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NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Country soul icon Ronnie Milsap is a bit of a studio geek, and he thinks a lot about music technology and recording equipment. So it makes sense that he spent a long time getting 13 other singers and bands into the studio to record duets with him for a new album, “Ronnie Milsap: The Duets,” to be released Friday, just two days after his 76th birthday.
“I am a lot into the technical side of it,” he said during a recent interview at his home in Nashville. “I believe in certain types of microphones. I believe in certain pre-amplifiers.”
He says it took him a few years to finish the album because of scheduling, but he’s amassed an impressive list of partners, from Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Kacey Musgraves and many more.
“The whole trick was trying to find a time that Luke Bryan could come in or George Strait could come in,” Milsap said.
Born in North Carolina, Milsap was a wunderkind at musical instrumentation, learning gospel, country and pop music from radio and classical techniques from the State School for the Blind in Raleigh.
Early on in his career, he played piano on Elvis Presley records such as “Kentucky Rain,” in which the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll implored him for “more thunder on the piano, Milsap!”
After moving to Nashville, he bought a Music Row studio from Roy Orbison, renovating it and turning it into a hit factory, starting with his 1979 hit “Nobody Likes Sad Songs” through his major hits like “Stranger in My House.” He had the recording console equipped with a Braille label and kept it until 1995.
The studio known as Ronnie’s Place is still in use today by record label Black River Entertainment and that was where Milsap returned to record the new album. The six-time Grammy winner said he tried as much as possible to be in the studio with his duet partners when they were recording, rather than recording at separate times.
Full track listing:
1. “Southern Boys and Detroit Wheels” feat. Billy Gibbons
2. “Stranger in My House” feat. Luke Bryan
3. “Smoky Mountain Rain” feat. Dolly Parton
4. “Prisoner of the Highway” feat. Jason Aldean
5. “A Woman’s Love” feat. Willie Nelson
6. “Happy Happy Birthday” feat. Lucy Angel
7. “No Getting Over Me” feat. Kacey Musgraves
8. “Lost in the Fifties” feat. Little Big Town
9. “Houston Solution” feat. George Strait
10. “What a Woman Can Mean to a Man” feat. Jessie Key
11. “Misery Loves Company” feat. Leon Russell
12. “You’re Nobody” feat. Steven Curtis Chapman
13. “Shaky Ground” feat. Montgomery Gentry