Ray Price
* Country music singer Ray Price. He was a close friend and
protege of Hank Williams. Price's hits include "Talk to Your Heart,"
"Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," "I'll be There," "Crazy Arms,"
"For the Good Times," and more. In 1996 he was inducted into the
* Country Music Hall of Fame. His latest album "Ray Price: The Other
Woman."
Terry Gross, Washington, DC
* 01/19/99
Fresh Air
FEATURE
(c) Copyright Federal Document Clearing House. All Rights Reserved.
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.
* When Ray Price was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in
1996 he was described by Kris Kristofferson as a living link from Hank
* Williams to the country music of today. Price was Hank Williams'
protege and roommate in the early '50s after Price moved to Nashville.
Soon after, Price helped give several country performers their
starts.
Early in their careers; Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Johnny Paycheck,
and Johnny Bush played in Price's band The Cherokee Cowboys. Price was
born in Cherokee County Texas in 1926.
His country hits have included "Crazy Arms," "Release Me,"
"Heartaches
by the Number," and "For the Good Times." In a "Washington Post"
review
of a concert last year, Price was praised for singing ballads with a
quiet soulfulness that now sounds refreshingly old fashioned.
You can hear that for yourself on his forthcoming CD. From it, this
is "Rambling Rose."
* (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER RAY PRICE PERFORMING
"RAMBLING ROSE")
Rambling rose Rambling rose Why you ramble No one
knows
Wild and wind blown That's how you've grown Who can cling
to A rambling rose
Ramble on Ramble on When you're rambling Days are gone
Who will love you With a love true When you're rambling
Days are gone
Rambling rose
GROSS: That's Ray Price from his new CD. Ray Price, welcome to
FRESH
AIR.
I'm really anxious to hear why you decided to record "Rambling Rose,"
and I'll preface my question by saying that, you know, I know Nat King
Cole's recording. And although I love Nat Cole, that's one recording I
never loved. Yet I really love the way you do the song. So, what did
you hear in the song?
* RAY PRICE, COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER: Well, it's just a great song
really.
It's kind of like a young girl that might be heading in the wrong
direction, I think. And that's the way I look at it. I'm trying to
make it sound as real as I can.
GROSS: Mmm-hmm. Let's talk a little bit about your past. I know
you
grew up in Texas. Where did you grow up, and what was that community
like?
PRICE: Well, I was -- I came from northeast Texas, which was then
Wood County and Upshire County. It's a rural area, and my family --
we're all farmers on both sides. And then my mother and dad moved to
Dallas, and of course I went to Dallas with them.
And I was raised in Dallas -- went to college in Arlington, Texas.
But I'm back in east Texas now, living. So it's a pretty part of the
state.
GROSS: One of the people who helped you a lot early in your career
was Hank Williams, the great country singer. How did you meet him?
PRICE: Well, the music publisher in Nashville who got me a contract
with Columbia Records, got me on one of Hank's radio shows. Every
Friday
night in Nashville they would -- if the stars were in town they would
be
on their own radio shows at WSM in Nashville.
And I was a guest of the music publisher -- Troy Martin had gotten me
a spot on his show. And we became real close friends, and he got me on
the Grand Ol' Opry. And he and his wife were getting divorced...
GROSS: ...Hank Williams got you on the Grand Ol' Opry.
PRICE: Yes.
GROSS: Uh-huh.
PRICE: Then we lived together. We had a house there in Nashville,
and I would stay -- I had the upstairs. He had the house for about a
year and then of course he passed away.
GROSS: You're saying that you started living together after he and
his wife separated?
PRICE: Oh, yeah. He had to have somebody. He had a problem with
alcohol, and we were real close. I had to take care of him. Everything
was fine.
GROSS: What would you do for him?
PRICE: Oh, just whatever needed to be done. I might go to the store
and things like that.
GROSS: Would you try to keep him from alcohol or keep him
comfortable
with it?
