Ronnie Milsap Reflects on Ray Charles, Elvis and Entering the Country Hall of Fame
Ronnie Milsap didn’t just dominate country music in the Seventies and Eighties, he helped redefine it. One of the genre’s most successful crossover acts of all time, Milsap blended rock & roll, soul and pop, and took songs with those elements to the top of the country charts a staggering 40 times. His pop chart successes, with such tunes as “It Was Almost Like a Song,” “Any Day Now” and the Top 5 smash “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me,” have earned the singer six Grammy awards, and in 2014, he was officially inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
The rewards for the Robbinsville, North Carolina, native have been many, but fans of the albums from Milsap’s two-decade tenure with RCA Records are the ones being rewarded with an embarrassment of riches in The RCA Albums Collection. Released earlier this month, it’s a staggering 21-CD set that includes every studio, live and Christmas album Milsap ever released for the label. Each album sleeve recreates the actual corresponding cover art and the box set also includes extensive notes about each LP.
An eight-time CMA award winner, Ronnie Milsap was the 1974 Male Vocalist of the Year and was named Entertainer of the Year three years later. But the bright lights of Nashville were far from the world of literal darkness into which Milsap was born in 1943. Educated at Morehead State School for the Blind in Raleigh, the youngster studied classical music and learned to play several instruments. It was a chance encounter with music legend Ray Charles, however, that changed the course of Milsap’s life.
These days, Milsap, 71, continues to record and perform, as well as care for his wife, Joyce, who is battling leukemia. In this exclusive conversation with Rolling Stone Country, Milsap recalls the iconic performers who influenced him, the label executives who loved (and hated) his songs and what it means to finally be in the Hall of Fame.