Hoyt Sherman Place and 35 Concerts have announced legendary country artist Ronnie Milsap will perform one night only at 8 p.m. May 20 at Hoyt Sherman Place.
Tickets start at $55 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. Tickets can be purchased at the Hoyt Sherman Place Box Office, 1501 Woodland Ave, by phone at 800-745-3000, or online at Ticketmaster.com.
Milsap ranks as the preeminent country soul singer of his generation. He also represents much more than any two-word definition can convey: a humble, overtly friendly fellow with a talent as vast and multi-dimensional as the American South. Milsap provided country music with one of its most important voices, as the genre was moving beyond its rural roots into the mainstream of modern entertainment. Country music could not have found a man more suited to lead the charge. Steeped in the mountain music of the North Carolina hills and schooled in classical piano, Milsap found inspiration early in life in a wide variety of music. Even as he mastered Beethoven and Mozart, his heart belonged to hardcore country and rhythm-and-blues — music he heard beamed from powerful radio stations located in Nashville. Those earthy sounds about life and love provided a young, impoverished blind boy with a connection to a world beyond the harsh reality of his daily existence.
Milsap’s formative teenage years set a tone for an entire lifetime. Personal battles, career goals, ideas about love — figuring out how all of that will play out during adulthood is one of the big chores of those high school years. Setting the backdrop for much of that inner struggle is the music — it’s the soundtrack of one’s identity, the bond that glues generations.
That idea is at the heart of Ronnie Milsap’s most recent album Summer Number Seventeen, an album that explores the influences on a musician who built a Hall of Fame-caliber career and who became one of the most influential voices in country music’s storied history.
Milsap has used pop, rock and R&B elements to test country’s borders, and he did so in a way that connected fiercely with the music buying public.
He has compiled 40 No. 1 country hits, and Milsap’s sales have accrued eight gold albums. His Greatest Hits made him one of the first acts in any genre to obtain double-platinum status after the RIAA introduced the multi-platinum honor in 1984.
Milsap has won six Grammys, eight Country Music Association awards, including Entertainer of the Year, and four Academy of Country Music trophies, including the lifetime honor, the Pioneer Award.