Co-written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, “Never Had It So Good” became Milsap’s first charting hit, reaching 19 on Billboard’s R&B chart its flip, “Let’s Go Get Stoned” - also written by Ashford & Simpson - was soon popularized by Ray Charles.
In 1965, he signed with Scepter Records, who put out “Never Had It So Good” that year. After a spell playing with the Atlanta-based R&B combo the Dimensions, during which time he released the single “Total Disaster” on Princess Records in 1963, Milsap was hired as the keyboardist for J.J.
Milsap didn’t complete his pre-law program - music drew him to the clubs instead.
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Soon, he was playing in a teenage rock & roll outfit called the Apparitions, which kept him busy until he headed to Georgia’s Young Harris College on a full scholarship. Already a fan of country and R&B, he became obsessed with rock & roll once it hit in 1965. Encouraged by his teachers, Milsap began studying classical music, and while he learned several instruments, he gravitated toward piano. When he was five, Milsap was sent to Raleigh’s Governor Morehead School for the Blind, and that is where he discovered a deep love of music, cultivated by close listening to radio broadcasts. His mother took this as a sign that God was punishing her for sins, so she left her son behind to be raised by his grandparents. Due to congenital glaucoma, he was born nearly blind. Ronnie Milsap was born in Robbinsville, North Carolina on January 16, 1943. Despite relying on his old hits, Milsap never entirely stopped recording, resurfacing every decade or so for a splashy comeback along the lines of 2006’s My Life, and earning an induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014. As he entered his mature phase, he capitalized on a nostalgic streak, remaking rock & roll chestnuts in the mid-’80s, thereby setting himself up to ease into the oldies circuit once the hits dried up in the early ’90s. Milsap sustained that stardom for nearly two decades, remaining a fixture in the charts by subtly, slyly adapting to the times: he borrowed some of the urbane slickness of Urban Cowboy at the dawn of the ’80s and happily made videos during the peak of MTV. Arriving just after Charlie Rich brought a similar country-soul synthesis into the upper reaches of the charts, “Pure Love” rocketed to number one on Billboard’s country charts, followed to that position by “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends” - a one-two punch that turned the singer into a star.
Nevertheless, his strength lay in taking it easy, a quality evident on “Pure Love,” his breakthrough number one in 1974.
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Long before he was a fixture on the country charts - during his prime, he racked up 35 number one hits - Milsap cracked the R&B charts with a version of Ashford & Simpson‘s “Never Had It So Good,” and that familiarity with rhythm & blues was apparent throughout his work.
Blending country and soul so elegantly it could often appeal to a pop audience - and it did: “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me” went all the way to number five on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1981 - Milsap also had deep roots in soul. No country singer had as smooth a touch as Ronnie Milsap.
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