Nightlife / Music

20 tidbits to know about Ronnie Milsap

By David Burke | Wednesday, July 30, 2008 | () comments

Ronnie Milsap will perform in the grandstand 8 p.m. Sunday at the Mississippi Valley Fair. (Contributed photo)

Here are 20 facts about Ronnie Milsap, who performs Sunday night to close out the Mississippi Valley Fair:

1. Ronnie Lee Millsaps (in his autobiography, he says his first contract spelled his name the way it’s now billed) was born on Jan. 16, 1944 in Robbinsville, N.C.

2. Blind since birth (either congenital glaucoma or congenital cataracts, according to various reports), his mother viewed the baby’s blindness as a punishment from God, and he was sent to live with his grandmother before his first birthday.

3. He lived with his grandparents until age 6, when he was sent to Governor Moorehead State School for the Blind in Raleigh, N.C.

4. Forced into strict classical music training, he took refuge listening to country, gospel and R&B music on the radio at night.

5. He and his wife Joyce were married in 1965. They have son, Todd.

6. At age 20, he released his first single, “Total Disaster,” on Scepter Records in New York.

7. Milsap played piano on Elvis Presley’s “Kentucky Rain” and sang harmony on Elvis’ “Don’t Cry Daddy.”

8. His first success was on the soul charts, hitting No. 5 with the song “Never Had It So Good,” written by Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, in 1965.

9. His first pop success came in 1970 with the single “Loving You is a Natural Thing.”

10. In 1972, Milsap moved to Nashville and became a regular at the King of the Road hotel, where me met music producer and publisher Tom Collins.

11. By 1973, he was signed to RCA Records, where he began a career that included 40 No. 1 country hits.

12. Only George Strait and Conway Twitty have notched more No. 1 hits.

13. His string of No. 1 songs stretches from “Pure Love” in 1974 to “A Woman in Love” in 1989.

14. Some of his hits have included duets with Kenny Rogers (“Make No Mistake, She’s Mine”) and Mike Reid (“Old Folks”). Reid, a former Cincinnati Bengals football player, also wrote Milsap hits “Stranger in My House” and “Lost in the Fifties Tonight.”

15. He has won five Grammy Awards, eight Country Music Association awards and two Academy of Country Music awards.

16. His last single released was a collaboration with Hispanic rock act Los Lonely Boys in 2006. “Local Girls” reached No. 54 on the Billboard charts.

17. In 2003, CMT named him No. 30 in the “40 Greatest Men of Country Music.”

18. Earlier this year, he turned out to support Trace Adkins’ fundraising concert when Adkins was a contender on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

19. Milsap and Kenny Chesney are celebrating the careers of famed Nashville producers Owen and Harold Bradley with a dinner next month.

20. He is at work on a new album, due in 2009.