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Roy Orbison

Nick Coleman, 'Voices' (Jonathan Cape), January 2018

THE IMPORTANCE of Roy Orbison cannot be overstated. He emerged from Wink, Texas, in the 1950s, blinking astygmatically behind heavy-rimmed spectacles, a pudding-faced introvert of limited social adaptability but a voice like a sad trumpet (among other similitudes, depending on which part of his three-octave range was being deployed).

Total word count of piece: 655

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