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FLOYD CRAMER

Born 27 October 1933, Campti, Louisiana
Died 31 December 1997, Madison, Tennessee

Pianist.

My first encounter with the name Floyd Cramer was in late 1960, at the time that his "Last Date" was a big seller. I suppose that many others who were born in the 1940s had the same experience. Little did we know then that we had heard Floyd long before "Last Date", on million sellers as diverse as "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley, "The Three Bells" by the Browns and "Only the Lonely" by Roy Orbison. Session players were largely anonymous in the 1950s.

Though mostly labelled as a country pianist, Floyd Cramer will also be fondly remembered by rock and roll fans for his contributions to countless rocking records. Cramer can be heard on so many recordings from the period 1956- 1965 that he must have been eating and sleeping in the Nashville studios. Floyd Cramer, Jr., was born in Campti, Louisiana (near Shreveport), but grew up in the small sawmill town of Huttig, Arkansas. His parents bought him a piano when he was small and wanted him to take piano lessons, but young Fl

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When the piano became an integral part of Nashville arrangements in the early 1960s, Floyd Cramer shouldered most of the load. He popularized the “slip-note” technique on dozens of hits by a wide range of artists but deserves to be just as famous for his unerring taste and his understanding of what not to play.

From Shreveport to Nashville

Cramer grew up in the small sawmill town of Huttig, Arkansas. He learned piano by ear, and after graduating high school in 1951, he moved to Shreveport and found a job on the Louisiana Hayride.

Cramer arrived just as Lefty Frizzell’s records were popularizing what Cramer termed “a plinking honky-tonk type piano.” He played in that style on Jim Reeves’s “Mexican Joe” and made his first record for Abbott Records in 1953.

Aside from Owen Bradley, Poppa John Gordy, and Marvin Hughes, there were few studio pianists in Nashville when Cramer first went there in 1952 with radio and TV announcer T. Tommy Cutrer. After a year or two of commuting, Cramer talked to Chet Atkins about becoming a session

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FLOYD CRAMER

When Floyd Cramer picked up his phone in Nashville in the spring of 1984, there was an unmistakable voice on the other end of the line. It was Michael Jackson, inviting the famed pianist to perform at an event honoring matriarch Katherine Jackson. “I’ve been listening to ‘Last Date’ all my life,” said Michael, referring to Cramer’s 1960 signature instrumental. The keyboardist was Katherine’s favorite recording artist, and that’s how he wound up tickling the ivories behind Michael on “For the Good Times,” backing Jermaine on “Moon River” and entertaining the entire Jackson clan in Hollywood that spring.

“I was just overwhelmed, and very surprised,” Cramer commented. He shouldn’t have been. As a key member of Nashville’s “A Team” of studio musicians, Floyd Cramer was one of the most influential piano players in history, regardless of genre.