Although
Roy Orbison
's album
Mystery Girl
was issued eight weeks after his death on December 6, 1988, it was apparently in finished form and thus only technically a posthumous release.
Orbison
's widow
Barbara
says she has been asked frequently since "whether Roy had recorded enough material for one more album. The answer is yes," she replies in her liner notes to
King of Hearts
. An examination of the album's contents puts qualifications on this simple affirmative. The ten tracks include
's Grammy-winning remake duet of
"Crying"
with
k.d. lang
from 1987, for instance, as well as the original demo of
"Careless Heart,"
a song featured in its finished form on
. There is also a cover of the
Cyndi Lauper
hit
"I Drove All Night."
The previously unheard recordings include sessions produced by
T-Bone Burnett
,
Barbara Orbison
George Massenburg
Jeff Lynne
, and
Don Was
, among others, apparently at different times during the '80s.
acknowledges that sessions were held after
's death to add overdubs to unfinished recordings and demos. So, that simple "yes" is really fairly complicated. That said, this collection of leftovers from various sources is not bad at all. It certainly isn't near the quality of
, but, employing some of the same musicians and producers, it has much the same sound. If the material isn't of the same caliber, that's to be expected. And tracks like
and
"I Drove All Night,"
if they pad the album out, also bring up its overall quality. ~ William Ruhlmann