Roy Orbison‘s Mystery Girl is a mighty rock album filled with memorable songs of haunting beauty and grace, and it showcases a man at the peak of his powers. The tragedy of it, is that this fine artistic achievement would prove to be Roy Orbison's swansong. Though Orbison enjoyed a successful career spanning back decades, listening to Mystery Girl you almost sense that he saved his best effort for last. These are songs that sound utterly timeless and universally appealing, and they fit Orbison's voice like a glove.

We begin our lovely trip down memory lane with the high-impressive late-in-life Orbison hit classic ‘You Got It,’ which is backed by the quiet beauty of ‘In The Real World’ and the strum-along of ‘(All I Can Do Is) Dream You.’ The stunningly-beautiful orchestral sounds of ‘A Love So Beautiful’ is next with the So-Cal vibe of ‘California Blue’ following thereafter.

‘She’s A Mystery To Me’ is next and - for those that don’t know - contains the lyric, “She’s a mystery girl” (hence the title of the album). The country-tinged storytelling of ‘The Comediennes’ is next, the slower pace of ‘The Only One,’ and then the majestic ‘Windsurfer’- complete with its trademark Orbison high-note ending. The original album then comes to a close with the heartfelt ‘Careless Heart.’

This new extended CD then brings us a “brand new” song in ‘The Way Is Love,’ before following it with ‘She's a Mystery to Me’ (studio demo with Bono), ‘(All I Can Do Is) Dream You’ (studio demo), and both ‘The Only One’ (studio demo) and ’The Comedians’ (studio demo). This long first disc is then rounded out by ‘In The Real World’ (studio demo), ‘California Blue’ (studio demo), and then both ‘Windsurfer’ (work-tape demo) and finally ‘You Are My Love’ (work-tape demo).

The deluxe aspect of this new packaging goes even further on the DVD that accompanies the CD as it provides us a new hour-long documentary on the making of the album, Mystery Girl: Unraveled, executive produced by Roy's sons. The documentary features new interviews with those behind the album including Steve Cropper, Tom Petty, Mick Campbell and Jeff Lynne. In addition to the documentary, the DVD includes eight wonderful music videos, including an unreleased alternate video for ‘She's a Mystery to Me’ and three new videos for ‘The Way Is Love,’ ‘You Got It’ and ‘California Blue.’

Reviewed by: Russell A. Trunk