Track Listing

1. Paper Boy
2. Uptown
3. Only The Lonely
4. Blue Angel
5. I'm Hurtin'
6. Running Scared
7. Crying
8. Dream Baby
9. Crowd
10. Working For The Man
11. In Dreams
12. Falling
13. Blue Bayou
14. Pretty Paper
15. Born On The Wind
16. It's Over
17. Oh Pretty Woman
18. Goodnight
19. Say You're My Girl
20. Let The Good Times Roll
21. Lana
22. Belinda
23. I'm A Southern Man
24. Drifting Away
25. Oh Pretty Woman (2)
26. Say You're My Girl (2)
27. With The Bug
28. Pretty One
29. Here Comes That Song Again
30. Today's Teardrops
31. I Can't Stop Loving You
32. Love Hurts
33. Candy Man
34. Actress
35. Mama
36. Leah
37. Shahdaroba
38. Distant Drums
39. Mean Woman Blues
40. Beautiful Dreamer
41. What'd I Say
42. Indian Wedding
43. Yo Te Amo Maria
44. Summersong
45. Only With You
46. Sleepy Hollow
47. House Without Windows
48. No Chain At All
49. Born To Love Me
50. Under Suspicion
51. San Fernando
52. Mama (2)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49164 in Music
• Released on: 1998-10-26
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

Flawed but fine endeavour
When I notice in the track list entries such as "Oh, Pretty Woman (Original single version) (Mono)" and later "Oh, Pretty Woman (Stereo) ('Come With Me' Lyric)", I feel that the compiler is exactly the kind of obsessive completist I want to be responsible for anthologies such as this one.
There is a fairly simple concept behind this 1998 UK collection: all 24 of the original Monument label singles, with the A-sides in chronological order on disc 1 and their B-sides on disc 2. A table in the booklet lists the highest chart positions and dates of chart entry where relevant, and there are cover shots of some of the record labels and sleeves. 
It isn't as simple as that, of course, and when it all unravels the sleeve information says nothing. All is well for the first 14 tracks, with the corresponding B-sides in order on the second disc, though track 14, Pretty Paper/Beautiful Dreamer, was a US-only release (not mentioned in the liner notes).
Borne On The Wind and its B-side, What'd I Say, complicate matters slightly by being released in the UK but not in the USA, but the notes cope with this. The collection also supplies the original mono variant of another single, (Say) You're My Girl, because it includes Roy Orbison saying "Mercy!" at the end, as is right and proper, except that it appears to have been transcribed from a well-worn vinyl single and has some distortion. All the other A-sides are presented in stereo, and the single version of Oh, Pretty Woman bizarrely bursts into stereo on the very final note. CD2 ends with a German-language single comprising two of his hit songs.
In 1965, Roy Orbison was disappointed with the commercial failure of Goodnight, and, blaming Monument Records, moved to MGM. Monument continued to release singles, but these were old recordings, either previously unreleased, like (Say) You're My Girl, Let The Good Times Roll and Sleepy Hollow, or album tracks like Lana, House Without Windows and Summersong (the B-side of the belated UK single of Pretty Paper, a Willie Nelson Christmas song which had been a festive US hit the year before). As these did not chart, it isn't possible to tell the year of origin from the CD, or that the A/B side parallels between the 2 CDs has gone awry for a few tracks.
In 1976, having run out of hits with MGM and after a brief spell with Mercury, Roy Orbison returned to Monument and recorded the LP Regeneration, from which three singles were taken. All of the 6 tracks involved are included, but as none charted there is no mention as to what they are, and no indication of a ten-year gap. The problem is mostly not with the compilation, which is more comprehensive than the notes claim, but with inadequate information.
Most of side one was very familiar and stands up well, apart from some over-production and dated girlie choruses, but there were some pleasant surprises on side 2, including The Actress, a ballad which surely should have been an A-side, and a sturdy version of Mean Woman Blues. 
Sound quality is good overall but on my copy at least a handful of the tracks suffer from some extraneous noise and distortion, notably on Crying, Falling and Candy Man. These faults are absent from the same tracks on the Definitive Collection CD, and rob this CD of a fourth star

It's worth it for the B sides
This is a bit of a collectors item. OK I really like the big O but some of the tracks are very dated. Even so this is a very good album and all the early goodies are there. Oh yes some of the B sides are pretty good too

Collection of the best from the Big O
There have been many Roy Orbison compilations but this is certainly one of the best I've seen of his Monument recordings (the sixties music for which he is best known). Roy had a distinctive tenor voice that made him a legend. You can get most of his big sixties hits on a single CD and if that's all you want, perhaps you should buy one of those. This double CD has those hits but also explores a little further.

Of all Roy's many hits, Oh pretty woman, Crying, Only the lonely, Blue bayou, It's over, In dreams and the Christmas song Pretty paper are my favorites (not necessarily in that order). However, there were many other great hits including Running scared, Borne on the wind, Working for the man, Candy man, Leah, Uptown, Dream baby (previously a hit for Bobby Darin), Blue angel, Falling and Goodnight, all of which can be found here.

The set also contains a few of Roy's covers of classic songs like Distant drums, What'd I say. Let the good times roll, Beautiful dreamer and Love hurts. There are other notable songs here too, many of them obscure songs, all of which confirm what a talented singer Roy was.

After Roy left Monument, he had other big hits beginning with Too soon to know, but these are outside the scope of this set. Still, this is a great place to start a Roy Orbison collection.