Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,142

This is the grave of Ray Price.

Born in Peach, Texas in 1926, one of the greatest country singers to ever live and one of my personal favorite artists in American history, Noble Ray Price quickly decided to go by his middle name, the first good decision he ever made. He grew up in Dallas after his parents split. His mother and stepfather did not have the normal expected job of the parents of a country singer–they were successful fashion designers. They had a nice family business going and wanted Ray to follow them. He was not interested in that. Instead, he decided to be a vet for farm animals. He was attending North Texas Agricultural College, which is today UT-Arlington, when the U.S. joined World War II. He was drafted into the Marines and served well in the Pacific.

After the war, Price returned to school. But he was a tiny guy and whether fair or not, there was a belief you needed some size and heft to work with horses and cows. I don’t know, seems to me that a horse or bull can handle a human of any size pretty easily if they are up for it. So he didn’t know if that was going to work. Meanwhile, his biological father had a ranch near Abilene. Price was working on it a bit and started singing locally. People liked his voice, which makes sense since his voice was great. He got an offer to join the Hillbilly Circus on Abilene’s KRBC, one of many country variety shows like the Grand Ole Opry that still operated locally, in 1948. The next year, he was brought to Dallas on the Big D Jamboree, a much larger version of this. He got to know Lefty Frizzell around this time, they became buddies, Price wrote a bit for him. Price started releasing a few songs, but they didn’t go anywhere. There was a robust small label country market in Texas at this time. This is how George Jones started right about the same time. But it was hard to make it that way.

In 1950, Price moved to Nashville to take his show at the capital of country music. He became one of Hank Williams’ handlers for a bit. Well, he was Hank’s roommate, but if you were rooming with Hank, you were handling him to some extent. After Hank died, he managed the Drifting Cowboys for a bit and started releasing more singles to greater success than he had in Texas. He started releasing songs in 1952, did OK with “Don’t Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes,” struggled to gain much momentum with any of his released in 1953, did well with “Much to Young to Die” in 1954, again didn’t do much in 1955. Then in 1956 came “Crazy Arms.” That went all the way to #1 country for 5 months and established Price as a huge star.

Price would remain one of the stalwart stars of country music for the next two decades. He hit it big just as rock and roll did and while that absolutely roiled the country music industry, Price was one of those who managed to slide through because he was so clearly an adult writing music for adults without even trying to pretend he could work in the rock and roll market. His voice was not that of rock and roll. He was a smooth singer, much closer to Frank Sinatra than Elvis Presley. He became the king of the dancehalls in the late 50s and 60s. The greatest songwriters worked for him and he covered songs with tremendous effectiveness.

Price took well to the long play album. His debut, 1957’s Ray Price Sings Heart Songs showed his ballad style wonderfully–and let’s be clear here, even for so-called “Outlaw County,” ballads were the tradtiional heart of country music. Waylon Jennings, at the peak of his fame, was still doing mostly ballads. Almost the entire Dreaming My Dreams album is ballads, for example. So Price was helping to create the standards of balladry in country music. Singing about love and loss, whether because you are a cheater and a drunk or your wife is a cheater and that’s why you are drunk or whatever reasons you are having relationship problems was the kind of grown up music that allowed country to survive rock and roll. People like Price and George Jones were intentionally not appealing to rock and roll audiences and it turned out there was a huge market for that.

Price was ready to deliver great album after great album in the late 50s through the 60s and even into the early 70s. 196e’s Night Life might be the greatest country album ever made. Dale Watson, one of the stalwarts still performing decent country music today, has stated on his 2001 live album, Live in London that this is so, before he covers “Bright Lights and Blonde Haired Women.” But the title track here is what is famous. Price has a weird introduction to this song, about how this was a little different and thanking his audience for buying his records and all this stuff. He describes this song as being written “by a boy from down in Texas.” That boy was Willie Nelson. “Night Life” is just about the perfect country song as well.

Then came more classics–1964’s Burning Memories, 1965’s The Other Woman, 1966’s Touch My Heart. His albums from the late 60s were a bit less successful. But in 1970, he released For the Good Times. The title track is the best cover of a Kris Kristofferson song ever performed. It’s an astounding vocal performance. I understand that Joplin’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee” means much more to the rock and roll generation than anything but Ray Price, but if you care about country music and beauty in vocals at all, this is a song that will absolutely blow your mind.

By this time, Price had moved from his western wear to his tuxedos, which made no difference in his music, but was a nod to a broader pop audience and was somewhat controversial for it, even as Price himself noted that, again, it made no musical difference. But the 70s and the rise of the outlaw movement was not great for a guy like Price. He started to fall out of relevance. His album sales. But he had mentored Willie. And Willie always takes care of his people, then and now. So he asked Ray if he wanted to do an album. This was 1980’s San Antonio Rose, a deeply listenable album that is a highlight for both of them. This was good for Willie too, as he largely stopped writing much and so his cover and collaborative albums of this era was a bridge for awhile, though by the mid 80s, his albums were pretty bad too.

Price didn’t really build that much on San Antonio Rose. If the 70s weren’t good for a guy like Price, the 80s weren’t good for anyone in roots music (except for Richard Thompson and a few other younger guys). But he was a senior figure with senior fans and that’s pretty much what he was for the rest of his life. By the end, his voice was shot, but whatever, he’s Ray Price, who cares that much. What a legend. In my view, Price is the second greatest vocalist in the history of country music, behind only George Jones.

Price died in 2013. He was 87 years old.

Let’s listen to some Ray Price.

Ray Price is buried in Restland Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas.

If you would like this series to visit other country music legends, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Skeeter Davis is in Franklin, Tennessee and Sammi Smith is in Guymon, Oklahoma. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.