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- Roy Orbison and Charline Arthur
Roy wasn't 15 he was a couple of months from turning 19.Elvis in Texas by Stanley Oberst wrote:Slim Willet had spied on him two nights before in Lubbock, Sid Foster the next night in Abilene, and now four days into the tour (with one day off for good behaviour), Roy Orbison studied Elvis from the front row of the senior high field house in Odessa. it's a wonder Elvis didn't seek psychotherapy for paranoid delusions.
The fifteen-year-old Texas boy watched Elvis onstage, looking for showmanship pointers he could use with his own group, the Westerneers. Halfway through the controlled frenzy of Elvis's performance, Roy decided he didn't have the stamina. "I never saw a guy with so much energy," Roy would tell people later in awe. The teenager became an instant Elvis aficionado and interviewed him in 1955.
Roy never interviewed Elvis. The so called famous TV pitch didn't happen. Roys show was aired on a TV station that didn't start broadcasting until 1956 and the one time Elvis was due to appear in June 1956 he didn't show, probably on the advice of Colonel Parker, or the inability of the producers to pay Parkers fee for Elvis to come on a TV show.