Rare Showtime concert, now available as German import.

The benefit, “The Roy Orbison Tribute Concert”, which was filmed by Showtime at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, features Oribison’s tunes and other favorites performed by stellar musicians, including Bob Dylan, B.B. King, John Fogerty, the Stray Cats and the Byrds (original memebers David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn).  “The whole spirit of the show as to give to Roy’s music and to the homeless,” said executive producer Barbara Orbison, wife of the legendary singer who died Dec. 6, 1988.  Many other artists, representing a cross section of country and rock music, contributed to this first public testimonial to Orbison since his death.  “There are lots of surprises in the show,”  Barbara Orbison said.  The starts, she said “performed Roy’s songs the way they felt them” rather than the way the public is used to hearing them.  “I Wanted to see “Pretty Woman” done by all females: Bonnie Raitt, K.D. Lang, Emmylou Harris, Vicki Peterson (of the recently disbanded Bangles) and Wendy & Lisa (formerly of Prince’s band).  We all did “Only the Lonely” together.  Muscians are usually competitive, but everybody just left their egos at the door.”  Viewers also can see old footage of Roy Orbison.  In addition to the clips shown during the concert, Roy Orbison’s presence was visible with the use of a rear-view projection system displaying “all my picture of Roy” one at a time, Barbara Orbison said, “it looked just like he was there, behind the muscians the whole time.”  Highlighting the concert with information about Orbison’s life and America’s homeless were host Dean Stockwell, film start Patrick Swayze, TV actress Katey Sagal and songwriter Bernie Taupin.  Orbison said she started to coordinate the tribute “after some musicians approaches me about it.  This was a way for the musicians to get in touch with their morning for the man and his music that they had lost”.

Video Quality: Fair watchable quality, about a 7.0 using our website Quality Rating Table.
Running Time: 84 minutes.
Disc Format: 1 NTSC DVD-R disc.