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Price delivers hallmark sound with cool understatement
02/13/2006 8:09 PM, Reuters
Given that both artists
joined the Country Music Hall of Fame on the same night in
1996, there's a symmetry to a Ray Price appearance at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace. But what made Price's Bakersfield date
Saturday particularly appropriate is the way in which his brand
of country adapted well to what was essentially a supper-club
engagement.
Price earned his place in the Hall of Fame as an innovator
in two musical movements. His first Billboard No. 1 single,
"Crazy Arms" -- March 1 marks the 50th anniversary of the
recording session -- established the now-classic country
shuffle with its walking bassline and piano chords on the
afterbeat. It's a honky-tonk derivative of jazz-inflected
Western swing, and as such it's perfectly suited to the
laid-back atmosphere of a mealtime performance.
With Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Price was
among the first to use lush, uptown string sections on his
ballads, earning the wrath of diehard traditionalists but
expanding his audience in the late '60s and early '70s in spite
of the backlash.
In the first of two Saturday shows, Price balanced the
shuffles and the countrypolitan material, incorporating a
three-piece fiddle section among his 10-piece Cherokee Cowboys
band. The fiddles gave the requisite hard edge to shuffles such
as "Heartaches by the Number" and "The Other Woman," while they
combined with Mike Cass' steel to create a softer texture for
Price's ballads, including "You're the Best Thing That Ever
Happened to Me" and "I Won't Mention It Again."
Although he turned 80 last month, Price still maintains a
rich, vibrant vocal presence. He stood almost motionless in a
steel-gray suit and red tie, his gaze moving slowly across the
club in a seeming attempt to make eye contact with every
patron. He delivered the material with a warm, reassuring
quality, treating many of the classic melodies with a
near-reverence. Like Bing Crosby or George Strait, he graced
most of the performances with a cool understatement that worked
particularly well on the bittersweet parts of his repertoire,
including "For the Good Times," which still induced chills 35
years after its introduction.
Price is an under-recognized bridge between generations of
country stars. His Cherokee Cowboys graduated fellow Hall of
Famers Willie Nelson and Roger Miller, and he was among the
first artists to earn hits penned by Hall of Fame songwriters
Kris Kristofferson, Bill Anderson and Harlan Howard. Price also
was influenced by Western-swing icon Bob Wills and spent a
short period as a housemate of Hank Williams, whose "A Mansion
on the Hill" received a shuffle treatment for Saturday's
encore.
Price didn't overplay those connections, and he didn't brag
about having originally owned the publishing rights to some of
the standards he dropped into the set, such as Nelson's "Crazy"
and Hank Cochran's "Make the World Go Away." He simply slipped
them in casually with his barroom numbers and reserved ballads;
in the process, Ray Price filled the room with an easygoing
dignity.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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