Ronnie Milsap singer of Tennessee state song

Milsap was born in the Smoky Mountains, but not in Tennessee. He hails from remote Robbinsville, N.C., where he spent his first six years before moving to Raleigh to attend a school for the blind. There, he studied music for more than a decade, before enrolling in Young Harris College in Northeast Georgia.

He was gaining popularity on Atlanta’s club scene, yet preparing to attend law school, when he met Ray Charles -- the singer, coincidentally, of Georgia’s one and only state song, “Georgia on My Mind” (with music by Hoagy Carmichael and lyrics by Stuart Gorrell).

“I went to a Ray Charles show while I was in college and somehow they let us backstage,” Milsap recounts on his official Web site (www.ronniemilsap.com). “I was introduced to Ray Charles and I said, ‘Mr. Ray Charles, you’re my hero. You’re the man I look up to. I emulate your music, but I’m faced with a dilemma.'"

He told Charles how he wanted a career in the music business, but he was being pressured to study law.

“And there was a piano in the dressing room, and Ray said, ‘Well, play me something,’" Milsap continues. "So I played him three songs, and Charles said, ‘Well, son, you can be a lawyer if you want to, but there’s a lot of music in your heart. If I were you, I’d follow what my heart tells me to do.’”

Milsap took Charles’ advice. He recorded some singles in Atlanta before moving to Memphis, where he linked up with producer Chips Moman and, by 1969, with Elvis Presley (playing piano on the King’s “Kentucky Rain” and “Don’t Cry Daddy,” among other songs).

The super smooth vocalist scored his first No. 1 single in 1974, with “Pure Love,” and went on to become one of country’s top hitmakers of the '70s and '80s, with songs such as "Any Day Now," "Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night)" and "There's No Gettin' Over Me." Milsap was inducted into the Georgia Hall in Macon in 1990.

Though the hits stopped coming, Milsap, 67, continues to record and tours rigorously. His most recent album is 2009’s “Then Sings My Soul,” a two-CD, 24-song gospel set.

The resolution making "Smoky Mountain Rain" a state song notes that it "tells the story of a special, enduring love of a Tennessee sweetheart and the storyteller's return to Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains in search of that which he holds most dear." That speaks to the lyrics; however, the recording's palpable sense of yearning is entirely Milsap's.