The hit man: Ronnie Milsap is still striving for more No. 1’s
With 35 No. 1. country hits to his credit, you’d think Ronnie Milsap would be satisfied. That’s not the case for the 77-year-old North Carolina native, who is performing at Dayton’s Victoria Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 27.
“I’m busier than I probably expected to be, but it’s all good,” Milsap said. “I’ve got the best band I’ve probably ever had together, so I may as well get on the road and play some shows. I’m looking forward to bringing the show to Victoria Theatre so we can show off what we do. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
“I thirst for all of that,” he said. “I still have the passion for it. I love it. I even went as far as to build a home studio. Just about everybody in Nashville has one. If you find something that really works great, you can take it into a big studio if you want to. There are several and I use the old one down on Music Row that’s owned now by Black River Entertainment. It’s a great studio.
The winner of six Grammy Awards launched his music career in the mid-1960s and continues to record and perform regularly.
“I love the whole thing with the record business,” Milsap said. “I know Don Henley and those folks from the Eagles said there’s no money to be made in the record business anymore, and that may be true, but I don’t really believe that yet. It’s a different style of selling. It’s all about downloads and streaming, which is different from the way it used to be. You have to just learn the new ways.”
For his latest album, “The Duets” (2019), he was joined by Dolly Parton, George Straight, Kacey Musgraves and other famous singers. He’s currently working on a still-untitled follow-up.
“The next album is going to be songs I found and like to sing,” Milsap said. “I’m always recording. I’ll get in the studio every week to do something. I’ve been doing this for years and it’s pretty good stuff. It’s kind of shame we don’t have some of this stuff out where people can hear it.
“I’ve got real good friends that are songwriters,” he con- tinued. “A lot of them want to bring me a song and say, ‘Would you consider this?’
I listen to it and if I like it, I go in and try it out because I need some more No. 1’s and I need some more Grammys. I’m not quite done yet.”