Roy Orbison
has been in such need of a comprehensive, career-spanning compilation like
Legacy
's 2006 double-disc
The Essential Roy Orbison
that it's especially frustrating that it falls short of the mark. Not counting
Bear Family
's exhaustive 2001 set, which gathered everything
Roy
recorded between 1955 and 1965, including alternate takes, it is the first multi-disc
Orbison
compilation since 1988's four-disc box
The Legendary Roy Orbison
, which was released in the midst of his remarkable comeback that peaked the following year with the posthumous comeback
Mystery Girl
, which arrived too late to be part of
Legendary
. So,
's catalog truly was missing a set that spanned from
"Ooby Dooby,"
his first hit for
Sun
in 1956, all the way to his last charting single, 1992's
"I Drove All Night."
Essential
attempts to do that, touching on every phase of his career -- the early rockabilly for
in the '50s, his cinematic hits for
Monument
in the early '60s, the cult classics for
MGM
in the late '60s, his '80s comeback -- over the course of 40 tracks. It gets a lot right, particularly on the first disc, which has most of the big hits from
"Ooby Dooby"
to 1964's
"Oh, Pretty Woman,"
all presented in chronological order. Where things start to go wrong is on the second disc, where the comp suddenly abandons all pretense at chronological order, opening up with four cuts from
(including the hits
"You Got It"
and
"She's a Mystery to Me"
), before doubling back to the '60s for five
singles --
"Ride Away,"
"Crawling Back,"
"Best Friend,"
"Communication Breakdown,"
"Walk On"
-- then proceeding to the '80s, first with the
Emmylou Harris
duet
"That Lovin' You Feeling Again"
from the
Roadie
soundtrack, and then with re-recordings of
"Running Scared"
"In Dreams,"
two '60s master works that are only available here in these solid but inferior remakes. The jumbled chronology results in a bit of a disconcerting listen, since the production styles don't comfortably sit together, but that would be easier to forgive if
"In Dreams"
were present in their original versions; without them,
isn't quite the concise, comprehensive collection it aspires to be. It's a major flaw, but not necessarily a fatal one, since the remainder of the set does offer his biggest hits --
"Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel),"
"Candy Man,"
"Crying,"
"Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream),"
"Leah,"
"Blue Bayou,"
"It's Over,"
"Pretty Paper"
among them -- plus a good sampling of his lesser-known work, all in good fidelity. But it comes so close to being truly definitive that the few flaws in selection and sequence stand out all the more. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine