R.I.P.: Farewell Message From Country Singer Ray Price

Ray Price

Country Music Hall of Fame member Ray Price, one of country's prime hitmakers from the 1950s through the 1970s, died Monday at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, following a battle with pancreatic cancer, according to CMT. 

“I love my fans and have devoted my life to reaching out to them,” Price, 87, said in a final message sent through his wife, Janie Price. “I appreciate their support all these years, and I hope I haven’t let them down. I am at peace. I love Jesus. I’m going to be just fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you again one day.”

Whether moaning honky-tonk blues or purring an intimate love song, Ray Price set dauntingly high standards. To appreciate his musical reach, one had only to listen to his first hit, "Talk to Your Heart" (1952), move on to the earnest shuffle of "City Lights" (1958) and then consider his sonorous, lavishly orchestrated "For the Good Times" (1970).

Although Hank Williams, his friend and one-time roommate, was an early vocal influence, Price was marked just as deeply by the great crooners of his youth -- Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Perry Como.

Born Jan. 12, 1926, in Perryville, Texas, Nobel Ray Price came of age in a world far less musically fragmented than it is now.

Radio was still the exciting media then, and even small stations boasted an inspiring mixture of locally-grown and network-carried sounds -- everything from rural string bands to romantic pop warblers to symphony orchestras. Paving the way for Price in country music were the likes of Eddy Arnold, Red Foley and Tennessee Ernie Ford, middle-of-the-road crooners who regularly commuted between hillbilly and mainstream minstrelsy.

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