Local 913, Episode 38: Billy Price
For the final weeks of 2015, were highlighting our top five local albums of the year. This week, we highlight our #2 album: Billy Price & Otis Clays This Time For Real. Billy Price has been a fixture on the Pittsburgh music scene since the mid-1970s. During those early years he gained national attention for his three year collaboration with legendary blues guitarist Roy Buchanan. For his twelfth album, he’s teamed up with another legendary artist, R&B and soul singer Otis Clay. This Time For Real is produced by Duke Robbillard and features horn players from Roomful of Blues. Billy Price talks about how the album came together:
“We’ve known each since 1982, that’s the first time we sang together. Otis performed at the legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise. He came back and called me and said at least ten people said when are you going to do an album with Billy Price! We gotta do this someday! At the time, I was already planning to do an album that I was going to call The Soul Collection II. I have an earlier album called The Soul Collection. I wanted to do a real soul album and I had been keeping a running list of songs I wanted to record. I thought that Otis and I could go through the list of songs and discuss it. It really started coming together when I got a call from Duke Robbillard’s manager Jack Gauthier, who I had worked with before. He said Duke and I are looking for production projects and we’d love to produce you and I said how about producing me and Otis Clay and he said WELL YEAH! Yeah let’s do that! So, then we put that together with Duke producing and playing guitar, Duke’s band and The Roomful of Blues Horns.”
Listening below for more on Billy Price and a song from the album This Time For Real and check out Billy Price online. Catch Billy Price live at First Night Pittsburgh.
