Ten years following the release of the critically-acclaimed Bakersfield album, country music icon Vince Gill and legendary musician Paul Franklin, have joined forces once again for their latest project, Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys. The 11-track album will be released on Friday (August 4th).
Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys contains material that might be surprising to even the most die-hard of Price’s fans. Gill explains, “When we originally started thinking about doing this record, we were going to do half and half, focusing on two different artists like we did with Bakersfield, recording songs of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. But we got to liking so many of Ray’s songs, that it became ‘Let’s do all Ray’ and ‘Well, Okay!””
Franklin adds, “We had such a great time doing Bakersfield. It felt good introducing that music to a new generation. This time, it was a no-brainer to pick Ray Price. Once we locked in on Ray, we started looking through the sheer volume of his material. We looked for obscure songs, ones even Ray’s fans might not know as well.”
Vince says the new project with Paul started out as half Ray Price and half Little Jimmy Dickens until they started delving into Ray’s extensive catalog. “Our intention when we started this record was to do like we’d done Bakersfield—half Ray Price and probably half Little Jimmy Dickens was the perfect pair we thought would work, and then we started finding so many things we loved,” he says. “We go, ‘Well, we want to do this, we want to do this.’ It was more than half a record’s worth, and we said, ‘Hell, let’s just do all Ray.’”
In trying to pick songs, Vince says they decided not to do Ray’s obvious hits. “We just followed our ears and we did the songs we liked. We didn’t do the obvious things. I think in a tribute record and we’re honoring someone from the past to do the obvious ones – ‘For The Good Times’ and ‘Crazy Arms’, things like that – they’ve been done a zillion times. And it’s kind of fun to take something that not a lot of people had a great snapshot of what that record was.
Track List – Sweet Memories: The Music of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys
- “One More Time”
Written by Mel Tillis
- “I’d Fight The World”
Written by Hank Cochran and Joe Allison
- “You Wouldn’t Know Love”
Written by Hank Cochran and Dave Kirby
- “Walkin’ Slow (And Thinking ‘Bout Her)”
Written by Bobby Bare and Lance Guynes
- “The Same Two Lips”
Written by Marty Robbins
- “Weary Blues From Waitin’”
Written by Hank Williams Sr.
- “Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)”
Written by Mel Tillis, Ray Price and Wayne Walker
- “Sweet Memories”
Written by Mickey Newbury
- “Danny Boy”
Written by Fred E. Weatherly
- “Your Old Love Letters”
Written by Ray Price
- “Healing Hands Of Time”
Written by Willie Nelson
Audio / Vince Gill says "Sweet Memories," the new project with Paul Franklin, started out as half Ray Price and half Little Jimmy Dickens until they started delving into Ray's extensive catalog.
DownloadVince Gill (deciding on what songs from album) OC: …do all Ray. :18
“Our intention when we started this record was to do like we’d done Bakersfield—half Ray Price and probably half Little Jimmy Dickens was the perfect pair we thought would work, and then we started finding so many things we loved. We go Well, we want to do this, we want to do this. It was more than half a records worth, and we said, hell, let’s just do all Ray.”
Audio / Vince Gill talks about doing Ray Price songs that weren't the obvious hits on the new album, Sweet Memories.
DownloadVince Gill (deciding on what songs from album) 2 OC: …away we went. 1:00
“We just followed our ears and we did the songs we liked. We didn’t do the obvious things. I think in a tribute record and we’re honoring someone from the past to do the obvious ones – ‘For The Good Times’ and ‘Crazy Arms’, things like that – they’ve been done a zillion times. And it’s kind of fun to take something that not a lot of people had a great snapshot of what that record was. There’s a lot of people that really love this guy’s records, his career, and I told ‘em what songs we’ve done, and they go, ‘I don’t know that song.’ I said, ‘I didn’t either.’ It was fun kind of rediscovering some things that would fall in line with what we wanted to do and how we wanted to play and picking things that were very steel guitar-driven. These records are, their point was much more from a musicians’ place. We wanted to do instrumental kind of music, but we liked the stories of the songs so much (PAUL: “Yeah.”) that it’s just like more interesting to do the songs and have somebody sing ‘em. I sing a little bit, so I’ll sing ‘em (PAUL LAUGHS)
and away we went.”
