Ray Price (musician) 1940s-1950s success What happened in the early 1940s? After the war and college, Price rethought his decision to continue schooling to be a veterinarian. What success did Ray have? He was the first artist to have a success with the song "Release Me" (1954 First artist out of who? his band, the Drifting Cowboys,
Did he release an album?
Did Ray Prince release an album?
After the war and college, Price rethought his decision to continue schooling to be a veterinarian. For one thing he was considered too small to work with large cattle and horses, the backbone of a Texas veterinarian's practice. While helping around his father's ranch he also began singing at various functions around the Abilene, Texas area. This eventually led him to begin singing on the radio program Hillbilly Circus broadcast on Abilene's KRBC in 1948. He joined the Big D Jamboree on Dallas radio station KRLD-AM in 1949, and when the show was picked up for broadcast on the CBS radio network soon afterward Price had his first taste of national exposure. It was around this time Ray Price became friends with Lefty Frizzell. The two first met at Beck Recording Studio in Dallas, and Price ended up writing the song "Give Me More, More, More Of Your Kisses" for Frizzell's use. A few demos recorded by Price at Beck's caught the attention of Bullet Records in Nashville, Tennessee and he was signed to his first recording contract. However, his first single released on Bullet, "Jealous Lies" failed to become a chart hit. He relocated to Nashville in the early 1950s, rooming for a brief time with Hank Williams. When Williams died, Price managed his band, the Drifting Cowboys, and had minor success. He was the first artist to have a success with the song "Release Me" (1954), a top five popular music hit for Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967. In 1953, Price formed his band, the Cherokee Cowboys. Among its members during the late 1950s and early 1960s were; Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Darrell McCall, Van Howard, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Bush, Buddy Emmons, Pete Wade, Jan Kurtis, Shorty Lavender and Buddy Spicher. Miller wrote one of Ray Price's classics in 1958, "Invitation to the Blues", and sang harmony on the recording. Additionally, Nelson composed the Ray Price song "Night Life". Price became one of the stalwarts of 1950s honky tonk music, with hit songs such as "Talk To Your Heart" (1952) and "Release Me". He later developed the famous "Ray Price Shuffle," a 4/4 arrangement of honky tonk music with a walking bassline, which can be heard on "Crazy Arms" (1956) and many of his other recordings from the late 1950s. CANNOTANSWER
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Noble Ray Price (January 12, 1926 – December 16, 2013) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His wide-ranging baritone is regarded as among the best male voices of country music, and his innovations, such as propelling the country beat from 2/4 to 4/4, known as the "Ray Price beat", helped make country music more popular. Some of his well-known recordings include "Release Me", "Crazy Arms", "Heartaches by the Number", "For the Good Times", "Night Life", and "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me". He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He continued to record and tour into his 80s.

Early life
Ray Price was born on a farm near the small former community of Peach, near Perryville, Wood County, Texas. He was the son of Walter Clifton Price and Clara Mae Bradley Cimini. His grandfather, James M. M. Price, was an early settler in the area. Price was three years old when his parents divorced and his mother moved to Dallas, Texas. For the rest of his childhood he split time between Dallas and on the family farm, where his father had remained. Price's mother and step-father were successful fashion designers and wanted him to take up that line of work but it had little appeal to him.

Price began singing and playing guitar as a teenager but at first chose a career in veterinary medicine. He was attending North Texas Agricultural College in preparation for that career when his studies were interrupted by America's entry into World War II. Price was drafted in 1944 and served in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater. He returned to the college after the war and, in 1972, was honored as a distinguished alumnus.

Music career

1940s–1950s success

After the war and college, Price rethought his decision to continue schooling to be a veterinarian; he was considered too small to work with large cattle and horses, the backbone of a Texas veterinarian's practice. While helping around his father's ranch he also began singing at various functions around the Abilene, Texas, area. This eventually led him to begin singing on the radio program Hillbilly Circus broadcast on Abilene's KRBC in 1948. He joined the Big D Jamboree on Dallas radio station KRLD (AM) in 1949, and when the show was picked up for broadcast on the CBS radio network soon afterward Price had his first taste of national exposure. It was around this time Ray Price became friends with Lefty Frizzell. The two first met at Beck Recording Studio in Dallas, and Price ended up writing the song "Give Me More, More, More Of Your Kisses" for Frizzell's use. A few demos recorded by Price at Beck's caught the attention of Bullet Records in Nashville, Tennessee, and he was signed to his first recording contract. However, his first single released on Bullet, "Jealous Lies", failed to become a chart hit.

