‘Arkansongs’ It’s Another Song of Arkansas: Songwriter Bill Rice

August 26 - September 1, 2019

By Stephen Koch

One of the few who can claim to hail from Datto in western Clay County, Wilbur Steven ‘Bill’ Rice is also one of the most award-winning songwriters of all time. He is best known as a writer of country music hits – especially with his partner, Jerry Foster – but Rice’s songs have been recorded by an eclectic list of American performers, including Sonny and Cher, Elvis Presley, Robert Goulet and Jerry Lee Lewis, among many others.

Born April 19, 1939, and coming from a musical family, Rice learned guitar from his mother while still a young teen. He went to high school in nearby Corning and began to play music around the area.

Original Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore signed then still-teenaged Bill Rice to Memphis’ Fernwood Records. A couple of years later, Rice co-authored a song on 1960’s “Elvis Is Back” album. It was just the first of many songs the Arkansawyer would place on other artists’ albums, and the beginning of a storied career for him in American songwriting.

However, things really picked up for Rice when he met his longtime writing partner, Jerry Foster, a native of Tallapoosa, Missouri. Both worked at radio station KTCB in nearby Malden, Missouri, and appreciated the power of music. Rice and Foster were each working on songs, both together and separately, and both stayed busy playing clubs and dances around the bootheel area, which was booming at the time with performing musicians and venues. An offer came in from fellow Clay County native Roland Janes to record at his Memphis studio. Born in Brookings, Arkansas, Janes had made his name at the studios of Sun Records – whose recordings of musicians from the area, including Elvis Presley, Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, Charlie Rich and others, was in part responsible for the area’s aforementioned music boom. Continuing his groundbreaking golden streak from Sun Records, the recordings Janes made of the duo led to a songwriting contract for the partnership of Foster and Rice.

The duo of Bill Rice and Jerry Foster – emerging favorite sons of Datto, Arkansas (pop. 93) and Tallapoosa, Missouri (pop. 154), respectively – had hits continue to pile up as the years went on, especially in the country music field. The 1960s ended with the pair’s song “The Back Side of Dallas,” as performed by Jeannie C. Riley, being nominated for a Grammy award. 

Musical prosperity continued for Rice through the 1970s. He had a number one song for Charley Pride called “Wonder Could I Live There Anymore” that was also nominated for a Grammy. With his partner, Foster, Rice wrote an additional number one for Jerry Lee Lewis called “Would You Take Another Chance On Me?” But that wasn’t all, through the decade, Foster and Rice wrote top ten songs for Johnny Paycheck, Hank Williams Junior and Mickey Gilley, among others. 

Somehow, the prolific Clay County native had enough songs in his bag of tricks to chart a few of them himself as a solo performer, including “Traveling Minstrel Man,” which broke the country music top 40 charts in 1971. However, most of the chart success of the Arkansas native was found as the man on the record label behind the song. 

Rice formed an another songwriting partnership in the late 1970s – with his then-wife, Sharon Vaughn Rice. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he was named ASCAP songwriter of the year several times and eventually became the most award-winning songwriter in the history of music publishing giant ASCAP. Additionally, Rice won a songwriting award from BMI, ASCAP’s rival. To cap it all off, Rice and Foster were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994. Today, Rice stands as one of the state’s, if not the nation’s, most successful songwriters.

Back in Datto, the hometown of Bill Rice honored its best-known native son by naming one of its thoroughfares Bill Rice Street. Meanwhile, the songs of this local Clay County, Arkansas, hero are heard all across North America, and around the world.

LISTENING:

“Wonder Could I Live There Anymore”- Charley Pride

“I’m Not That Lonely Yet”- Reba McEntire

“Would You Take Another Chance On Me”- Jerry Lee Lewis

“Lonely Too Long”- Patty Loveless

(Author and musician Stephen Koch’s weekly “Arkansongs” program is syndicated on public radio stations all across Arkansas, in Louisiana, and in east Texas.)