Live: Pack Up the Plantation Review

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(More customer reviews)I find it a bit curious so many of the reviews here dislike the live covers on this album; as a fan I really enjoy the boys' takes on the Byrds "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star," or "Needles and Pins," or even "Don't Bring Me Down." I don't look for a "greatest hits live" package from a performer I respect -- I want that artist to dig deep, find some chestnuts from the catalogue, or do some covers that mean something to them -- and that's what Pack Up the Plantation is.
Is it representative? I'd say, after two and half years of effort to create Petty's statement on the South of his raising -- Southern Accents, the live album from the tour of Southern Accents finds Petty in his most meaningful, heartfelt period. My personal view is he feared revealing his most innermost thoughts about the South and himself on Southern Accents, so he felt he needed to gloss up those concepts with Dave Stewart's production tricks and copious horns. Don't forget -- this was 1985. But strip all that away and you have pure Petty, from the heart. The songs skew toward that album, with strong performances of "Rebel" and "It Ain't Nothing to Me," but he throws in some fan favorites as well. It's rounded out with some fun covers, though I agree "Shout" probably didn't need to be included.
I do find this particular cd release to be lacking, however, in that two songs are cut short and the order rearranged from the original release. There's no reason to truncate or reorder the original, and I hope subsequent pressings fix this glitch.
In sum, this is vintage mid-period Petty, rocking out on songs from his heart, even getting Stevie Nicks to join in a few tunes. Is it a comprehensive overview of his career, live? Clearly not. But taken for what it is, Pack Up the Plantation is a very enjoyable live Petty experience and an example of why this artist has been so enduring for so many years.

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Roy Orbison - A Black & White Night (DTS) (1988) Review

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(More customer reviews)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.

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ROY ORBISON: BLACK & WHITE NIGHT - DVD Movie

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