Ray Price Recalls His Days with Hank Williams and Elvis
I recently had the pleasure of a half hour talk with legendary country star Ray Price, a very real pleasure as it turned out!
Sean Eyre of Rocklands Entertainment, Ray’s tour management, had told me the 84 year old country music giant for 60 of his years had ‘just stepped out of the shower’ when he patched me through.
So we were a few minutes into the interview when I realized, hearing voices behind him, he wasn’t at home.
“You’re on a bus!” I exclaimed, “not in Texas?”
“And Dorothy’s not in Kansas either,” I almost added but caught myself: it was my first conversation with Ray Price after all. Had I known he had such a warm ready sense of humour I would have added it, however.”
“No,” he replied laughing, “we’re just a couple of hours out of Nashville. The Cherokee Cowboys and I are due at Warner Brothers by noon to film our part in a TV super special.”
Imagine Ray Price at 84, doing media interviews from his bus, facing days of filming and recording in Nashville with a cross-Canada tour looming just weeks away! A tour, in fact, that starts here at Saint John’s Imperial Theatre next Tuesday, 7 p.m.! That June 8 concert will be his first in the Maritimes in 45 years! And, as a special treat, his son Cliff is his opening act! So if you haven’t got tickets yet, get them quick. There’s not many left. Visit the Imperial box office, phone 674-4100, 1-800-323-7469 or go to web-site www.imperialtheatre.ca.
Ray’s at the Playhouse in Fredericton Thursday, June 10, also, but I understand that concert is nearly sold out. To check call 458-8344 or 1-866-884-5800 or visit the Playhouse box office.
Born Ray Noble Price on a farm near Perryville. Texas in 1926, Ray moved to Dallas with his mother when her parents divorced but spent time back on the farm with his dad, during school holidays. After a stint as a US Marine in World War 11, he enrolled in North Texas Agriculture College intending to become a veterinarian. But writing songs and performing at college events led to a steady gig at Roy’s House Cafe near the campus, and other venues.
He made his debut as a radio entertainer in 1948 over KRBC in Abilene, then moved back to Dallas and the Big D Jamboree, a radio show with network connections. A single he released on the Nashville based Bullet label caused ripples in late 1949. His smooth rich voice with it’s deep emotional undertones so impressed Peer-Southern executive Troy Martin that he arranged a contract for Ray with Columbia Records in 1951.
Hank Williams Sr. became interested in him about that time as well. I knew of a ‘leg up’ Hank had given Ray during his early years in Nashville.
“I don’t know how that came about. He just sort of took me under his wing,” Ray said. “Not only did he take me along on the road but he gave me name billing on the shows, even wrote a song with me Weary Blues he gave me to record.”
That song sold well enough for Ray to be invited to join the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1952.
“For a time Hank and I even shared a house, a two story stone duplex, me up, him down. And he even let me use his Drifting Cowboys as my band. His death that New Year’s Eve in 1953 came as an even greater shock to me than to most because of that closeness. He was always telling people I was going to be No.1. I used the Drifting Cowboys as my band after Hank died, hoping to keep his memory alive I guess, not wanting to admit that he was gone. And even after I formed my own band, the Cherokee Cowboys, I kept his steel guitarist Don Helms and fiddler Jerry Rivers with me. We became like brothers. We built houses next to each other and lived in them for 14 years.”
Arguably the world’s greatest country singer, Ray with his magnificent show-stopping voice became a leader himself as the 1950’s progressed and on his way to the top took country music from it’s honky-tonk period through some revolutionary changes.
I reminded him that in 1956 when rock ‘n’ roll threatened to erase country from the charts it was his rendition of Crazy Arms that knocked Elvis Presley off those charts. That song stayed on top for 45 weeks. And it has been credited as the song that got people listening to country again.
“Yes, and that is strange in itself because, as Hank Williams was the one who did it for me, I’d given Elvis his first leg up in turn,” he said.
That was startling news. I hadn’t heard that story before.
“Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi early in 1935,” Ray said “but his family moved to Memphis when he was 13. His parents were very religious: he’d sang with them at revival meetings, gospel concerts and churches.
“In Memphis he started hanging around Oscar Davis’ place where I was appearing Friday nights. I heard him singing along in the audience one night and got him up on stage. It became a regular weekly thing. And it was his first experience singing for a country audience but people loved him. With us he quickly got over any nervousness he’d felt on stage. Soon he was sharing Eddy Arnold’s manager Colonel Tom Parker, appearing on the Louisiana Hayride, touring with Hank Snow and Johnny Cash and releasing hit after hit on the prestigious RCA label.
Like Hank Williams, Ray has always had an ear for new talent. He and his Cherokee Cowboys have nourished incredible talents like Roger Miller, Willie Nelson and Johnny Paycheck among their numbers. Ray himself has immeasurably grown country music’s audience with his ever evolving tempo innovations and image. He realized early that it would have to appeal to a wider population segment to survive commercially.
Accordingly he began to take country to a non-country audience seeking to erase boundaries as Hank Williams had done. He ditched any pretension of a cowboy image, began appearing on stage in dress suits as though every gig were a Carnegie concert. And the subterfuge worked for his ballads while attracting a wider audience still breathed of the Texas soil.
“Even today,” Brian Edwards, Rocklands’ CEO says, “he comes out on stage impeccably dressed, waits for the band’s intro, then opens his mouth and out comes the same magnificent voice he had in his thirties. At 84 he is absolutely incredible.”
That’s the voice you’ll hear Tuesday if you’re lucky enough to get tickets. The rich, unmistakable voice that drove an amazing 108 singles to the top of country and pop charts.