Greatest backup ensemble ever?

Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Kd Lang, Bonnie Raitt, T Bone Burnett, Tom Waits, Steven Soles, J.D. Souther and Jennifer Warnes.....Alex Acuna (percussion), James Burton (guitar), Glen D. Hardin (piano), Jerry Scheff (bass), Ron Tutt (drums)

lol, Neil's superb ensemble in that video is what got me thinking.....

I see. I didn't know Tutt was the drummer on the Orbison gig until you pointed it out, and I've probably seen that show a half a dozen times on our local Soshulist TeeVee collective.

I have a friend that used to work as a sound guy in Branson. He says that Orbison was a grade A *bunghole*. He toured 'Old School', ie he showed up with his guitar and expected the house band to know the set list and have the songs down when he showed up. The problem with that was that Orbison was a perfectionist to the Nth degree, and would get pissed off at relatively minor mistakes. If he got pissed off enough, he would actually intentionally cross the band up in a variety of ways. It got so bad that quite a few local bands just wouldn't play with him.  

IIRC correctly, Springsteen and Costello (?) put this gig together. Somehow, they kept it a secret until very close to showtime to avoid Orbison obsessing about it, and had the band practice pretty much his entire catalogue. The band rehearsed for a week or so, but Orbison was only there for the dress rehearsal and the actual taping.

 Orbison was smart enough to know there was just no way he was going to cross any of those guys up and not end up looking bad himself.

The definition of "Rock and Roll" is broad enough to easily include Neil Diamond's music. A bigger travesty is still Jethro Tull's winning the Grammy for "Heavy Metal".