Price Is Right for Status as Honky-Tonk Legend : Country music: Singer appearing tonight in Santa Ana labors in relative obscurity but is at peace with his life, his legacy.

It’s not difficult to scare up a vintage Charles Mingus or John Coltrane cut on jazz radio. Recent blues albums by John Lee Hooker and Buddy Guy have been the bestsellers of the veterans’ careers. The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart, to name just a very few rock ‘n’ roll old-timers, are still arena-packing attractions.

Why is it that country music has no respect for its elders?

As such airbrushed, homogenized fluff-mongers as Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus have taken over country music, its founding fathers--honky-tonk heroes whose workingman’s blues forged the music’s essence--have with rare exception been abandoned, forgotten, put out to pasture like embarrassing, afflicted relatives best left undiscussed among polite folk.

Ray Price, who sings tonight at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana, is one of America’s national treasures. At 67, he should be living out his golden years high on the hog, soaking up well-deserved accolades for a lifetime’s achievements. Instead, he labors 150-plus days a year on the road in relative obscurity, then returns to home to his farm in rural Texas.

“When you get past 40, with the mentality that’s going on now, that’s it,” he said last week, on the phone from down on the farm. “I think it’s a lot of crap. It’s really the worst case of age discrimination in the world. It’s terrible. They’re ignoring the biggest age population in the United States, kicking them into the background and going for the young.”

However, Price is still quick with a laugh or an old story relayed in an unhurried Texas drawl, and he sounds comfortable and at peace with his life and his legacy. Throughout the conversation, a pack of dogs could be heard yapping loudly at his feet. “Git outta here! Settle down!” Price would yell, putting down the phone. “My wife raises poodles,” he said with a chuckle after chasing the brood away. Then he returned to his original train of thought.

“Look, I try not to be bitter about this, because I’m doing real good. I’m not having any problems with my health, thank God. I work on the farm every day. But it’s really disheartening to spend 40 years in the business trying to do something and then have some yahoo up in New York City pull the plug.

“And I’m afraid that a lot of this is because of the Country Music Assn. The only country they’re going for now is this rock/country, and the old fans don’t dig it at all. I’ve got nothing against rock music; it’s all right if they want to have it. But they ought not to call it country.”

In his heyday, Price was one of the most successful artists in country music history. “Heartaches by the Number,” “Release Me,” “Crazy Arms,” “I’ll Be There,” “Make the World Go Away,” “Burning Memories” and “For the Good Times” are just a few of his several dozen hits. He has recorded 52 albums, taken home a Grammy and been Billboard magazine’s Top Male Vocalist of The Year no fewer than eight times.

“I really don’t know if I have a formula,” he said. “I just try to do a song that’s really great, that means something, that people can understand--plus I make it sound as pretty as I can. That’s about it, I guess.”

His early records were forebears of the Texas honky-tonk style, with singing, electrified fiddles and hot steel guitar licks layered over a swinging beat while his lonesome, warbling tenor cut through the layers of sound. His band, the Cherokee Cowboys (Price is part Cherokee), was one of the very finest and was known to jam with legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker after hours.

Among the group’s alumni: Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Johnny Paycheck, Buddy Emmons and Johnny Bush. But with Price’s slicked-back, jet-black hair, handsome, friendly face, rhinestone-studded cowboy suits and strapping frame, there was never any doubt who the star was.

His early years were made of humbler stuff. He was born on a small farm in Perryville, Tex., and when he was a young boy he moved to Dallas with his family--which promptly split up.

“My dad couldn’t make it in anything other than farming, and my mom wanted to do something else, so they divorced. I lived with my mother and my dad took my brother. This was during the Depression. I spent winters in school in Dallas and summers on the farm with Dad, so I kind of got the best of both worlds.

“When I was in Dallas, what I listened to was pop radio stations. There wasn’t hardly any country music on the radio at all in those days. My dad had some Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry records on the farm but mostly what I grew up listening to was the Ink Spots and all those people that were real popular during World War II. Those songs had a lot of meaning to them and I liked that, and I liked the way the Ink Spots sang--real nice.”

Price said he can’t remember when he began playing guitar and singing, but he does recall when he “started recording, in 19 and 49. I had a little record out on a label called Bullet, out of Nashville. I wrote one song called ‘Give Me More, More, More (of Your Kisses)’ and Lefty Frizzell recorded it, and that got me in at Columbia. I was with them for more than 30 years.”

By 1952, Price was a regular on the Grand Ole Opry, then a vital source of exposure. His ride at the top lasted more than 20 years, culminating in 1971 with the release of “For the Good Times,” a country/pop hit that went on to sell 11 million copies.

But by the early ‘80s, the well had pretty much dried up, and Price was dumped unceremoniously from the label for which he had made millions of dollars. He was hardly alone; Ernest Tubb, Carl Smith and Faron Young suffered the same treatment during roughly the same time frame.

“That’s the way major labels are,” Price said. “They re-signed me last year to Sony/Columbia and I cut a whale of an album for them called ‘Sometimes a Rose.’ But they never did anything with it, never let anybody know I was back on the label or nothing.”

Undaunted, he returned to the fold of Step One Records, a small independent label out of Nashville for which he’d recorded in the past. He said he still can’t get much airplay, but it hasn’t affected the draw at his concerts, which seems to be on the upswing.

“It’s really weird. My crowd seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time. I think there’s starting to be a backlash. People want to hear real country music again. Of course, I get a lot of the blue-haired set. They really seem to enjoy it and they’re loyal as hell, so I love ‘em. But we get young ones, too, so I know I’m not dead yet, and I know we’d get even more of ‘em if I could be played on the radio.”

* Ray Price sings tonight at 7 and 10 at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. $26.50. (714) 549-1512. At his request, there will be no smoking at either show.