Country music legend to perform in Dodge

    Without the influence of Ray Price, today's country music might sound a lot different.
    Price is credited with developing a shuffle rhythm which was later adopted by many artists, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame's Web site. The 4/4 shuffle was so closely identified with Price that it became known among country musicians as the "Ray Price Beat."
    Price will bring his brand of country music to Dodge City for a concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, at the Civic Center. The promoter is Larry Shaeffer Presents of Sand Springs, Okla.
    Concert-goers can buy tickets at www.outriderpromotion.com, Out West in Dodge City or the Crazy House in Garden City and Liberal. Tickets cost $35 apiece for floor seating and $30 for upper-level seats.
     Price was born Jan. 12, 1926, near Perryville, Texas, and moved to Dallas with his mother after she and his father split up, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, then later enrolled at North Texas Agricultural College in hopes of becoming a veterinarian.
    He started singing while he was in college and performed on various Dallas-area programs, which eventually led him to sign with Columbia Records in March 1951.
    Price met and struck up a friendship with country legend Hank Williams in the fall of 1951 — an encounter that changed his life.
    The Globe recently interviewed Price about his career in country music and his reaction to being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. Here are excerpts from the interview:
    DG: How did you get into the entertainment field?
    RP: Accidentally. I always sang, but I guess for my own entertainment. ... I was going to college under the GI Bill for veterans in World War II, and one of the guys in the barracks for the government had a band. One of the guitar players asked me would I go in and sing some of his songs that he wrote for a publisher, so I did.
    They were taping a radio show. On a break, they listened and asked me to come back the next day. And when we went back, there was a guy there from Nashville with a contract for me to sign to make records.
    That's how it all started, and I found out that's what I really wanted to do. So like a dummy, I quit college and went my merry way.
    DG: Describe the introduction (to Hank Williams) and how that changed things for you, please.
    RP: When the major acts were in town, they'd have a radio show on Friday nights, and a friend of mine — a music publisher — got me onto Hank's radio show. I sang a song, I met Hank and we become what you call instant friends. And Hank took me the next night to the Grand Ole Opry and introduced me to everybody, then asked me to go with him to Evansville, Indiana, the next day to do a show. And I rode up with him, and on the way we wrote a song called "Weary Blues."
    Whenever that was over, I went back to Texas, and then Hank got me back up there for a radio show they were doing on the network. They got me into the Grand Ole Opry in January of '52.
    I lived with him in '52 almost six, seven months, and then he went to Shreveport (Louisiana) and died on New Year's Eve of '53.
    DG: You were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. What was that experience like?
    RP: It was great because my mother was still alive at that time. I told her, "This one's for you." So I was proud that that happened.

Reach Eric Swanson at (620) 408-9917 or e-mail him at eric.swanson@dodgeglobe.com.