PRICE: Yeah, you just don't -- oh, no, I wouldn't give him anything.
No way. But, you know, like any of your friends if they got into it
too
far you would try to help them if they were ill.
GROSS: Now, I read someplace, and you can tell me if this is true
because there are so many legends surrounding famous people, but I read
that Hank Williams tried to shoot you a couple of times. That he shot
at you a couple of times.
PRICE: No, honey, that is a real big fabrication. Real big. No
way.
GROSS: OK.
PRICE: What I -- it had to come from somebody that may have been a
little envious back there somewhere.
GROSS: Right.
PRICE: It really didn't happen. The reason why Hank and I stopped
living together right at the last was the fact that he was in the
hospital so many times and having so much trouble. And one of the
times
I was ordered by the man Jim Denny, who ran the Artist Service Bureau
in
Nashville and handled Hank, to take him to the hospital. And Hank got a
little ill at me for that, and so I moved. But we never lost the
friendship we had.
GROSS: Did he help you get on the Grand Ol' Opry the first time?
PRICE: Sure did.
GROSS: What did he do to get you on there? Were you performing in
his act or opening for him?
PRICE: No, it was -- one Saturday night Red Foley, who was one of
the
big stars and the star of the Prince Albert, which was the network
show,
wife had died and Hank had took the host position on the show and he
wanted me for his guest.
And you didn't get on the Grand Ol' Opry back then without a hit
record. And I was years away from a hit record. So he got me on, and
they sent me to take care of him on a trip one time and everything
worked out all right so they signed me to a contract.
GROSS: What do you mean they sent you to take care of him on a trip?
They knew that he was having problems and he needed kind of like a
guardian?
PRICE: Yeah, and he needed somebody to get up there and sing in case
he didn't make it. And that was hard to do. That happened to me in
Norfolk on New Year's Day, and I didn't know what to do because they
come running in and said, well, you're going to have to take Hank's
place. And here I was, nobody knew who I was.
And I said, well, there's no way I can do that. Anyway, they put me
out there with Hank's band and we made it all right. And people kind
of
liked me because I had made a mistake by naming one of the songs in a
higher key than I ought to have been. And I let them know about it, so
it turned kind of amusing for a while. From then on Norfolk was one of
the best towns for me.
GROSS: How would you explain it to the audience that Hank Williams
couldn't make it?
PRICE: Well, you let the promoter do that. And there were other
stars on the show; Johnny Jack, Kenny Wells. We were all trying to
cover up the fact, because it was 10 or 12,000 people there, and the
promoter went out -- I forget what he said -- that Hank was ill or
something.
But some of the times Hank wouldn't even be drinking and the
promoters
would get him to drink and so they didn't have to pay him.
GROSS: You're kidding.
PRICE: No, I'm not kidding, honey.
GROSS: So this way they'd get all the ticket sales but they wouldn't
have to pay him.
PRICE: Well, they wouldn't have to pay him because he breached his
contract. He'd come in there, got drunk, didn't do a good show. They
would put him on the stage while he was inebriated -- nobody can get
onstage and sing drunk.
GROSS: Uh-huh. But in the meanwhile the promoter would have had
maybe a full house and made all the money on ticket sales.
PRICE: Well, about $50 or 60 thousand, put it in his pocket and go
home.
GROSS: Let's pause here for some music and hear one of your early
hits. In fact, this was your first number one recording. It's called
"Crazy Arms." It was recorded in 1956. Do you want to say anything
about the recording before we hear it?
PRICE: Well, it was in 1956 and the -- Bob Martin, a disc jockey in
Tampa, Florida had found a record of "Crazy Arms" and it wasn't a very
good record. But he was intrigued by the song and played it for me,
and
I was too. And then when I recorded it it became a monster. It was my
first million seller, and it crossed over. And at that time they
didn't
know what a crossover was. So -- but it was the first big one I had,
you're right.
