As Billy Price's 50 years as a singer looms on the horizon, the passion still burns hot

As the milestone of 50 years as a professional singer looms on the 2021 horizon, BILLY PRICE whose career has enjoyed multiple awards, singing with some of the greatest of all time, touring the world and surviving the ever changing landscape of the music industry, the passion, that this long time music man has for his craft, still burns hot. 

Vizions of Rock:  How did the band come together and how long have you been together?

BILLY PRICE: I have two bands, one based in Pittsburgh where I used to live, and another based in Baltimore where I now live. I moved to Baltimore from Pittsburgh a couple of years ago.

I’ve had a band called the Billy Price Band in Pittsburgh since the early 1990s. Band members have come and gone over that time, but most of the current band members have been with me for 10-15 years at least. Drummer Dave Dodd and bass player Tom Valentine were with me in Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band between 1978 and 1990, so those guys and I go way back. Guitarist Lenny Smith and keyboard player Jimmy Britton have been in the Billy Price Band for more than a decade, and so has trumpet player Joe Herndon. Sax player Eric Spaulding was the most recent guy to join, a couple of years ago.

I formed the Baltimore-based Billy Price Charm City Rhythm Band a couple of years after I moved here. The members are veteran musicians from Baltimore and Washington, DC: El Torro Gamble (drums), Greg Haughey (bass), Pete Kanara (guitar), Tam Sullivan (keyboards), Dan Gutwein (sax), and Vince McCool (trumpet).

Vizions of Rock:  You and I have a connection to Roy Buchanan.  I used to live with his son, David. How did you end up playing with Roy Buchanan, and what was that experience like?

BILLY PRICE: I was living in Pittsburgh in the early 1970s and working with my band at the time, the Rhythm Kings. Roy’s manager then was a Pittsburgher named Jay Reich, and Jay had heard me sing in Pittsburgh with my band. At that time, Roy was planning to record his third album for Polydor Records, and Jay brought me in to sing on the album, which was released as That’s What I Am Here For in around 1972. I toured off and on with Roy and his band over the next few years, and then in around 1975, I sang on a live album called Live Stock, which was Roy’s last album for Polydor.

It was a great experience for me to have a taste of the music business at such an early age—I was in my early 20s—and also to sing with one of the greatest guitar players who ever played the instrument. Some of the songs from Live Stock in particular got a lot of airplay throughout the world, and this gave me a good start in the music business.

Vizions of Rock:  As a follow-up; I thought that Roy had a unique sound.  Is there a difference being a vocalist on another person’s project opposed to a solo project?  I don’t mean from a creative control standpoint… I mean… do you have to alter your approach to your craft as singer, based on the individual band or musician that you’re lending your vocals to?

BILLY PRICE: I would not say that I change my singing style to accommodate the people I am playing with. My style is pretty much what it is regardless. But yes, it is different being a sideman for someone else’s show or performance, as I was with Roy, versus leading my own band, which is more what I am accustomed to doing and what I prefer doing.

I always did my best with Roy, but I was aware that the people had bought their tickets and come to the performances not so much to hear me sing as to hear Roy play guitar. Of course, I accepted that and enjoyed the experience of singing with Roy for what it was, but it was always more satisfying to me musically to be in full control of the presentation and have the freedom to shape things as I wanted to.

Vizions of Rock: How do you think blues, (not the industry) but Blues as a musical art form has changed over the last 50 years?

BILLY PRICE: The word “Blues” has come to be applied to a wide range of musical styles over the years. Today, a lot of music that once used to be called “rhythm and blues” or “soul music” is lumped in with more traditional styles and referred to as “blues.” I know that this was a source of frustration for some of the great soul singers late in their careers, such as Johnnie Taylor and Tyrone Davis, who did not think of themselves as blues singers and resented being characterized that way.

