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Ray Price could relax and look back on an incredible career. Instead, the Country music Hall of Fame member is looking ahead. He's starting his own record label, recording new music and performing for his enthusiastic fans.

But doesn’t he ever think about taking it easy, maybe doing a little fishing? “I’d be wondering why the hell I ain’t out there singing — that’s what I’d be doing on a fishing boat,” he said. “I love making music. It’s my life. I was born for it, I guess. I want to do it better and better and better and better. I’m not satisfied. I don’t think anybody should be.”

 That ambition, coupled with a natural vocal gift, made Price a Country Music pioneer and star. Born near Perryville, Texas, he served in the U.S. Marines during World War II and then returned to Texas with plans to become a veterinarian. That ambition was forgotten as he began performing around the Lone Star state.

 An early friendship with Country Music Hall of Fame member Hank Williams played a significant role in Price’s career. This was the topic on the table when WSM/Nashville radio personality Eddie Stubbs welcomed Price in March to the Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Their discussion was timed to coincide with a special exhibit, “Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy,” on display at the Museum through Dec. 31, 2011.

 “We were both young and he had plenty of damn talent,” Price recalled while seated in his tour bus following the Ford Theater event. “He could write good songs because he wrote what people felt. If you can do that, you can write anything.”

 An endorsement from Williams went a long way on those days. “I can’t explain why on all those shows, everywhere he went, he was telling everybody to watch out for a young guy named Ray Price — ‘He’s going to be No. 1,’” Price recalled, with a smile. “He took me and introduced me to some people on the Grand Ole Opry. He just helped me in general. I didn’t know anything about the business. I was young and just out of college. The way I got a contract was I sang a song for a publisher. The next thing I knew, I had a contract, signed to Bullet Records in Nashville. It was a brand new world for me when I came here, and he helped me get started with it.”

 Williams took Price on the road and let him use his band, the Drifting Cowboys, in the studio. They wrote one song together, “Weary Blues (From Waiting),” one of Price’s early recordings. They were also roommates for a while after Price moved to Nashville. “He’d just go eat or cook something and eat at the house,” Price remembered. “And he was always on the phone calling his wife [Audrey]. He was trying to get everything back together and just couldn’t do it. She was just too hard-nosed about it. Of course, after he was gone, it was too late. But Hank was top-notch. He was the leader.”

 In time, Price also assumed a leadership role in Country Music. He maintained his ties to Williams, though, by playing for a while with his band after their leader’s death. He also included two of its members, steel guitarist Don Helms and fiddler Jerry Rivers, in the group he subsequently formed, the Cherokee Cowboys. “We loved each other,” Price recalled. “We built all our houses together and lived right there for 14 years, Jerry across the street, Don behind me. We were friends, all the way to the grave.”

 On his own, Price helped grow the Country Music audience with an evolving style that encompassed traditional honky tonk in the ’50s and ’60s with hits that included “Crazy Arms” and “My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You.” In the ’70s, he broadened its reach even more with pop-flavored ballads that included “For the Good Times” and “I Won’t Mention It Again,” the title track of the 1971 CMA Album of the Year.

 Like Williams, Price had an eye for new talent, and over the years his Cherokee Cowboys band would include Johnny Bush, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson and Johnny Paycheck. “I know a good musician when I see him and hear him,” said Price. “Of course, Willie was easy to spot after the first song I ever heard he’d written. They were all great. Willie is still making it.”

 Price is still making it too, with a busy recording and touring schedule that continues to enhance his legacy. When asked why Price has endured for so long as a successful and productive artist, Michael McCall, Writer/Editor at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, laid it out clearly.

 “His voice and his musicality,” he said. “Ray’s voice is one of the great instruments of Country Music history. He’s smoother than most Country singers, as he’s studied opera and loves the jazz and pop singers of the ’40s and ’50s. So he has a control you can hear, and he understands a microphone and how to use it to his advantage. But he’s got this incredibly rich tone too, and his range is amazing, although he uses it subtly and, unlike most singers, doesn’t bring a lot of attention to it. Add to that his phrasing and how nuanced he is in expressing the emotions of his songs, and you have the basis for why he’s been such a primary influence and big star for so many years.”

 McCall also appreciates Price’s role in mentoring other musicians. “He loves good musicians and understands good musicianship,” said McCall, who served as Co-Curator of the Museum’s “For the Good Times: The Ray Price Story” exhibit in 2006 through 2007. “He’s open to change and experimentation, which you can hear throughout his career. That’s why he led two movements, beginning with the back-to-basics traditionalism of the late ’50s shuffle recordings, which are so dynamic and fresh yet also so rooted in the swing and honky-tonk traditions. It’s the basic DNA of Texas Country Music, really. But by the ’60s, he was experimenting with blues and jazz and ultimately created these lush recordings with strings that were influenced by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Price always loved that music and he had a voice for it, and I think his recordings in the late ’60s and early ’70s represent some of the best Nashville Sound records ever cut.”

 This urge to move forward drives Price to this day. High on his agenda is an upcoming collaboration with some of his friends, including Willie Nelson, with whom Price and Merle Haggard had performed in their “Last of the Breed Tour” in 2007. “It will be me and Willie, Billy Bob Thornton, Leon Russell and Bob Dylan,” he said. “We’re going to do a CD. I don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing, but I’m sure Willie will let me know about two minutes just before they turn the mic on.”

 Price also plans to record a gospel album, which he’ll release on his own record label, Priceless Records. Asked whether he will be signing other acts to Priceless, he replied, “It depends on what I run into. I always like to give a hand up to anybody, but I have to be in a position to do it. If it goes good, we’ll let the company build itself and then as it builds, if I find new talent, you bet we’ll sign them.”

 Still vital at 83, Price credits his health and longevity to good genes and clean country living. “I was raised in the country — good fresh air and good food,” he said, who currently makes his home near Dallas. “We raised our own food. I had a good mother and a good dad. My mother lived to be 96 and all her people lived to be over 100. On my dad’s side, my grandpa died at 98. I come from a family of hearty people, I guess. I haven’t done all that good trying to take care of myself. Like some old boy said, if I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have took better care of myself. But that’s the way it is. I’m doing fine. I can’t complain.”