The man who once played piano for Elvis Presley will close out the Rockin’ River Music Fest, putting a soulful final note on what is expected to be a major entertainment event.

Ronnie Milsap spent the first six years of his life in a small rural town in the Great Smoky Mountains hamlet of Robbinsville, North Carolina before moving to Raleigh to attend a school for the blind, where he began studying violin and piano, studies he’d continue for the next 12 years. Music’s lure proved powerful for the young Milsap, and while he pursued his studies diligently in order to make the grade at law school, a chance meeting with Ray Charles prompted him to take another path.

“I went to a Ray Charles show while I was in college and somehow they let us backstage,” he recalls. “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. I’d love to be in the music business, but all my advisors tell me I have to have an academic life. So I’m going on to study law and become a lawyer.”

And there was a piano in the dressing room, and Ray said, “Well, play me something.” 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 did just that, recording a handful of singles in Atlanta before moving to Memphis, where he joined forces with super-producer Chips Moman and, by 1969, with Elvis Presley — for whom he played piano on hits like Kentucky Rain and Don’t Cry Daddy. Although he was making a name for himself as a versatile studio musician, Milsap was set on being at center-stage, rather than in the supporting cast, a goal he’d achieve by 1974, when he scored his first number-one country single, Pure Love.

And even with 40 number one chart-toppers under his belt, Milsap is still growing and surprising long-time fans. Then Sings My Soul documents that growth process, but it also proves that even now, the kid from Robbinsville is still firmly in touch with his roots, and capable of creating spiritual images that will transport listeners back to the little Baptist church where those roots were planted.

Milsap takes the stage at Rockin’ River at 8 p.m. Aug. 16.