Vince Gill & Paul Franklin - Sweet Memories: The Music Of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys (2023)

Repeating their treatment of California country music icons Merle Haggard and Buck Owens on 2013's Bakersfield, singer and guitarist Vince Gill and pedal steel player Paul Franklin now pay eloquent tribute to Ray Price. Born in Texas with a passionate baritone voice, Price was a huge presence in country music by the early 1970s. Along the way he roomed with Hank Williams and led a band, The Cherokee Cowboys, that became a launching pad for talents like Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck and Roger Miller. On Sweet Memories: The Music Of Ray Price & The Cherokee Cowboys, Gill decided to avoid Price's best-known hits like "City Lights," "Crazy Arms," and "For the Good Times" in favor of deeper tracks.

Bereft country weepers were a Price specialty, and the opener "One More Time," sets the tone as the narrator inevitably tries and fails to do right: "And I make a vow each time you leave that this will draw the line/ Then you come back and just like now I'm falling one more time." At the heart of Sweet Memories is the always amazing instrument that is Vince Gill's voice. Debuting with Pure Prairie League in 1979, Gill spent time with Rodney Crowell's Cherry Bombs and Emmylou Harris's Hot Band before going solo. A triple threat who besides his pure high tenor voice is also a virtuoso guitar player and an accomplished songwriter, Gill has won 21 Grammy Awards and over the last several decades has become one of the most respected elders in the genre. With a band that includes Stuart Duncan on fiddle, John Jarvis on piano and Andrea Zonn on harmony vocals, Gill shows off his lesser-heard lower range on "You Wouldn't Know Love" as Frankin's pedal steel weeps behind them. While a rendition of "Danny Boy"—the Irish lament that became one of Price's signature hits in 1967—predictably becomes a Gill vocal showpiece, it's the title track that provides this set's most moving moments. Written by fellow Texan Mickey Newbury and recorded by Price in 1971, this version soars with Gill singing his own harmonies and includes low-key but imaginative solos by both principals. Another high-class look back from a current country hero with a welcome passion for the music's glorious past. © Robert Baird

Tracklist
1 One More Time
2 I'd Fight the World
3 You Wouldn't Know Love
4 Walkin' Slow (And Thinking 'Bout Her) Sweet Memories : The Same Two Lips
5 Weary Blues from Waitin'
6 Kissing Your Picture (Is So Cold)
7 Sweet Memories
8 Danny Boy
9 Your Old Love Letters
10 Healing Hands of Time