Ray Price

Ray Price – Danny Boy (1967/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 18, 2023 · Comments off

Ray, on this album, has chosen a stellar list of tracks running the gamut from the title cut to “Vaya Con Dios” and Patsy Cline’s flagship, “Crazy”. Each and every song herein is executed with Ray’s beautiful, powerful and stunning voice and range. He never ceases to amaze in his ability to make a song his own and his vocals soar without any hystrionics.

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Ray Price – Night Life (1963/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 17, 2023 · Comments off

Depending upon which lens of the historical perspective you view this through, this 12-song collection is the last gasp of true honky tonk, the first stab at mainstreaming it into the Nashville sound of the 1960s, or country music’s first concept album. In 1962, Ray Price was at the peak of his form as a honky tonker of major repute. His regular touring band, the Cherokee Cowboys, were the finest of their kind and Price’s voice was an instrument of wonder, full of reflection with every lyrical reading. As a traveling musician, Price knew well of the “night life” depicted in Willie Nelson’s title track, a life spent on the road full of hotels, bar rooms, one-night stands, heartache, and regrets. This album, full of well-written songs paying homage to that sinful life and its road to nowhere, evokes the sound, feel, and ambience of classic honky tonk music like few others do. As the decade wore on, Price would go on to major superstardom as a mellow balladeer, working with full string sections, reaching audiences that never heard this music or the other honky tonk classics that preceded it. More’s the pity, for this album just may be Price’s defining moment as an artist. ~ Cub Koda

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Ray Price – Another Bridge to Burn (1966/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · August 16, 2023 · Comments off

Ray Price covered — and kicked up — as much musical turf as any country singer of the postwar era. He was lionized as the man who saved hard country when Nashville went pop, and vilified as the man who went pop when hard country was starting to call its own name with pride. Actually, he was no more than a musically ambitious singer, always looking for the next challenge for a voice that could bring down roadhouse walls.

Circa 1949, Price cut his first record for Bullet in Dallas. In 1951, he was picked up by Columbia, the label for which he would record for more than 20 years. After knocking around in Lefty Frizzell’s camp for six months or so (his first Columbia single was a Frizzell composition), Price befriended Hank Williams. The connection brought him to the Opry and profoundly affected his singing style. After Hank died, Price started stretching out more as a singer and arranger. His experimentation culminated in the 4/4 bass-driven “Crazy Arms,” the country song of the year for 1956. The intensely rhythmic sound he discovered with “Crazy Arms” would dominate his — and much of country in general — music for the next six years. To this day, people in Nashville refer to a 4/4 country shuffle as the “Ray Price beat.” Heavy on fiddle, steel, and high-tenor harmony, his country work from the late ’50s is as lively as the rock & roll of the same era. Price tired of that sound, however, and started messing around with strings. His lush 1967 version of “Danny Boy” and his 1970 take on Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times” were, in their crossover way, landmark records. But few of his old fans appreciated the fact. In the three decades following “For the Good Times,” Price’s career was often an awkward balancing act in which twin Texas fiddles were weighed against orchestras.

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