Willie Nelson

For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price

SONY LEGACY. CD/DL/LP

Willie gives tribute acts a good name.

Ray Price may be little known in this country but he played an important role in country music history. He was the singer who took over Hank Williams’ band after Hank’s death, then hauled honky tonk into other areas, often employing strings, prefacing what became known as countrypolitan. A country crooner who usually appeared in a tuxedo, he hit on a formula that provided him with over 110 chart entries in his life time. Willie Nelson, whose relationship with Price dates from 1960, links with The Time Jumpers, a band headed by Vince Gill, to provide this warm-hearted glance back at Price’s greatest successes, a list that includes chart-toppers such as Crazy Arms, City Lights plus Night Life (now a standard, written by Willie) and Faded Love, which Price and Nelson once recorded as a hit duet. The result is a record that owes much to the original recordings in terms of arrangements but offers an added extra by way of Willie’s inherent charm.