He relocated to Nashville in the early 1950s, rooming for a brief time with Hank Williams. When Williams died, Price managed his band, the Drifting Cowboys, and had minor success. He was the first artist to have a success with the song "Release Me" (1954), a top five popular music hit for Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967. In 1953, Price formed his band, the Cherokee Cowboys. Among its members during the late 1950s and early 1960s were Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Darrell McCall, Van Howard, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Bush, Buddy Emmons, and Buddy Spicher. Miller wrote one of Ray Price's classics in 1958, "Invitation to the Blues", and sang harmony on the recording. Additionally, Nelson composed the Ray Price song, "Night Life". Price became one of the stalwarts of 1950s honky tonk music, with hit songs such as "Talk To Your Heart" (1952) and "Release Me".

1960–2000s: Nashville sound to gospel

During the 1960s, Ray experimented increasingly with the so-called Nashville sound, singing slow ballads and utilizing lush arrangements of strings and backing singers. Examples include his 1967 rendition of "Danny Boy", and "For the Good Times" in 1970, which was Price's first country music chart No. 1 hit since "The Same Old Me"  by Kris Kristofferson, the song also scored No. 11 on the popular music chart and featured a mellower Price backed by sophisticated musical sounds, quite in contrast to the honky tonk sounds Price had pioneered two decades before. Price had three more No. 1 country music successes during the 1970s: "I Won't Mention It Again", "She's Got To Be A Saint", and "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me" (the last of which was a pop hit in Canada, and would gain greater fame a year later when Gladys Knight & the Pips covered it).

Price's final top ten hit was "Diamonds In The Stars" in early 1982. Price continued to have songs on the country music chart through 1989. Later, he sang gospel music and recorded such songs as "Amazing Grace", "What A Friend We Have In Jesus", "Farther Along" and "Rock of Ages". Price briefly made national news again in 1999 when he was arrested for possession of marijuana. According to Price in a 2008 interview, old friend Willie Nelson — no stranger to marijuana arrests — phoned and told him he had just earned $5 million in free publicity with the drug bust.

In 2009, he made two performances for the Fox News show Huckabee. The first was with the Cherokee Cowboys and host Mike Huckabee, and he performed "Crazy Arms" and "Heartaches By The Number". Weeks later he performed with the Cherokee Cowboys and Willie Nelson (again with Huckabee playing bass guitar). This time they performed duets of "Faded Love" and "Crazy". Price worked on his last album, Last of the Breed, with fellow country music singers Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. This album was released on March 20, 2007, by the company Lost Highway Records. The two-disc set features 20 country classics as well as a pair of new compositions. The trio toured the U.S. from March 9 until March 25 starting in Arizona and finishing in Illinois. This was Price's third album with Nelson and first album with Haggard. After the tour, Haggard remarked, "I told Willie when it was over, 'That old man gave us a goddamn singing lesson.' He really did. He just sang so good. He sat there with the mic against his chest. And me and Willie are all over the microphone trying to find it, and he found it."

Cancer and death
On November 6, 2012, Price confirmed that he was fighting pancreatic cancer. Price told the San Antonio Express-News that he had been receiving chemotherapy for the past six months. An alternative to the chemo would have been surgery that involved removing the pancreas along with portions of the stomach and liver, which would have meant a long recovery and stay in a nursing home. Said Price, "That's not very much an option for me. God knows I want to live as long as I can but I don't want to live like that." He told the newspaper, "The doctor said that every man will get cancer if he lives to be old enough. I don't know why I got it – I ain't old!"

Although in February 2013 the cancer appeared to be in remission, Price was hospitalized in May 2013 with severe dehydration. On December 2, 2013, Price entered a Tyler, Texas, hospital in the final stages of pancreatic cancer, according to his son, then left on December 12 for home hospice care. Price died at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, on December 16, 2013, aged 87. Price was interred at Restland Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas.

Personal life

After leaving Nashville, Price lived his time off the road on his east Texas ranch near Mount Pleasant, continuing to dabble in gamefowl, cattle and horses. Ray Price married twice. He and his first wife divorced in the late 1960s. Price married second wife Janie on June 11, 1970, and they remained together until his death. A son from his first marriage, Cliff Price, also survives.

