Country legend Ray Price returns home, in final stages of battle with pancreatic cancer

Legendary country singer Ray Price, who is in the final stages of his battle with pancreatic cancer, has returned to his home in Mount Pleasant, Texas to be with his wife and family. Ray shared a “final message” with his fans yesterday, stating, “I love my fans and have devoted my life to reaching out to them. I appreciate their support all these years and I hope I haven’t let them down. I am at peace. I love Jesus. I’m going to be just fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you again one day.”

Ray’s wife of 45 years, Janie, shared this message to fans with KLTV:

Ray is alert and aware of his surroundings and making decisions. With God’s blessing he has not had extreme pain. But it’s with great sadness that I announce to you today that my beloved husband has entered the final stages of his cancer that he has battled for 25 months. Anyone who knows Ray is aware that he has strong convictions and great faith in God. It’s his decision to leave the hospital and return home to spend his final days on his beloved ranch surrounded by the comfort of his home, family and friends.

I’ve often said to friends that for me country music isn’t a genre it’s a denomination, and running with that notion, Ray Price to me is a true apostle. There are lots of amazing singers out there (just tune in to any of the four or five network singing competition shows on at any given time) but it’s rare that in addition to the ability to sing a person is able to convey sincerity and believability.

Ray Price never seemed like he was just singing a song — with each and every performance he was opening his heart to me and to everyone else willing to listen. His songs are like a heart-to-heart conversation with another human being who has experienced what he’s singing about, be it extreme heartache, true love, faith or whatever — all performed in a voice like fine brandy set to a shuffle beat and twin fiddles, or perhaps the fine pairing of a lush string arrangement, or maybe just a single guitar.

And just in case I’m losing readers averse to perceived over-sentimentality, let me also say that Ray Price is a bada** m***erf***er!! His 4/4 country shuffle beat was a swift kick in the ass to country music in the mid-fifties, helping the genre denomination keep up with rock ‘n’ roll and sister denomination rockabilly through the decade.

Here’s Ray performing his ground-breaking single “Crazy Arms” (with the signature “Ray Price beat”) on the Grand Ol’ Opry in 1956:

Ray Price remained a rebel in the late ’60s when he turned to the string arrangements of the much-maligned “Nashville Sound” to establish a new country music off-shoot denomination I like to call “Honky Tonk Lounge Music,” a seemingly oxymoronic term that Ray Price had the skill (and the wardrobe) to pull off flawlessly.

For example, his 1970 cover of “For The Good Times” by Kris Kristofferson:

And speaking of Kris Kristofferson, check out this video clip of Kris inducting Ray Price into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, during which Kris says, “Ray Price is the living link between the music of Hank Williams and the country music of today.”

When I was growing up my dad only had three albums, and he played them all the time: Willie Nelson’s Red-Headed Stranger, Willie and Family Live and San Antonio Rose by Willie Nelson and Ray Price (yes, he was biased). One of the highlights of my concert-going life was seeing Ray Price and Willie Nelson singing “Night Life” together at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee at the Willie Nelson & Friends: Stars and Guitars tribute concert in 2002.

Ah hell, I’m choking up here.

Let me reuse a slightly modified paragraph I wrote just after the passing of George Jones which seems to apply perfectly to Ray as well:

Traditional country music is the art form I most identify with, the one that resonates the strongest whenever I struggle with the difficult existential questions about my existence. It boldly embraces the notion that we are flawed creatures. It has humility and pain at its core, but, as in life, out of humility and pain we find love and beauty. And I do not know that there is more love or beauty anywhere in the history of mankind than in the sound of Ray Price singing. I’m not claiming that there is any less in a Van Gogh painting, or in the pages of a William Faulkner novel, or in a piece by Mozart, or even in a song by other contemporary vocal artists such as Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Lightnin’ Hopkins, or Merle Haggard — I just know that there isn’t any more.

(I realize my team would lose a lot of games, but in the fantasy football draft of country music I would take Ray Price over George Jones. He would join Don Gibson and Jim & Jesse as fellers I took too high according to all the draft prep magazines and websites.)

Thank you so much Ray for singing for more than 60 years. You have touched my soul as you have so many millions of others and I take such great comfort that, thanks to having access to your music, “you’ll be there if I ever want you by my side.”

For those curious about Ray and you want to hear more, but you’re wondering what you should get, here’s my list of the Top 5 Ray Price Releases (excluding greatest hits collections):

5. For the Good Times (1970) Ray Price takes a more mellow and richer approach by embracing the polished Nashville Sound, including the title track featured in the video clip above. This is Honky Tonk Lounge Music at its finest.

4. San Antonio Rose: A Tribute to the Great Bob Wills (1962) Ray Price pays tribute to the King of Western Swing with a high-energy album of toe-tapping Bob Wills classics including “My Home in San Antone:”

3. San Antonio Rose (with Willie Nelson) (1980) The first in a series of duet albums by Willie Nelson in which he paid tribute to (and helped the bank accounts of) some of country music’s biggest legends, San Antonio Rose is perhaps one of the Top 10 greatest duet albums of all time! Ray shows that after 30 years his voice could still handle everything from a slow ballad to an up-tempo, high energy tune like “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)” (included below). And any fan of Willie Nelson knows he often sings and plays up to whoever he is singing and playing with, and perhaps the ultimate compliment to Ray is the fact that Willie has rarely sung as hard (and as great) as he does on this record!

2. Night Life (1962) Released just before his Bob Wills Tribute record, Night Life (including the title track and two other songs written or co-written by a relatively unknown songwriter named Willie Nelson) is described this way by AllMusic Guide:

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…

It is an amazing record that, in true humble Ray Price fashion, starts off with a spoken message thanking his fans and explaining the album in hopes that we’ll like it, before ratcheting up the smooth honky tonk badassery for a 12-song ride through country music perfection.

1. The Honky Tonk Years (1950-1966) – This 10-CD Bear Family box set comes with a hefty price tag, but if you’ve got the money, they’ve got the time — as in more than 11 hours of Ray Price from the years 1950-1966, the heyday of his honky tonking. Also included is an over-sized hardcover book with a biography of Ray Price (with an emphasis on the years of his career included in the set) as well as tons of photos as well as a detailed sessionography of each and every song included in the set.

It seems silly to pick a song off of this set as an example, so here is a photo of what you’ll get instead:

If it’s any compensation, this box set contains two of the other Top 5 albums on list (Night Life and San Antonio Rose) so you can scratch those off your list to help compensate the cost.

In addition to her statement above, Ray’s wife Janie thanked Price’s fans and said that fans may leave them a note on their Facebook page or by sending a card to:

Ray Price, P.O. Box 1986, Mt. Pleasant, TX 75456.

Thanks again Ray.

UPDATE – Rolling Stone did a great post about Ray including a recent interview after his cancer diagnosis.