Price, Ray (Noble)

Price, Ray (Noble) , American country singer, guitarist, and songwriter; b. near Perryville, Tex., Jan. 12, 1926. Price was among the most popular country singers of the 1950s and 1960s, with a style that evolved from the honky-tonk approach of his mentor, Hank Williams, to a more pop-oriented Countrypolitan sound in the 1960s, but was not inconsistent with that of protégés like Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson in the 1970s and 1980s. He reached the country charts 109 times between 1952 and 1989, including 46 Top Ten hits and eight #ls, the most successful of which were “Crazy Arms,” “My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You,” and “City Lights.”

Price’s parents divorced when he was four, and he spent part of his childhood on his father’s farm in Cherokee County, Tex., and part with his mother in Dallas. He began attending North Tex. Agricultural Coll. in Arlington, Tex., intending to become a veterinarian, but when he turned 18 he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in the Pacific during World War II; he returned to college in 1946. In 1948 he began singing on local radio, and in 1949, when he was hired by the Big D Jamboree radio show in Dallas, he left school to work in music full-time. He signed to the small Bullet Records label, which released his first single, “Jealous Lies” (music and lyrics by Ray Price) in 1950. The single was not a success, but his appearances on the Big D Jamboree, some of which were broadcast nationally, brought him to the attention of Columbia Records, which signed him in March 1951.

Price was befriended by Hank Williams, who facilitated his move to Nashville and his joining the Grand Ole Opry in January 1952, before he had scored a national hit. That hit came soon after, however, when “Talk to Your Heart” (music and lyrics by C. M. Bradley and Louise Ulrich) reached the country Top Ten in May. He had another hit that year, then struggled until scoring in March 1954 with both sides of the single “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)” (music and lyrics by Rusty Gabbard and Ray Price)/“Release Me” (music and lyrics by Eddie Miller and W. S. Stevenson). There was one more country Top Ten that year, then another year off the charts.

Price returned with five Top Ten hits in 1956, including the biggest country single of the year, “Crazy Arms” (music and lyrics by Ralph Mooney and Chuck Seals), and he was in the country singles charts every year from then until 1989. He had three more #1 hits in the 1950s: “My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You” (music and lyrics by Lee Ross and Bob Wills) in September 1957; “City Lights” (music and lyrics by Bill Anderson), the biggest hit of 1958; and “The Same Old Me” (music and lyrics by Fuzzy Owen) in December 1959.

In the 1960s Price topped the country charts with the albums Night Life (January 1964), Another Bridge to Burn (November 1966), and Touch My Heart (April 1967). He began to add strings to his recordings, culminating in the large orchestra that accompanied him on a recording of the 1913 song “Danny Boy” (music and lyrics by Frederick Edward Weatherly, based on the 19th-century Irish traditional song “Londonderry Air”) in 1967, a Top Ten country hit and his biggest crossover pop hit yet. But he achieved real crossover success and returned to the top of the country charts in September 1970 by recording Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times,” which made the pop Top 40 and earned him a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male. The For the Good Times LP topped the country charts and went gold.

His career reinvigorated, Price topped the country charts in May 1971 with “I Won’t Mention It Again” (music and lyrics by Cam Mullins and Carolyn Yates), earning another Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, and hitting #1 on the country LP charts with an album of the same title. The two-record set Ray Price’s All-Time Greatest Hits, released in August 1972, was a gold-selling album, and Price was back at #1 in the country charts with “She’s Got to Be a Saint” (music and lyrics by Mario DiNapoli and Joseph Paulini) in December 1972 and “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me” (music and lyrics by Jim Weatherly) in October 1973.

Price gave up touring and turned his attention to horse-breeding on his Tex. ranch in the early 1970s, though he continued to make records. He switched to the religious Myrrh record label in 1974, to ABC/Dot in 1975, and to Monument in 1978, continuing to reach the country charts regularly. In 1980 he teamed up with Willie Nelson, who had once been a member of his backing band, for the album San Antonio Rose, which went gold and featured the country Top Ten single “Faded Love” (music and lyrics by Bob Wills and Johnnie Lee Wills). He moved to Dimension Records in 1981, scoring a final couple of Top Ten hits, then to Warner Bros., Clint Eastwood’s Viva label, and the independent Step One label, continuing to reach the country charts through the end of the 1980s. By then he had built his own theater in the entertainment center of Branson, Mo.

Price was married twice, and had a son.

Discography

A Tribute to the Great Bob Wills (1962); Night Life (1963); Portrait of a Singer (1985); A Revival of Old-Time Singing (1986); Heart of Country Music (1987); Just Enough Love (1988); The Essential (rec. 1951–62; rel. 1989); Somes a Rose (1992); Los Dos (1994).

—William Ruhlmann