Discography

Industry awards
Academy of Country Music
 1970 Album of the Year – For The Good Times
 1970 Single of the Year – "For The Good Times"

Country Music Association
 1971 Album of the Year – I Won't Mention It Again

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
 Inducted in 1996

Grammy Awards
 1971 Best Male Country Vocal Performance – "For The Good Times"
 2008 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals with Willie Nelson – "Lost Highway"

See also
 Country Music Association
 Academy of Country Music
 Inductees of the Country Music Hall of Fame (1996 Inductee)

References

External links

The "Ray Price Shuffle" with audio examples
at the Country Music Hall of Fame
Allmusic Ray Price with Biography, Discography, Charts

1926 births
2013 deaths
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male musicians
American acoustic guitarists
American country guitarists
American country singer-songwriters
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
Columbia Records artists
Country musicians from Tennessee
Country musicians from Texas
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Deaths from cancer in Texas
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Dot Records artists
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grand Ole Opry members
Guitarists from Tennessee
Guitarists from Texas
Monument Records artists
Musicians from Nashville, Tennessee
Musicians from Dallas
People from Cherokee County, Texas
People from Mount Pleasant, Texas
People from Wood County, Texas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Singer-songwriters from Tennessee
Step One Records artists
Traditional pop music singers
University of Texas at Arlington alumni
Word Records artists
Drifting Cowboys members
Snacks (Supersize) is the debut album by British DJ and record producer Jax Jones, released on 6 September 2019 through Polydor Records. The album expands on his previous release, his 2018 EP Snacks as part of an experimental release strategy that involved new singles being added to the EP as they were released before the addition of six new songs for the release of the full album. In the weeks preceding the release, a brand new collaboration with Tove Lo titled "Jacques" was released as the lead single whilst the Ella Henderson collaboration "This Is Real" was promoted during the week of release. It was released as the album's second single on 21 October 2019.

Background
Snacks was originally released in November 2018 as an EP of 5 songs Jones had already released. Between the EP's release and July 2019, a number of other singles were added to the EP expanding it to 9 songs. The Head of Marketing at Polydor Records, Stephen Hallowes, noted during an interview with Music Week that this was all part of their release strategy to "reimagine the album as an ever-evolving playlist that would update on an on-going basis and eventually culminate in a full album release with extra songs".

Hallows further explained the "main purpose was to create one destination for fans to listen to all of Jax’s hits, but it also enabled us to start building an album story with [Jones] over time, which felt like a good strategy for an artist much stronger in the singles market than albums." Jones told the Official Charts Company that he did not anticipate releasing an album, he said "because I don’t sing my music, some people might only be a fan of one or two of my songs". Jones said that it is "so exciting to have an album with all my hits and new songs in one place [...] when you work with the names I did on the album, it makes you bring your A-game". He further explained that his second single, 2016's "You Don't Know Me" featuring Raye, "defined my sound and now I'm so happy to say the record is done".

Jones' own vocals appear on the song "All 4 You" and there might be plans to continue releasing new songs as part of Snacks including a song with singer Raye, who already features on the single "You Don't Know Me".

Critical reception

Narzra Ahmed from Clash praised the album for containing many hit songs, writing: "Jones has put together an impressive collection of insanely catchy songs. It's not easy to come by an album which contains hit after hit like this does. It is a joy to listen to."

Promotion
During its week of release, Snacks (Supersize) was promoted with the song "This is Real" featuring fellow British singer-songwriter Ella Henderson. In support of the album, Jones also launched his own Snacks-themed comedy game show on YouTube.

Jones announced he would be touring in 2020, with the tour to include pyrotechnics, dancers and inflatables. Dates include:

Track listing

Notes
  signifies a co-producer.
  signifies an additional producer.
 "100 Times" features un-credited vocals from MNEK.
 "Cruel" features un-credited vocals from Madison Love.
 "All 4 U" features un-credited vocals from Boy Matthews and Robert Harvey.

Charts

Notes

References

2019 debut albums
Jax Jones albums
Polydor Records albums Cover Up is an album by UB40, released in 2001. It was their first studio album release since 1998 when they released Labour of Love III. It debuted at number 29 on the UK charts but dropped out of the top-100 after its third week. There was no US release, but rather it was released as an international release. The first single released from this album was "Since I Met You Lady", but it did not rise higher than No. 40 on the UK charts.

Track listing
All tracks composed by UB40; except where indicated

References

2001 albums
UB40 albums