Floyd Cramer

Floyd Cramer
Floyd Cramer (1965)
Background information
Birth name	Floyd Cramer
Born	October 27, 1933 Shreveport, Louisiana, United States
Origin	Huttig, Arkansas, United States
Died	December 31, 1997(1997-12-31) (aged 64)
Occupation(s)	Pianist
Instruments	Piano, organ, harpsichord
Associated acts	Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Patsy Cline

Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American Hall of Fame pianist who was one of the architects of the "Nashville sound". He was known for his "slip note" piano style, where an out-of-key note slides into the correct note.

Biography

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Cramer grew up in the small town of Huttig, Arkansas, teaching himself to play the piano. After finishing high school, he returned to Shreveport, where he worked as a pianist for the Louisiana Hayride radio show.

In 1953, he cut his first single, "Dancin' Diane", backed with "Little Brown Jug", for the local Abbott label. During 1955 he played dates with an emerging talent who would later figure significantly in his career, Elvis Presley.^[1][2]

Cramer moved to Nashville in 1955 where the use of piano accompanists in country music was growing in popularity. By the next year he was, in his words, "in day and night doing session".^[3] Before long, he was one of the busiest studio musicians in the industry, playing piano for stars such as Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, the Browns, Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, Roy Orbison, Don Gibson, and the Everly Brothers, among others.^[4] It was Cramer's piano playing, for instance, on Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel". However, Cramer remained strictly a session player, a virtual unknown to anyone outside the music industry.

Cramer had released records under his own name since the early 1950s, and became well known following the release of "Last Date", a 45 rpm single, released by RCA Victor in 1960.^[5] The instrumental piece exhibited a relatively new concept for piano playing known as the "slip note" style. The record went to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 pop music chart, sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The song was kept out of the No. 1 position by Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight".^[6]

In 1961, Cramer had a hit with "On the Rebound", which went to No. 4, and No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart.^[7] ("On the Rebound" was later featured during the opening credits of the 2009 Oscar-nominated film An Education, which was set in England in 1961.) That same year Cramer also had a hit with "San Antonio Rose" (No. 8).

By the mid-1960s, Cramer had become a respected performer, making numerous albums and touring with guitar maestro Chet Atkins and saxophonist Boots Randolph, sometimes headlining, and sometimes as the opening act for Eddy Arnold. Cramer also performed with them as a member of the Million Dollar Band.

Over the years, he continued to balance session work with his own albums. Many of these featured standards or popular hits of the era and from 1965 to 1974 he annually recorded a disc of the year's biggest hits prefaced "Class of . . ." Other long-players included I Remember Hank Williams (1962), Floyd Cramer Plays the Monkees (1967), Sounds of Sunday (1971) and Looking For Mr Goodbar (1978). In 1977 Floyd Cramer and the Keyboard Kick Band was released, on which he played eight different keyboard instruments.^[1]

Floyd Cramer died of lung cancer in 1997 at the age of 64 and was interred in the Spring Hill Cemetery in the Nashville suburb of Madison, Tennessee.

Legacy

His grandson, Jason Coleman, inherited his grandfather's skill on the piano, performing with him on television and in concert at a young age. At age 17, he played "Please Help Me, I'm Falling", the first song to feature Cramer's signature slip notes, with Hank Locklin at the Grand Ole Opry, and two years later played piano for the Medallion Ceremony at Cramer’s induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He carries on his grandfather's legacy with recordings and a touring tribute concert, The Legacy of Floyd Cramer, sharing the piano arrangements and story of Cramer's contributions to American music.

Awards

In 2003 Floyd Cramer was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Cramer's recording of "Last Date" was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame, established to honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. In 2008 Cramer was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee, offers the Floyd Cramer Competitive Scholarship.

Quotation

NME - November 1961^[8]

Discography

Albums

Singles

See also

• The Nashville A-Team

References

• Escott, Colin (1998), "Floyd Cramer". In Paul Kingsbury (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Country Music, New York: Oxford University Press. ,pp. 117–18.

External links

• Rockhall.com
• Spaceagepop.com
• Floyd Cramer at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum