FROM country dance halls in Beaudesert to international stages, Rick Price has spent decades creating songs that have become part of the soundtrack of Australian lives.
Now, as he takes his music back on the road with his Call On Me tour , the acclaimed singer-songwriter says the journey feels increasingly like coming home.
Before the hit records, international tours and songs that would become staples of Australian radio, Rick Price’s musical world was considerably smaller.
In Beaudesert, Price grew up surrounded by music, in a musical family that would rehearse during the week before heading out to perform at community dances on weekends.
“That was my apprenticeship into music,” Price said.
“We lived and breathed music.”
After a career that took him from Queensland to the US and stages around the world, Price said his music had increasingly found its way back to where it all began.
“It’s in many ways a full-circle moment,” he said.
“Now the music I write definitely harks back to those early days.”
Inspired by Michael Jackson, Motown and the artists he heard coming through the radio, his ambition was beautifully straightforward.
“I just wanted to get on the radio and that was it,” he said.
More than three decades later, songs including Heaven Knows and Not A Day Goes By remain deeply connected to the memories of the people who first heard them.
“You can’t sit down and say, right, now I’m going to write that hit song,” Price said.
“You just pour your enthusiasm into every songwriting session and some songs turn out to be gems and they live on for a long time and others don’t.”
Perhaps the clearest evidence of those songs’ staying power comes when Price looks into his audiences today, seeing two or even three generations attending his shows, including young fans around the age of his granddaughter singing every word.
“That is wild,” he said.
Longevity is notoriously difficult in the music industry, but Price has managed something arguably more meaningful than simply surviving.
“I feel like I’ve been afforded that luxury of being able to grow old in front of my audience and to go out and to grow with them,” he said.
“They accept me on the level that I’m at and they enjoy and embrace the stories that I’m telling.
“I’m lucky I’ve been able to grow old with music.”
Price said his performance and tours have increasingly become nights of storytelling as he shares the stories behind the songs, talks about his life and gets the audience involved.
“I get out in the audience, I get people singing,” he said.
“It’s not just a sit in your chair and be quiet show the whole way through.”
The benchmark is what Price calls the “joy meter”, he wants laughter and he isn’t afraid of a few tears.
“Sometimes songs will take you to emotional places that you need to go,” he said.
“I want to take people on emotional journeys.”
Rick Price brings his Call On Me tour to Wynnum Manly Leagues Club on Saturday, November 7 with tickets available at OzTix.
