A Black & White Night Live is a Roy Orbison music album released posthumously by Virgin Records from the HBO television special, Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night, which was filmed in 1987 and broadcast in 1988. According to the authorised Roy Orbison biography,[1] the album was released in October 1989 and included the song "Blue Bayou" which because of time constraints had been deleted from the televised broadcast. However, it did not include the songs "Claudette" and "Blue Angel", which were also cut from the original broadcast for the same reason.
The SACD/CD Hybrid Audio Disc includes "Blue Angel" as a bonus track; the SACD/CD Hybrid Disc is contained in a pack with the DVD released by Image Entertainment, USA (ID27700BDVD). "Claudette" was included in later releases of the concert. According to the authorised biography, all tracks are now released on the 30 year anniversary Black & White Night 30.
On February 24, 2017, a 30th anniversary edition, titled Black & White Night 30, was released. The edition has been expanded, re-edited to include new footage and original running order to set list, and remastered. It is available both as a CD/DVD and a CD/Blu-ray set.[4] This release has sold 161,400 copies as of March 2017.[5]
Bruce Eder of AllMusic writes, "The best-recorded Roy Orbison live disc ever issued, taken from the soundtrack of the HBO concert from the 1980s with VIP guests like Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello. This was a sort of magical video, and the performances are splendid, along with the good feelings involved."[6]
Grant Britt of American Songwriter also thinks this album rates 4 out of 5 stars and calls Black and White Night "one of the best rock shows ever filmed."[7]
No Depression's review, also by Grant Britt, begins with, "The voice grabs you and won't let go. It’s impossible to duplicate, a soaring, ethereal instrument that swoops and dips with a range few humans ever get within earshot of. Roy Orbison was a musical God, his songwriting skills just as awe-inspiring as his vocal abilities. His legacy endures with a wealth of recorded material, but nothing eclipses 1987’s Black and White Night"[3]
Ryan Reed writes for Rolling Stone, "In a backstage interview, Costello called Orbison "the greatest," explaining how he learned about the singer's music second-hand through the Beatles."[9]
^Orbison, Roy Jr. (2017). The Authorized Roy Orbison. Orbison, Wesley; Orbison, Alex; Slate, Jeff (First ed.). New York: Center Street. p. 248. ISBN9781478976547. OCLC1017566749.
^ abGraff, Gary (12 January 2017). "30th Anniversary". Billboard. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
