Ronnie Mislap

ELKHART — Grammy-award winning country musician Ronnie Milsap will perform at the Lerner Theatre on Dec. 16 at 8  p.m. Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, Sept. 23 at 10 a.m. Ticket prices are $29, $39, & $49 plus fees and can be purchased at the Lerner Theatre box office, by phone at (574) 293-4469, and online.

Milsap had been living music almost from the start. Born in Robbinsville, North Carolina, at the edge of the Smoky Mountains, he was enveloped in his early years by country – the region was crucial to such history-makers as Jimmie Rodgers, Chet Atkins and Dolly Parton. Milsap subsequently received classical training at the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, though he notoriously frustrated his teachers by banging out Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard rock & roll on the keyboard when he was supposed to be practicing Mozart and Beethoven.

Milsap did some recording while attending college in the Atlanta area even before that backstage meeting with Charles, and in the wake of Charles’ encouragement, Milsap found his way onto New York’s Scepter label, where the roster also included Dionne Warwick and Chuck Jackson. One of Milsap’s singles, Ashford & Simpson’s composition “Never Had It So Good,” became a Top 5 R&B hit.

Milsap’s music continued to connect him with future Hall of Famers and key figures. He moved to Memphis, working frequently with producer Chips Moman (Neil Diamond, The Box Tops), who put him to work on several Elvis Presley sessions. Specific instructions from Elvis during recording on “Kentucky Rain” – “Hey, more thunder on the piano, Milsap!” – still ring in Ronnie’s ears.

During that time, he performed on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip, first with J.J. Cale, then on his own. One night his audience included future Country Hall of Famer Charley Pride, who encouraged Milsap to try his hand in Music City. Opportunity came when he was invited to become the house singer at Nashville’s King of the Road Motor Inn, owned by Hall of Famer Roger Miller. Within weeks, Milsap signed a management deal with Pride’s manager, Jack D. Johnson, and recorded his first hits for RCA.

That began a remarkable string in which Milsap nabbed at least one Top 10 single annually for 20 straight years. Those songs connected him to some of the most significant writers of his generation – Kris Kristofferson (“Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends”), Burt Bacharach (“Any Day Now”), Eddie Rabbitt (“Pure Love”), Don Gibson (“I’d Be A Legend In My Time”), Mike Reid (“Inside,” “Stranger In This House”), Archie Jordan (“It Was Almost Like A Song”) and Hank Cochran (“Don’t You Ever Get Tired Of Hurting Me”), to name just a handful.

Milsap earned a reputation for his meticulous recordings. He purchased a Music Row studio from Roy Orbison, renamed it Ground Star Laboratory, and experimented with elaborate keyboard parts, inventive guitar sounds and multi-layered vocals. It was a precursor to the modern recording era, where artists such as Reba McEntire, Martina McBride, Brad Paisley and Steve Wariner have built their own recording facilities. Milsap’s former studio – which has been used by Merle Haggard, Ricky Skaggs and Pistol Annies – appropriately still operates today, lovingly re-branded Ronnie’s Place.

All of Milsap’s trend-setting history as a music maker informs Summer #17. Co-produced with longtime associate Rob Galbraith and Richard Landis, it incorporates the most important genres among his musical influences – country, pop and R&B – closing with “Lost In The Fifties Tonight,” reprising his award-winning 1985 #1 that successfully knitted a nostalgic doo-wop storyline with what was then considered a boundary-challenging ballad sound. Mandy Barnett, known for her frequent and critically acclaimed theatrical portrayals of Hall of Famer Patsy Cline, provides a strong female vocal partner on two tracks, including a remake of the Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New.”

That male/female vocal relationship is central to the album’s mood. The music from the teen years sets the tone for adulthood, often intertwined with a person’s initial experiences with love. Those pangs of innocent romance – and their heart-breaking disappearance – are the backbone of “Summer #17.” Love plays a crucial role in every other song on the project, with the exception of Bobby Darrin’s jazz-pop mob tale “Mack The Knife.”

Love and its mysterious nature are, in fact, a thread that’s run through much of the material that’s set Milsap apart. An unrepentant series of love songs – “What A Difference You’ve Made In My Life,” “Daydreams About Night Things,” “How Do I Turn You On,” “She Keeps The Home Fires Burning,” “What Goes On When The Sun Goes Down” and “A Woman In Love,” among others – became inescapable hits, in part because of Milsap’s ability to recognize a great, universal melody. What makes a great melody is as nearly impossible to define as love itself.

“You don’t know why love works,” says Milsap. “You don’t know when you meet somebody and you feel a spark or you feel a connection – did that happen randomly? Or is it something that was predetermined?”

They’re the kinds of questions that apply to a Hall of Fame-caliber career: How much of it was effort? How much of it was sheer destiny? Those are also the kind of questions Milsap’s not entirely able to answer about his own love life. He married the former Joyce Reeves in 1965, and the couple is still together nearly five decades later, defying general music-business expectations. Whether it’s a result of random chance or divine guidance, Ronnie’s successful navigation of that primary relationship has fueled an artistic relationship with millions, because what’s most important in his life is also a priority in theirs.

“The only thing that really counts, that really matters is love,” he says. “That’s the only thing that’s gonna get me through.”

That personal connection with Joyce and his love for music are behind the innovation, the sweat, the creative fire and the elite Hall of Fame-level legacy Ronnie Milsap has developed. The seeds to that fire can be found in Summer #17. They provide a clue to the inspirations Milsap used to reshape the landscape of country with an uncanny daring, helping propel the genre forward from a time when it was dismissed by tastemakers to its current hipster status in American culture.

What the kids are doing today in redefining country is nothing new. They’re simply carrying on a master plan Milsap laid down years ago.

Visit Ronnie Mislap’s website.