Ray Price’s band, the Cherokee Cowboys, employed Willie Nelson on bass. Photos courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame
Elvis Presley, born Jan. 8, 1935, receives a birthday celebration every year at El Ranchito, and sometimes, we also celebrate David Bowie, born Jan. 8, 1947, at the Texas Theatre.
But there is another musical Capricorn who Oak Cliff ought to hail this month.
Ray Price was born Jan. 12, 1926, near Perryville in East Texas, and he grew up between his father’s farm there and the home of his mother and stepfather in Oak Cliff.
Price dropped out of Adamson High School to join the U.S Marine Corps in 1943 but returned three years later, as World War II was winding down, and graduated from Adamson, according to a 2000 interview with the Dallas Observer.
If you finished high school in Oak Cliff and went to college in Arlington, then Price is your homeboy. He enrolled in North Texas Agricultural College, now the University of Texas at Arlington. But then he started playing music with his buddies, and with a voice like that, it didn’t take long for him to find a career.
Price got his first professional experience at Roy’s House Café in Dallas, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Newspaper archives reveal the address for Roy’s House as 3610 Samuell Blvd., between Tenison Park Golf Course and Interstate 30. The building is now home to a Mexican nightclub.
Jim Beck gave Price his start in recording at his studio at 1101 Ross Ave., in the West End of Downtown. There he wrote songs with Lefty Frizzell, including “Give Me More More More of Your Kisses.” Price also began performing on the Big D Jamboree radio program, and he went on the road with Hank Williams. They met in the fall of 1951 and were roommates together in Nashville. They employed the same backing band and wrote “Weary Blues (From Waiting)” together, which Price recorded and performed on the “Grand Ole Opry.”
There’s no book about Price’s life, but there is a chapter about him in Michael Corcoran’s 2017 book All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music. Corcoran, who interviewed Price in 2006, writes that Price and Williams saw each other in Dallas for the last time on Dec. 17, 1952. That was two days before Williams’ final performance in Austin on Dec. 19. The two friends expected to see each other at a New Year’s Day performance in Ohio. But Williams, an alcoholic and drug addict, died from heart failure at age 29 en route to that event.
After that, Price lived with Hank Williams’ ghost for a couple of years, leading Williams’ Cowboy Band and singing his songs. Listen to some of Price’s early recordings to hear how similar they sounded.
Corcoran credits Price with “saving” country music from the popularity of Elvis Presley and rockabilly, whose power Price would’ve witnessed at the Big D Jamboree.
Price leaned into the honky-tonk sound with a shuffling 4/4 bass line, now known as “the Ray Price beat,” that could keep ’em dancing all night.
“Crazy Arms” was his first hit, recorded with pedal steel player Ralph Mooney and producer Chuck Seals, who are credited with writing the song. It was released in May 1956 and was the song of the summer. It became the No. 1 country hit that year. More important, it ushered in a new honky-tonk era. It was the first big hit of what would become known as the Bakersfield sound and changed country music forever, according to “Cocaine and Rhinestones” podcast.
Price had a string of hits after that, including “City Lights,” “Heartaches by the Number” and in 1970, the Kris Kristofferson-penned “For the Good Times,” which was a No. 1 country hit that registered high on the pop charts.
Price’s music wasn’t country enough for some fans, who didn’t favor the crossover pop appeal. He’d had it with Nashville by 1974 and returned to Texas, where he lived near his birthplace for the rest of his life.
His 1996 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame was seen as belated, and his name isn’t as well known as some of the guys who were in his band — Willie Nelson, Roger Miller and Johnny Paycheck.
Ray Price recorded and toured until the very end of his life, and he died in December 2013 at age 87.
He told Corcoran in 2006: “The only thing I’ve ever done is sing my kind of song for my kind of people.”
