They make you better on that night than you thought you were going to be. Their response spurs a performer to do better than he’d ever thought he was going to. The audience is a big part of what you do. Q: With so many songs, it must difficult to decide which ones to play at a concert.Ī: A lot of times when you are wondering what they want to hear, ask ‘em. They knew what they were doing and they got the job done worldwide. I worked well with the record company because they were good. Or in the case of 1983 when he took over the label, “I’m coming with ‘Stranger in My House.’ ” It was the biggest international record for me, No. They had a very good promotion department and a great marketing department and I’d usually get the head of the label to come over and I’d play what I got and he would say let me get a copy of these and I’ll run them by my folks, and he’d come back over next week and he say something like, “We like this, ‘There’s No Getting Over Me,’ so we’re going to come with that as a single. This was back in the days when RCA Records was strong. Can you anticipate when one of your songs will become a hit?Ī: Quite a bit. Q: You’ve had 40 songs go all the way to No. We’re down to the point where we can just mix and master and decide which ones are going to make the album. So we’re coming to the end of this album. Next week, we’ve got Steven Curtis Chapman and George Strait. A song with Willie Nelson, Little Big Town, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan. I recorded a song with Leon Russell before he passed. I am doing a duets project with some of my favorite people. Q: Do you live in Nashville and can you tell me about the recording session you mentioned?Ī: Yeah, I’m in Nashville, right around the corner from the governor’s mansion. I’m recording next week then I am getting on a Lear jet to get out to Nevada next Thursday. The more you use your pipes, the more active you are, the better you will be. But before I go onstage, I’ll probably have a little Robitussin to clear the pipes. But I’m sitting here now drinking coffee and they say coffee is bad for you but it sure makes you feel a little better. Ronnie Milsap: That always crosses your mind, especially when you go into record or do a big show like the one in Carson Valley.
Tahoe Onstage: Have you been taking measures to preserve your voice? Loquacious and amiable, Milsap talked with Tahoe Onstage last summer before a Northern Nevada concert at the Carson Valley Inn about his new record, how Ray Charles encouraged him to pursue music and his well-known collaboration with Elvis Presley.
He became so popular that his music transcended the genre into contemporary pop. 18, he releases an album, “The Duets,” which has songs with Willie Nelson, George Strait, Dolly Parton and the late Leon Russell and the last studio recording by Troy Gentry of the duo Montgomery Gentry.Īt one point in the early 1980s, Milsap had 11-straight No. 1 country songs than the smooth-singing Ronnie Milsap, who turned 76 on Wednesday - the day he opened his 76 for 76 Tour with a performance at the venerable Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Only George Strait and Conway Twitty have more No. 26, in TJ’s Corral at the Carson Valley Inn.