Ray Price (musician)

Ray Price
Ray Price, ca. 1968
Background information
Birth name	Noble Ray Price
Also known as	The Cherokee Cowboy
Born	(1926-01-12)January 12, 1926 Wood County, Texas, U.S.
Died	December 16, 2013(2013-12-16) (aged 87) Mount Pleasant, Texas, U.S.
Genres	Country, Western swing, traditional pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, guitarist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1948–2013
Labels	Columbia, Myrrh, ABC, Monument, Dimension, Viva, Step One
Associated acts	Hank Williams Johnny Bush, Merle Haggard, Rosetta Tharpe, Harlan Howard, George Jones, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck

Noble Ray Price (January 12, 1926 – December 16, 2013) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His wide ranging baritone has often been praised as among the best male voices of country music. 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. Price continued to record and tour well into his mid-eighties.

Ray Price was born on a farm near the small, now gone, community of Peach, near Perryville in 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 of 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. Ray 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 many years later (1972) was honored as a distinguished alumnus.

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.