Ray Price

Beauty Is (AmeriMonte)

Ray Price’s final recorded testament finds him justifiably reflective within lush orchestrations of the countrypolitan sound he helped pioneer in the Sixties and Seventies. Beauty Is showcases the East Texas native, who died of pancreatic cancer in December at the age of 87, still in fine (if audibly aged) voice and keenly aware of his imminent mortality. With the aid of Nashville vet Fred Foster, Price muses on life, love, and (yes) beauty across 12 mostly wide-screen, epic ballads. “Until Then” indulges the barroom shuffle with which he revolutionized country music in the Fifties, complete with walking bass, crying steel, the only fiddles on the LP, and Vince Gill harmonies. Otherwise, Price is intimate on the mic, his warmly burnished voice still possessing all its range and wrapped around sentimental classics “Beautiful Dreamer,” Vic Damone’s “An Affair to Remember” (with Martina McBride), and his onetime bassist Willie Nelson’s “It Always Will Be.”

***

This article appears in April 18 • 2014.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US

Tim Stegall contributed to The Austin Chronicle 1991-1995, and was a staff writer 1995-1997. He returned as a contributor in 2013. He has also freelanced for publications ranging from Flipside to Alternative Press to Guitar World. He plays punk rock guitar and sings in the Hormones.