyesight since infancy that had extremely thick lenses, and his wife Barbara (that produced this video was his wife when they meet with 17 and 32yol respectively). Barbara Orbison died at 62yo of pancreatic cancer.

While the video has only one of his most know musics (LA Woman) it was a huge event with lost of famous people at the public.

Score of 8,0 out of 10,0 / A -.