American music legend Willie Nelson honors his friend and fellow Country icon , with fresh interpretation of 12 Classic songs Ray Price made famous – with a new album called ‘For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price’, to be released on Friday, September 16.

A visionary and iconoclastic artist, Ray Price defined and shifted the course of American country music over the course of his career. In the 1950s and 1960s, he kept grassroots country sounds alive through the infusion of rock ‘n’ roll and pop music elements, going so far as to utilize drums at a time when the Grand Ole Opry had banned them from its stage.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Price became one of the godfathers of “countrypolitan,” combining lush orchestral arrangements with smooth-as-silk crooning. Ray Price’s music connected honky-tonk to big band to rock ‘n’ roll to country swing to pop. America’s musical landscape would look and sound very different without the contributions of Ray Price.

On his new album, Willie has teamed up with a pair of longtime friends–producer Fred Foster and conductor/arranger Bergen White–who, like Nelson, are American country music veterans with deep connections to the legendary Ray Price. Foster and White worked together to complete Ray Price’s final album, Beauty Is…, at Nashville’s Ocean Way Studios, where Willie Nelson has returned to create the magic of ‘For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price’.

For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price celebrates the wide-reaching impact and influence of Ray Price on American pop and country music, from Price’s hallmark lush orchestral arrangements (presaging “countrypolitan”) to the patented “Ray Price Shuffle,” the groundbreaking 4/4 walking bass line which transformed honky-tonk and country-western swing music in 1950s on hits like “Crazy Arms”.

Friends from their first meeting until Ray Price’s passing in 2013, Willie and Ray shared a profound musical bond, exemplified in Price’s hit recordings of Willie-penned songs like the career-defining “Night Life” and “It Always Will Be.”

You can pre-order your copy of the album on Amazon and iTunes today!