Ronnie Milsap returns with ‘A Better Word for Love’

Ten song project available April 30th

Country Music Hall of Fame legend Ronnie Milsap follows up his all-star Duets, featuring Kacey Musgraves, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Billy Gibbons, Luke Bryan and George Strait, with a 10-song slice of the soul country heโ€™s inhabited for the last half century. A Better Word for Love explores the R&B-steeped sound that has long been the 6x GRAMMY award-winner and 3x Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year winnerโ€™s trademark. It’ll be available on April 30th via Black River Records.

Teaming with longtime co-producer Rob Galbraith, the pair sought to celebrate the genre-blurring kind of country that led him to an unprecedented four CMA Album of the Year Awards, as well as the coveted CMA Entertainer of the Year. Drawing on some much-loved songs that hadnโ€™t fit prior projects, the pair built an homage to the 70s/80s/90s country Milsap defined.

Mike Reid (โ€œStranger In My House,โ€ โ€œI Canโ€™t Make You Love Meโ€), Gary Nicholson (โ€œOne More Last Chance,โ€ โ€œThe Trouble With The Truthโ€), Al Anderson (โ€œAll You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down,โ€ โ€œThe Cowboy In Meโ€), Jim Weatherly (โ€œMidnight Train To Georgia,โ€ โ€œBest Thing To Ever Happen To Meโ€), Brent Maher (โ€œWhy Not Me,โ€ โ€œLesson In Leavinโ€™โ€), Allen Shamblin (โ€œThe House That Built Me,โ€ โ€œLifeโ€™s A Danceโ€), and David Ball (โ€œDrinkinโ€™ Problemโ€) provide the top shelf songs people have come to expect from the legendary musician.

โ€œI have been blessed to work with some of the very best songwriters in the world,โ€ Milsap reflects. โ€œOver the years, theyโ€™ve kept bringing me unbelievable songs, and in some cases, theyโ€™ve let me hang onto them because I loved them so much. When Rob and I started this project a few years ago, we decided some of those songs were so special… We wanted to build this album around them, so they wouldnโ€™t be treasures only Joycee and I could hear.

โ€œWe got to go back to Ronnieโ€™s Place, the studio I built all those years ago, just dig in and cut them โ€“ and some songs that have the same kind of heart, the soul and that joy that Iโ€™ve always loved. You know, even a sad song when you do it sad enoughโ€™ll make you feel better.โ€

Along the way, Milsap received a special package from Carl Perkinsโ€™ widow. โ€œBig Berthaโ€ was the last song the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer had written. Sheโ€™d sent it to Milsap thinking heโ€™d do it right. Not only did the Academy of Country Music Pioneer Award winner bring his signature slow burning blues to the song, he enlisted Vince Gill for the quick-hitting, fiddle-punctuated country portion of the paean to more than a woman, but a driver.

โ€œSinging a song about a golf club without Vince Gill just didnโ€™t feel right,โ€ Milsap laughs. โ€œAnd he was able to bring that thing he does like nobody else to Carlโ€™s song. Somewhere I think heโ€™s smiling.โ€

Whether the undulating โ€œWild Honey,โ€ the cascading tavern country โ€œAlmost Mine,โ€ the soft soul โ€œFoolโ€ or the vintage Milsap title track, every style of the Georgia and North Carolina Music Hall of Famerโ€™s storied career is on display. To further honor these songs, Milsap enlisted some of Nashvilleโ€™s finest to play with: guitarists Brent Mason, Steve Gibson, Mark Casstevens, and Chris Leuzinger, bass player Michael Rhodes, drummer Lonnie Wilson, double steel players Mike Johnson and Paul Franklin, and Milsapโ€™s longtime musical director Jamie Brantley.

As a further homage to his longtime musical compatriots, Milsap includes โ€œCivil War,โ€ recorded live at Atlantaโ€™s Chastain Park in 1993. Capturing his longtime touring band in their prime, the Cindy Richardson/Carol Chase song weaves Southern gospel into a song of marital dissolution โ€“ and demonstrates the vocal dynamics, keyboard stylings and drama onstage.

โ€œMusic makes the world a better place,โ€ Milsap says. โ€œLove songs may not change everything, but they sure speak to the heart, give people joy and maybe starting there in these crazy times is a good thing.โ€

CD

  1. Big Bertha featuring Vince Gill
  2. Wild Honey
  3. A Better Word For Love
  4. Almost Mine
  5. Fool
  6. This Side of Heaven
  7. Civil War (Live)
  8. Fireworks
  9. Now
  10. Too Bad For My Own Good

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn