King Of Hearts (30th Anniversary)

This new edition of King of Hearts has been completely remastered and is offered by Roy’s Boys LLC, the Nashville-based company founded by the late icon’s sons to administer their father’s catalogue and safeguard his legacy, in partnership with Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings.

Orbison’s late career resurgence as a member of the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynne served a prelude to his smash hit Mystery Girl album that was released fewer than two months after his passing in late 1988. Some years later Barbara Orbison, his widow (and mother of Roy’s Boys principals Roy Orbison Jr and Alex Orbison), surveyed completed material that had not theretofore been included on her late husband’s albums, as well as demos on which his vocals were heard. She determined that a complete album could be constructed from those audio assets with new backing tracks commissioned where deemed necessary.

The result was King of Hearts, an album created from various sources which, when assembled, served as a coherent and evocative conceptual “last hurrah” for one of music’s most celebrated voices. Various producers of note including Jeff Lynne and T-Bone Burnett (who had both been involved in the Mystery Girl sessions) as well as Robbie Robertson, David Briggs, Chips Moman, Albert Hammond and Diane Warren are credited as producers on specific King of Heartstracks with Barbara Orbison serving as executive producer.