GROSS: Let's hear it. This is my guest Ray Price recorded in 1956.
* (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER RAY PRICE PERFORMING
"CRAZY
ARMS")
Now blue ain't the word For the way that I feel And the
songs doing this part of mine They're saying those crazy dreams
I know that it's real They're someone else's love now
You're
not mine Crazy arms that reach to hold somebody new
While my yearning heart did say You're not mine My trouble
(Unintelligible)
And that's why I'm lonely all the time.
GROSS: That's Ray Price recorded in 1956. By the way, he has a new
CD coming out in January. What was the impact of having a number one
hit?
PRICE: Well, I got to eat pretty regular.
GROSS: Were you having trouble doing that before?
PRICE: Oh, yeah. All young ones have trouble. In fact, Lefty
Frizzell and I started out together. And we used to split a bowl of
stew in Dallas when we were first starting, but everything got better
like it always does. And I don't know, that's about all I can say. It
gave me an opportunity to do things that I hadn't been able to do up to
that point.
GROSS: Mmm-hmm. My guest is Ray Price. We'll talk more after a
break.
This is FRESH AIR.
BREAK
GROSS: My guest is country singer Ray Price.
Now, I believe after Hank Williams died you used his band for a
while.
PRICE: I used his band for about two years, and there's two or three
of them that have passed on now, but the rest we're all dear friends.
But I got to sounding too much like Hank on records.
GROSS: Mmm-hmm.
PRICE: It was because the music was so locked in it had to sound
like
Hank. I mean, we had to break up. And we broke up in Grand Junction,
Colorado if I remember correctly.
GROSS: Did you feel that your singing style changed when you got
your
own band?
PRICE: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
GROSS: How did it change?
PRICE: Well, I went back to singing Texas style. And not the way
Hank and the band played. He had no drums or anything like that. And
of
course I brought a Texas swing band to Nashville to go to work with me.
And from then on that's the way it was. That's where I earned the
title, "the number one honky tonk player." Because that's the only
place you could play at that time was in the nightclubs.
GROSS: Well, you mentioned Western swing. You did an album -- I
think it was in the late 1950s -- of songs that were first recorded by
Bob Wills, the father of Western swing. Did you ever know him?
PRICE: Oh, yeah, I knew Bob real well. When I was first starting in
Dallas he had a nightclub called Bob Wills Ranchouse, it later became
another nightclub after he left it. But when he was on the road with
his band he would always let me and a band play in his place. He did
me
a big favor. And of course that was my tribute to him, was that album.
GROSS: Well, this album features the band that you put together
after
you used the Hank Williams band, or one of the versions of the band you
put together. And Willie Nelson is in this band. You had quite -- you
had several really great people in your band. Johnny Bush was in your
band for a while, the great singer.
PRICE: Roger Miller was the front man.
GROSS: Yeah. How did you find these people who became so famous in
their own right. How did you end up having them as sidemen in your
band?
PRICE: Well, they were all looking for a job, Terry. Everything was
tough back there. I heard Roger -- he was working in the fire
department in Amarillo, Texas. And I made him a fiddle player, and he
came out to play fiddle. And his fiddle playing was terrible. When he
got through he said, how did you like that?
I said, well can you sing and play guitar? And it kind of shook him
and he said, yeah. So, I hired him as a front man. And he did real
well. Roger and I were real close, just like Willie and I are still
close.
GROSS: It sounded like you were determined to hire him whether he
was
good or not.
PRICE: Well, I had heard him sing.
GROSS: Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And had you heard Willie Nelson
sing before you hired him? PRICE: Well, Willie worked for my
publishing company Pamford Music (ph).
GROSS: Oh, so you knew his songs.
PRICE: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All of them. And of course Willie was
having a hard time too. And Johnny Paycheck had gone out on his own,
and Willie replaced Johnny Paycheck on bass. And then he would play
guitar sometimes.
GROSS: So, let's hear something from this Bob Wills tribute album.