Blues is a traditional and fairly conservative genre. By that I mean that basic styles tend to endure longer than they do in other genres, such as rock or pop for example. One major change has been the emergence of the electric guitar as the prime focal point of the majority of bands and artists today. Roy Buchanan contributed to this development, but in the modern era, Stevie Ray Vaughan also had a lot to do with influencing the kind of music that gets played in the clubs, at festivals, on blues cruises, and so on. To my ears, a lot of this music sounds more like rock or hard rock or even heavy metal than like the traditional blues, soul, funk, and R&B that I personally prefer.

Vizions of Rock: How do you think the music industry has changed over the last 50 years?

BILLY PRICE: I’ve survived a number of format changes for the delivery of music, from LPs to cassettes to CDs and DVDs, and now to digital delivery and streaming. For all of these media, it has been challenging for the artist to earn any money from sales, but this is particularly true today. Anyone who wants to listen to my music can do so pretty much for free, and I’m paid almost nothing, and sometimes literally nothing, for those plays. It has always made more sense for artists to think of their recorded music as the equivalent of advertisements for their live performances. Earning money from live performances is still the most reliable way to finance a music career, although physical CD and DVD sales and merchandise sales (t-shirts, etc.) at shows also help the bottom line. I do OK, as do many other artists on my level, but I think that most of us are not getting rich. I do it because I love it, and I think a lot of other artists would agree with that statement.

Vizions of Rock:  Did winning the BMA’s change your approach to making music?

BILLY PRICE: It didn’t change my approach to making music, no. I do think it has helped to introduce my music to a lot of people throughout the world who would not have heard it otherwise. Also getting the validation from the BMA nominations and the award is just a good feeling and reassures me that there are people who appreciate what I do.

Vizions of Rock:  You have worked some very established people in the industry. What person meant the most to work with and why?

BILLY PRICE: In addition to Roy Buchanan, the Chicago soul singer Otis Clay meant the most to me. I became a big fan of Otis in the 1970s and 80s, and his song, “Is It Over?” was the title song of my first album with Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band in 1979. Sometime around 82 or 83, my manager and I were able to persuade Otis to come east and perform with me and my band, and we did shows in Washington, DC and Pittsburgh. We both enjoyed singing and performing together so much that we did so many more times over the years, and Otis sang with me on one or two songs on a couple of my albums, The Soul Collection in 1997 and Night Work in 2009. Then in 2015, we recorded a full-length album together, This Time for Real, which won the BMA for Soul Blues Album of the year at the BMAs in May 2016, a few months after Otis died.

Vizions of Rock:  Who are your influences?

BILLY PRICE: Otis Clay was certainly my biggest influence, and I learned a tremendous amount about singing, performing, and interacting with people in the business from having spent so much time around him. I still miss him every day. Otis Redding was the first soul singer whom I really got stuck on as a kid singing in garage bands in high school. I was even a member of the official Otis Redding Fan Club.

I could spend pages and pages listing my influences, but a small sample includes James Brown (the greatest performer and most influential musician of the past century in my opinion), Al Green, O.V. Wright, Bobby Bland (my favorite blues singer), Tyrone Davis, Johnnie Taylor, Phillippe Wynne (lead singer of the Spinners), Syl Johnson, Sam Cooke, and some of the great gospel quartet lead singers such as Ira Tucker (Dixie Hummingbirds), Claude Jeter (Swan Silvertones), Julius Cheeks (Sensational Nightingales), and many others too numerous to list here.

Vizions of Rock:  How does your song come together, where do you get your inspiration?

BILLY PRICE: Since I never became proficient at playing any instruments, I always write with a collaborator. During the past 20 years or so, my principal collaborators have been Fred Chapellier, a great blues and rock guitarist from France whom I have recorded and toured with, and Jimmy Britton, the keyboard player in the Billy Price Band from Pittsburgh.

Songs come together in different ways. Sometimes they begin with a lyric idea that I might have and then someone will start to put music around the lyric idea. Or sometimes someone will send me a music track that I will write lyrics and melodies for. Once we have the elements that we need for a song, we work together to put things in a form that we all like and then make a demo that we can use to teach the song to whatever musicians are going to be recording it in the studio.

