Country Music Hall of Fame member and Grammy Award-winner Ray Price celebrating his 86th birthday by performing in Bullard Texas, on January 7, 2011. Photo: Scott M. Lieberman/APRay Price, one of country music’s most popular and influential singers and band leaders who had more than 100 hits and was one of the last living connections to Hank Williams, has died at 87.
He died at his ranch outside Mount Pleasant, Texas, said family spokesman Billy Mack.
Price was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2011 and it had recently spread to his liver, intestines and lungs. He stopped aggressive treatments and left hospital last Thursday to receive hospice care at home.
Perhaps best known for his version of the Kris Kristofferson song For the Good Times, a pop hit in 1970, velvet-voiced Price was a giant among traditional country performers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as likely to defy a trend as he was to defend one. He helped invent the genre’s honky-tonk sound early in his career, then took it in a more polished direction.
He reached the Billboard Hot 100 eight times from 1958-1973 and had seven number-one hits and more than 100 titles on the Billboard country chart from 1952 to 1989. His other country hits included Crazy Arms, Release Me, The Same Old Me, Heartaches by the Number, City Lights and Too Young to Die.
Price was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, long after he became dissatisfied with Nashville and returned to his home state of Texas.
“Ray Price was a giant in Texas and country Western music. Besides one of the greatest voices that ever sang a note, Ray’s career spanned over 65 years in a business where 25 years would be amazing,” said Ray Benson of country music group Asleep at the Wheel.
As a young man, Price became friends with Hank Williams, toured with the country legend and shared a house with him in Nashville. Williams even let Price use his band, the Drifting Cowboys, and the two wrote a song together, the modest Price hit Weary Blues (From Waiting).
Price’s importance went well beyond hit singles. He was among the pioneers who popularised electric instruments and drums in country music.
After helping to establish the bedrock 4/4 shuffle beat that can still be heard on every honky-tonk jukebox and most country radio stations in the world, Price angered traditionalists by breaking away from country. He gave early breaks to Willie Nelson, Roger Miller and other major performers.
His Danny Boy in the late 1960s was a heavily orchestrated version that crossed over to the pop charts. He then started touring with a string-laden 20-piece band that outraged his dance hall fans.
In the 1970s he sang often with symphony orchestras – in a tuxedo and cowboy boots.
Like Nelson, his good friend and contemporary, Price simply did not care what others thought and pursued the chance to make his music the way he wanted to.
“I have fought prejudice since I got in country music and I will continue to fight it,” he said in 1981. “A lot of people want to keep country music in the minority of people. But it belongs to the world. It’s art.”
Price continued performing and recording well into his 70s. In 2007, he joined buddies Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson on a double-CD set, Last of the Breed. The trio performed on tour with Asleep at the Wheel.