The one where Willie Nelson's featured in the band. And I just looked
at the recording date on this, it was recorded in 1961. And I thought
we'd hear "Time Changes Everything." Do you want to say anything about
it?
PRICE: Just a great song.
GROSS: It is?
PRICE: Mmm-hmm.
GROSS: OK. Here goes.
PRICE: Country wise.
GROSS: This is Ray Price.
* (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER RAY PRICE PERFORMING "TIME
CHANGES EVERYTHING")
There was a time When I thought of no other And we sang our
own lost refrain Our hearts beat as one
As we had our fun But time changes everything When you left
me my poor heart was broken Our romance seemed in vain
The dark clouds are gone And there's blue sky again But
time
changes everything
GROSS: That's Ray Price from his 1961 album "San Antonio Rose."
That's a tribute to Bob Wills, and it's been re-issued in the past
couple of years. Is that Willie Nelson singing harmony, by the way?
PRICE: Could have been. Willie and I recorded a "San Antonio Rose"
album in 19 -- around 1979, I think.
GROSS: That was a big hit on the country charts.
PRICE: It was a big one. Real big. GROSS: In the mid-'60s or
so you started using more heavily arranged settings, you know, strings
and orchestras -- moving away from the more honky tonk kind of sound.
What led you in that direction?
PRICE: The honky tonks.
LAUGHTER
GROSS: What do you mean?
PRICE: Yeah, it wasn't fun playing honky tonks, and I was trying to
* broaden might orients out. Also I thought that if country music was
going to really win approval all over the country they had to do
something to kind of fix it where the people that listened to the Tony
Bennetts and Frank Sinatras and those people could -- would like the
song with the music.
* And country music songs are great -- I think they're beautiful songs,
and to put the strings with them that's my idea of how to make one
really great song.
GROSS: Now, did that work for you? Did it get you where you wanted
to be in venues that other pop singers were singing?
PRICE: Well, it got me got me in a lot of places, yeah. It sure
did.
I became one of Johnny Carson's favorite singers, which I'm very proud
of. And I did a lot of things with him in New York before he went to
California -- and afterwards.
But, yeah, it got me where I wanted to be. And I got out of the
honky
tonks. And I still play dances every now and then for some of my old
fans, but I'm not really into that anymore.
* GROSS: Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. I know that there's a lot of country
music
performers who are, you know, acknowledged as being, you know, among
the
* greats who don't get played much on country music radio anymore,
including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson. Do you feel that you're in that
predicament as well?
PRICE: Well, yeah. I'm in the same box. That was always brought
down from the higher ups in the industry, which I guess would be New
York or L.A. And they felt like they could make a whole lot more money
with the young kids playing rock music, but they had to name it
something besides rock or it wouldn't sell. And so they named it
* country music, but it's really rock music. It's the old Beatles sound.
GROSS: So, I take it it's a sound you don't much like or don't feel
that you can perform much.
PRICE: I like the Beatles. I think they ought to play the Beatles.
They don't need to play the rest of them. The Beatles have already
done
it. Now, that sounds hateful and I'm sorry for that.
LAUGHTER GROSS: I want to get back to your new CD. And as I
mentioned earlier some of the songs on here are jazz and pop standards.
And I thought I'd play another that fits in that category. This is the
song, "Prisoner of Love." Tell me why you decided to sing this?
PRICE: Just a great song. I remember back years ago when Perry Como
recorded it.
GROSS: Did you like Perry Como?
PRICE: Oh yeah.
GROSS: I've never heard it with this kind of band -- a kind of like
shuffle beat behind it -- before.
PRICE: That's the old brass beat -- they call that. We thought it
would fit so we put in there.
GROSS: It works very nicely. So why don't we hear it. And Ray
Price, thank you so much for talking with us.
PRICE: Terry, it's my pleasure. Thank you, dear.
GROSS: Ray Price's forthcoming CD is expected to be released in the
spring.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