We work from our computers. Fred and Jim both have decent recording equipment and good music programs for making demos, and I use a Mac program called GarageBand to work with files they send me and add vocals. I’m also able to move different parts around and work with the arrangements in GarageBand. Over time, we have developed a pretty smooth process for working together, and I think that with every album we do, we get a little better at songwriting.

For lyrics, I get inspiration simply from day-to-day life. I always have songwriting in the back of my mind, and often as I am going through my day, I will get an idea for a title or a concept that could be turned into a song, and if possible, I jot it down. I also listen to a lot of music in varying styles, and I sometimes hear things that give me an idea that I can adapt for one of my songs.

Vizions of Rock:  Do have any advice for up and coming musicians who want to follow in your footstep, aside from “Stay in school” and “Don’t quit your day job”?

BILLY PRICE: The best advice I can give is to listen to a lot of music and go as deep as you possibly can in your love for it. That’s what has worked best for me. I think a lot of people have a similar love for music but then outgrow it or get distracted by other concerns. But music requires a special kind of dedication. It also requires a serious commitment. I think that the kind of people who join bands to meet girls or guys, or for the ego gratification, or for other non-musical reasons, are probably the kinds of people who don’t stick with it. The music business can be discouraging, and it can be challenging to find a way to make money to pay for the indulgence, but if you love music enough, you have no choice but to keep at it. So, I say, you might as well get serious about it and do the very best you are capable of doing.

Vizions of Rock:  Is there a message that you’re trying to communicate with this latest album DOG EAT DOG?

BILLY PRICE: Yes: “Please like my music and buy this.”

Vizions of Rock:  What do you like best about being a musician and what is the worst part about being a musician?

BILLY PRICE: I like being in the game, and I’ve been in it for almost 50 years. I enjoy working with and hanging out with musicians, and I find that we have a common understanding, a common set of experiences, and a common set of references and influences that make it possible for us to communicate with each other in ways that are not possible with other civilians. I enjoy being part of the musician/performer cohort.

One of the things I noticed from traveling and performing in Europe is that American musicians, and musicians in general, seem to be taken more seriously and afforded greater respect there than in the U.S. Major artists and classical or symphony musicians in the U.S. are considered by most people to be pursuing a profession, but that is not so true for the rest of us. There is a common prejudice, I think, that playing popular music is a kind of hobby or an avocation, something less serious and respectable than selling life insurance or writing software.

A corollary to this is the idea that because playing music is “fun”—and it is—I should not expect to be paid for doing it. People ask me all the time to round up my band and play for free to support someone’s favorite charity or good cause, and while I may be sympathetic to that charity or cause, I don’t think people should expect me and my band members to work for free if the food servers, bartenders, and cooks at the event are being paid to be there. That kind of unreasonable expectation is something I am not crazy about, but this is only a minor irritation, and the good parts about being a musician far outweigh the bad.

Vizions of Rock:  What is on the horizon for the future?

BILLY PRICE: I am always working, and I have some great shows coming up this year, including a tour with Fred Chapellier in October. All of my dates are always listed on my website, billyprice.com.

I’m not sure what I will do for recording after my latest, Dog Eat Dog, but I hope to do another album for Gulf Coast Records sometime in the future and would be happy to continue recording with Kid Andersen, who produced my last two albums at his Greaseland Studio in San José, CA. I also mentioned that 2021 will be my 50th year as a professional singer, and I am thinking about commemorating that in some way, with an anniversary tour and possibly a multi-CD retrospective set that I would make available to fans on my website.

Vizions of Rock:  How can we find you music?

BILLY PRICE: Best place for me to direct people to is my website, www.billyprice.com.

All of my stuff is available there.

Also, Amazon and just about any other online CD service, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, etc. Most of it is not hard to find!

Thanks for the opportunity to do this interview!