Janie Price Remembers Country Legend and Husband Ray Price a Year After His Death

It has been a year since country legend Ray Price passed away.  Price's widow Janie has taken time out to speak about her husband's death.

"It was actually four months before I could even leave my home," she says. "I just honestly stayed there and cried. I just couldn't move forward. I would wake up in the morning, open my eyes, and wonder why I was even awake. But, then on April 13 -- two days before Beauty Is..., his final album, was scheduled to be released, Steve Popovich called and asked if I would be a part of the promotion."

She says she was hesitant at first. However, the feeling didn't last long.

"I heard Ray Price's voice -- so crystal clear -- saying 'Get out of this bed and keep your promise to me.'" That was all it took. "I hopped out of bed, got dressed, got my hair and nails done, and was at Hastings in Tyler at a promotion for the album. It was such a successful day, and people would come up to me and were so nice. They brought so much memorabilia -- things that Ray had autographed for them. It literally blew me away, and it was within the first 30 minutes that I was there that I realized what he had said to me was true -- 'You're going to be the closest thing to me that people are going to have. You need to make yourself available to people, so they will be able to connect to me through you. Promise me you'll do that.' Of course, I had, but I really didn't understand the meaning of it until that event. I thank God that I had this project to work on, because if I had not had this, I don't know what would have happened to me. The story would probably have been very different," she admits.

Price is one of country music's most endearing artists. His wide ranging baritone has often been praised as among the best male voices of country music. Some of his well-known recordings include "Release Me", "Crazy Arms", "Heartaches by the Number", "For the Good Times", "Night Life", and "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me". He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. Price continued to record and tour well into his mid-eighties.

On November 6, 2012, Ray Price confirmed that he was fighting pancreatic cancer. Price told the San Antonio Express-News that he had been receiving chemotherapy for the past six months. An alternative to the chemo would have been surgery that involved removing the pancreas along with portions of the stomach and liver, which would have meant a long recovery and stay in a nursing home. Said Price, "That's not very much an option for me. God knows I want to live as long as I can but I don't want to live like that."

The 87-year-old Country Music Hall of Famer also told the newspaper, "The doctor said that every man will get cancer if he lives to be old enough. I don't know why I got it - I ain't old!" Price retained a positive outlook and hoped to play as many as a hundred concert dates in 2013.

Although in February 2013 the cancer appeared to be in remission, Price was hospitalized in May 2013 with severe dehydration. On December 2, 2013, Price entered a Tyler, Texas, hospital in the final stages of pancreatic cancer, according to his son, then left on December 12 for home hospice care. Price died at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, on December 16, 2013. Ray Price was interred at Restland Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas. 

After Price's death, his last album "Beauty Is" was released.  Upon its release, the album hit the top-25 on the Billboard Country Albums chart -- his highest solo position there in well over three decades. "He would be blown away with what has happened," says Price. "He had asked his producer Fred Foster in the very beginning of the project 'Fred, do you think it's humanly possible that an older act like me could actually have a hit record?' He told him 'Ray, you know the business has changed. It is nothing like it was back in our heyday.' Then, he got real quiet and said 'You know though, if anyone can do it, Ray Price can.' Fred turned out to be right. I think he would be so proud of everything. This is Ray Price's last dream." 

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