Milestones

Milestones was hardly that, at least artistically. Indeed, that it comes off as well as it does is amazing, considering that Orbison was merely trying to fulfill the basic terms of his original MGM Records contract and leave the label -- thus, he didn't want to commit any really good material he might've been working on that could go more profitably elsewhere, but he also had to record a proper, releasable album. Even under those circumstances, he couldn't resist putting his best effort into the vocals on some of the material that was here, which included a lot of excellent covers, among them "Sweet Caroline," "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)," "Drift Away," and the Bee Gees' "Words." John D. Loudermilk's "I Wanna Live" was the single, issued in August of 1973 and also opening the album, which disappeared without a trace, but did its job. Orbison had fulfilled the terms of his contract and was able to prove that none of his albums had received the promotional efforts promised (mostly because the MGM Records presidency had become a revolving door job for the duration of his time there), thus precluding the label from holding onto him. He would return to Monument Records in coming years, and then move on to record for Elektra and Virgin. ~ Bruce Eder