ALBUM REVIEW: Vince Gill and Paul Franklin Honor Ray Price on ‘Sweet Memories’
Henry Carrigan
Posted On August 2, 2023
Much as they did with the music of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard on Bakersfield 10 years ago, country superstar Vince Gill and pedal steel master Paul Franklin now honor Ray Price on Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys, an affectionate tribute to one of country music’s legendary singers.
In the 1950s, Ray Price changed the sound of country music with the 4/4 shuffle that became known as “the Ray Price beat.” Price formed his band, The Cherokee Cowboys, in 1953, and its members through the years included Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck, Johnny Bush, Buddy Emmons, and Buddy Spicher. Double fiddles and crying pedal steel guitar laid down the foundation for Price’s rich, smooth vocals. Through the late ’60s, Price’s pop-oriented hits featured lush arrangements and orchestration, ushering in the what became known as the Nashville Sound.
Paul Franklin, left, and Vince Gill (photo by John Shearer)
Like Price, Gill and Franklin enlist an “A” team of musicians: Tom Bukovac on electric guitar, Dennis Crouch on bass, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Steve Gibson on electric guitar, John Jarvis on piano, Greg Morrow on drums, Wendy Moten on harmony vocals, the late Michael Rhodes on electric bass, Jerry Roe on drums, Derek Wells on electric guitar, and Andrea Zonn on harmony vocals.
Although the 11 songs on Sweet Memories range over the course of Price’s career, they come primarily from the 1950s and 1960s, and most of them represent deep-catalog Ray Price. The album kicks off with Franklin’s shimmering steel runs on “One More Time,” laying down a shuffling rhythm for Gill’s golden vocals. On the instrumental bridge, Gill and Franklin stretch out and trade lead runs and pedal steel licks. The slower tempo of “I’d Fight the World” captures the down-at-the-heart story of a lover who’d do anything to keep from letting his love go; it’s a weeper.
The atmospheric “You Wouldn’t Know Love,” comes from Price’s Nashville Sound period, and Gill and Franklin capture the bluesy, jazz lounge feeling of the song. Gill and Franklin deliver a sparse, lonesome sounding country blues on the Hank Williams-penned “Weary Blues From Waitin’,” while the whirl-around-the-dance-hall shuffle “Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)” kicks off with a scampering fiddle and never lets up its rollicking pace.
Gill and Franklin deliver a moving version of the Price classic “Danny Boy,” a song made for Gill’s quivering tenor. The album closes with the echoing steel guitar-drenched beauty “Healing Hands of Time.”
Ray Price had an amazing sense of phrasing, and so does Vince Gill; Price was a singer’s singer, and this album shines a light on Price’s voice through Gill’s interpretations. Although it sounds more like fun than work, Sweet Memories is a labor of love, introducing Price and his music to a new generation.
Vince Gill and Paul Franklin’s Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys is out Aug. 4 on MCA Nashville.
