Observations placeholder
Orbison, Roy - 1987 Life Fades away
Identifier
025867
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Roy Orbison - "Life Fades Away"
Orbison's career was fully revived in 1987. He released an album of his re-recorded hits, titled In Dreams: The Greatest Hits. A song he recorded, "Life Fades Away", written with his friend Glenn Danzig, was featured in the film Less Than Zero. He and k.d. lang performed a duet of "Crying" for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film, Hiding Out, winning a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.
When Orbison and Springsteen joined to film a concert at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles, they were joined by Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Warnes, James Burton, and k.d. lang. Lang later recounted how humbled Orbison had been by the display of support from so many talented and busy musicians:
"Roy looked at all of us and said, 'If there is anything I can ever do for you, please call on me'. He was very serious. It was his way of thanking us. It was very emotional."
The concert was filmed in one take and aired on Cinemax under the title Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night; it was released on video by Virgin Records, selling 50,000 copies.