Roy Orbison & Friends—A Black and White Night

PBS WESTERN RESERVE (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Thursday, Dec. 7, at 8 PM
Sunday, Dec. 10, at midnight
Sunday, Dec. 31, at 6:30 PM

Recorded live in September 1987 at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, Roy Orbison’s televised comeback Black & White Night concert featured the music icon and an all-star line-up of special guests for a never-to-be-repeated evening of rock and roll, filmed entirely in black and white. 

When David Lynch’s landmark film Blue Velvet was released in 1986, it featured Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” prominently on the soundtrack. Although Orbison had been out of the limelight for some time, the film helped spark new interest in his music. On September 30, 1987, Orbison, then 51, staged a remarkable comeback concert with the help of guest musicians whom he had influenced: Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, J.D. Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Jennifer Warnes. The all-star concert at the Ambassador Hotel’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub was turned into a television special and broadcast as “Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night” the following January, less than a year before the icon’s untimely passing.