Ray Price performs Crazy Arms on the Grand Ole Opry in 1956 at the Ryman Auditorium. The song, released in May of that year, went on to become a hit and a honky-tonk standard. It was Prices first #1 record. “Crazy Arms” was written by Ralph Mooney and Charles Seals. Mooney, a pedal steel player on many recordings and for Waylon Jennings and Wynn Stewart for over 20 years, said he got the idea for the song after his wife left him because of his drinking problem.It, in many ways, was country musics answer to the growing influence of rock and roll music in the genre. The up-and-coming Price, who already had several successful recordings by 1956, used Crazy Arms to not only establish himself as a star but to introduce fans to his Texas shuffle sound: fiddle, pedal steel guitar, walking electric bass and swinging 4/4 rhythm. Those hallmarks became part of many of Prices biggest hits throughout the mid-to-late 1950s and early 1960s, before Price began experimenting with strings and more pop-oriented styles. But Crazy Arms was not in fact anything close to an attempt to nab the youth market. If anything it was a gesture of defiance, an unabashedly traditional country ballad that made no apologies. Even when Jerry Lee Lewis recorded the song for Sun Records, his rendition made no attempt to add any rockabilly overtones. Crazy Arms reached #1 on each of the Billboard magazine country music charts (jukebox, best sellers and radio airplay) in June 1956 and has been credited with spending 20 weeks atop the chart; only three other songs spent longer at #1. In addition, Billboard named the song its #1 country single of 1956 in its year-end issue.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:36:41 +0000
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