April 30, 2017

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...episode Six...

Hello one and all...on this early Sunday morning I find myself having just finished viewing episode six of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. I DVR the series and watch it later. Here's a LINK that takes you to Ray's website. It lists the first 6 episodes and if you click the next page link over there it'll open up to page 2 and you can read about the next 6 episodes (the first 12 are spotlighted). The thing about the local syndication market is you can't necessarily follow a cohesive air-date schedule. Due to the series debuting on some PBS stations in January with other PBS stations adding it as time has gone by it created the scenario of some viewers seeing different episodes in any given week.

Those of us viewing the series on PBS affiliates that added CabaRay Nashville after the month of January are always going to be playing catch-up to the stations that have aired it since it became available for PBS syndication in early January 2017. That is the reason Ray can't necessarily promote any particular episode on social media during any given week because the PBS markets that are airing the program are on different air-date schedules.

CabaRay Nashville PBS addition: The program is going to start airing in Martin, Tennessee on PBS affiliate WLIT beginning July 7th according to his website. This means that it'll start with episode 1 on July 7th for those viewers...but in my area episode six aired last night...

On episode six the special guests happened to be legendary songwriter Bobby Braddock and Sheri Copeland Smith. Ray opened the program singing "There Must Be a Pill For This" from his Here We Go Again! CD. He introduces Bobby Braddock...and the songwriter is asked to name some of the songs he's written/co-written over the years. Ray calls on Sheri Copeland Smith to exit the background singers line-up and perform the soprano harmony during the upcoming performance. Ray makes note of the fact that prior to her joining his group she was part of the George Jones group for 6 or 7 years. On a personal note I remember when she appeared as one of George's back-up singers, too. She and her husband, Barry, used to open George's concerts during their time with him.

Bobby performs "He Stopped Loving Her Today", a song he co-wrote with Curly Putnam, which of course became a monumental hit for George Jones and an iconic country music classic. In the original recording George did in 1980 the soprano effect happened to be performed by Millie Kirkham. Sheri did a great job. The music video of "The Dooright Family" airs next. The Video Jukebox segment acts as a kind of intermission between the first and second half of the 30 minute program.

Kicking off the second half of the program Sheri joined Ray in a duet of "Golden Ring"...a classic duet by George Jones and Tammy Wynette which, not coincidentally, Bobby Braddock co-wrote. Don Cusic appears in a segment featuring information about Dick Feller that he's reading from Ray's box set, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The segment sets up Ray's performance of "Makin' the Best of a Bad Situation", a song that Feller wrote. Ray had previously recorded the song on his 1986 album, Surely You Joust. Upon the conclusion of the performance he tells a joke about Setters and Pointers. It's more or less a running gag that he closes the show with either a corny joke or perhaps an obscure bit of trivia that has a humorous double meaning.

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