CD Reviews for Oct. 3, 2008

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critc
• Published: Oct 3, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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TV On The Radio
DEAR SCIENCE
The late Bo Diddley, a lover of sounds and technology, described himself as a scientist of sound. TV On The Radio producer David Sitek qualifies for that title, too. A multi-instrumentalist, he loves multi-tracking. Sitek and his TV On The Radio band mates, most of whom are multi-instrumentalists, too, build ever-evolving, cinematic productions that defy labels.

Pop, rock, rap, funk and even glam-rock elements are in the picture, but this experimental, yet accessible, Brooklyn quintet is more interested in epic, albeit danceable, grandeur. It’s as if Prince, Michael Jackson, U2, David Bowie and Lionel Richie remixed Ravel’s “Bolero.” The riotously lively results are mad with slapping beats and poetic lyrics, framed with big production values. 

Music is always art, but, in TV On The Radio’s case, even more so.
 
Roy Orbison
THE SOUL OF ROCK AND ROLL
Famous for his operatic torch songs, Roy Orbison was as meticulous in the recording studio and in concert. In the summer of the final year of his life, 1988, his perfectionism was on glorious display at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Like original Saturday Night Live star John Belushi’s send up of the singing star, Orbison stood straight and still that night. There were no extra movements that would distract from his vocal performance. He said practically nothing, preferring to move quickly from one killer classic to another.

The Wolf Trap audience heard the singer’s landmark ’60s hits performed note perfect. “Only the Lonely,” “In Dreams,” “Blue Bayou,” “Running” Scared” and more. Orbison saved the wrenching “Crying,” another masterfully orchestrated tale of inconsolable loss, for last. When the audience demanded an encore, Orbison and his troupe returned and performed “Crying” a second time, slaying the crowd once again.

Orbison’s one-of-a-kind voice is showcased exhaustively in The Soul of Rock and Roll, a four-CD set that follows him from his earliest recordings in Texas and New Mexico to his final concert, performed Dec. 4, 1988 in Akron, Ohio.

Disc one traces Orbison from young rockabilly singer and guitarist at Sun Records in Memphis to the promising start of his collaboration with producer Fred Foster at Monument Records in Nashville. Everything fell in place for Orbison at Monument, the label that released his ’60s classics. 

Disc two and three of The Soul of Rock and Roll thoroughly cover the singer’s great Monument years. The magnificent ballads are here as well as such lesser-known nuggets as 1964’s “Indian Wedding,” the B-side of “It’s Over.”

Orbison’s move to MGM Records in 1965 meant the end of his first period of chart success. For any other artist, the MGM recordings wouldn’t be bad, but Orbison without Foster, his longtime producer, couldn’t match the magic he made at Monument.

Orbison made one of music’s great comebacks in the late ’80s, however, including his 1988 supergroup with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan, the Traveling Wilburys. Mystery Girl, a hit solo album with more starry collaborations, including Bono and Tom Petty and the Heartbreaks, followed in February 1989.

Sadly, Orbison wasn’t around to enjoy the album’s No. 1 success. Just as he achieved his greatest fame since the ’60s, the 52-year-old singer died Dec. 6, 1988. His mesmerizing songs endure.
 
Jerry Lee Lewis
GOLD
Radiating from Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn., Ferriday native Jerry Lee Lewis set the world on fire in 1957 with his explosive rock ’n’ roll hit, “Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On.” The flame continued with “Great Balls of Fire,” “Breathless” and “High School Confidential.”

The singing, piano-pounding Lewis surely was a wild rock ’n’ roll child. Although a scandal sparked by his marriage to a 13-year-old abruptly put the brakes on his career, the irrepressible Killer reinvented himself in the 1960s as a country star. Lewis made the transition easily, singing world-weary ballads such as two big 1968 hits, “Another Place Another Time” and “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me).”

His country success reached into the ’70s. Practically sobbing at the mike, he begged for forgiveness in “Would You Take Another Chance On Me” and jumped back to his rock ’n’ roll roots by Killer-izing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace.”