Ray Stevens CabaRay and Me...

Hello one and all!!! In my previous blog entry or in the one prior to that I made mention of my brother and I driving around and testing a new G.P.S device I had bought for a road trip we were planning this past Thursday. I was vague about the trip but the trip we were planning was a visit to the CabaRay in West Nashville. I attended a concert on March 1st at the CabaRay...my first ever visit to Nashville, Tennessee but it happened to be my third Ray Stevens concert. My brother and I began the journey to Nashville around 2:30am Eastern time. Of course we gained an hour after we entered the Central time zone which we were already aware of ahead of time. There were only a couple of predicable events that occurred as we made our way down south. The first was the various stops at fuel stations to top off the gas tank, grab additional bottles of pop, and to stretch our legs and give the car a rest. The second predictable event was the heavy traffic on the interstates. We traveled on three major interstates during the trip: I-71 South to I-65 South and then I-40 West to the Charlotte Road exit and then on to River Road to pick up the tickets for the concert later that night. When I purchased the tickets a couple of weeks ago I had them put on hold (their Will Call service) and so when we arrived at the CabaRay Thursday morning I shown the woman at the box office my order confirmation and she printed off the two tickets I purchased and then off my brother and I went to see some of the sights of Nashville.

The only major traffic mess we encountered was near a merge lane in which cars were simultaneously trying to exit the interstate while other cars were trying to merge onto the interstate and every car exiting had to wait and let a merging car get on and vice versa...a total traffic mess. Obviously a lot of this had to do with the time of day...morning rush hour. Again, traffic jams were something we expected which is why we left for Nashville so early. The first place we went to prior to picking up the concert tickets was to a large second hand store called McKay's on Old Hickory Boulevard. I first heard of this place on a social media site...on one of Ray's social media posts there was a photo of a vinyl album somebody found at McKay's and I did some research. I saw some of the pictures from the store's interior and knew I just had to visit this place. The only regret is I wish I had knee pads because the rows of books and vinyl albums went all the way to floor level and there was no way I could've crawled along the floor, in any degree of comfort, to view every single title they had in stock and so I missed a lot of titles by not being able to see the bottom shelves.

Nevertheless, I was able to come across several vinyl albums that I ended up purchasing. One of those was The Remarkable Ray Stevens on Warwick Records, a title that was originally released in the United Kingdom in 1977. This is one of those many compilation albums that came along in the late '70s and according to the cover art it was a televised album with the 'as seen on TV' catchphrase but more specifically it reads 'as advertised on TV and radio'. There are 20 recordings on the album as you can tell by looking at the album's cover. When I seen this album at McKay's I knew I had to purchase it because it's rare, it's an import, it's on vinyl, and it's still sealed. Perhaps the word 'rare' is over-used...I'd say it's an obscure release. You can easily find the LP on various auction sites (so, in that respect, it's not rare) but it's a title that can easily be defined obscure...let's put it this way: it's only rare for those not aware of it's existence. Given it's still sealed I'm not going to open it. I already have those songs on other vinyl albums and on cassettes and CD's anyhow...I just bought it for it's, well, obscure rarity status.

After leaving McKay's my brother and I went to the CabaRay box office to get the concert tickets and then we made our way to the Music Row area of Nashville. We drove by the famed bars and recording studios in the Broadway region and drove by the Ryman Auditorium. We seen the famed Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and the Ernest Tubb Record Shop. We parked in a lot near the Country Music Hall of Fame and visited the Hall of Fame and Museum. My brother took a lot of photo's and I snapped some photo's, too. One such photo he took was of me standing next to the Ray Stevens exhibit at the Hall of Fame.

The Ray Stevens Everything is Beautiful Exhibit opened in the latter half of September 2017 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to commemorate Ray's 60th year as a recording artist. It isn't a permanent exhibit, as of this writing, and it's scheduled to be removed in April of this year. Talk about perfect timing! I seem to recall reading somewhere that officials at the Hall of Fame decided that the exhibit would become a permanent display but I can't find that article on the internet anywhere and so we'll just have to rely on the original publicity from September 2017 in which it states that the display will be a featured attraction through April of this year. As you can see in the photo there's a black and white photo of clean shaven Ray at the piano next to a much more familiar photo (among general audiences). On display are his two Grammy Awards and a Fez with 'Coy' written on it. Coy is the name of a fictional Shriner in his 1980 recording, "Shriner's Convention". There's also a piano...the one in which "Everything is Beautiful" was composed on. Ray isn't a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame but he's a member of the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame, The Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and the Christian Music Hall of Fame. We visited Centennial Park in downtown Nashville simply for it's large Parthenon attraction. I was originally going to have my brother take my picture holding a stuffed animal rabbit in a position similar to Ray's on his album cover for Lend Me Your Ears (1990, Curb Records) but there were several people on the steps at the Parthenon and I didn't want to create a scene or attract attention. Could you imagine people's reaction upon seeing somebody having their photo taken holding a stuffed animal on the steps of the Parthenon?!? In case you're wondering I never purchased a rabbit stuffed animal beforehand...it was just an idea I had several weeks ago...but did I look for rabbit stuffed animals prior to our Nashville trip? The answer would be "yes!" but as I said I ended up deciding against the idea fairly quickly and never continued looking for stuffed animal rabbits.

When I shown up for the dinner/concert at the CabaRay (better traffic by that time of the day, too) my brother and I were greeted by a man who said his name was Raymond Hicks. There is an upstairs area for balcony seating but also on the second floor is an additional display case area for several of Ray's music publisher awards (which, in my opinion, never get the attention/notice his other achievements have gotten). As we were looking over the various awards and trophies I never seen any of the plaques for his Home Video sales achievements (for Comedy Video Classics, Ray Stevens Live!, and Get Serious!). Later on we were told that a lot of his other awards were still in storage and hadn't been put on display at the CabaRay yet. On the first floor there's a gift shop, the piano bar (Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium), an area with several display cases filled with trophies and gold records, and of course there's the main performance area. Those who have purchased dinner along with the concert are seated at tables around the stage and in other floor level seats where as those who just purchase concert tickets are seated in the balcony upstairs. There are several booths named for Nashville record producers.

From 5pm until a few minutes prior to the Ray Stevens concert at 7:30pm the piano bar performer, John Jonethis, can be heard throughout the venue even if you're not literally in the bar itself. We visited the gift shop and I purchased a couple of items. There were several trinkets and souvenir items that aren't posted in the on-line store. I purchased the Love Lifted Me CD and a CabaRay Nashville coffee mug.

The concert itself ran almost 90 minutes from 7:30pm until a little before 9pm. Ray performed quite a few medley's and several songs in their entirety sandwiched between comedy monologues and general conversations about his career, the purpose behind the CabaRay, and his television series on PBS stations. He spoke about being in the middle of taping the current season of his CabaRay Nashville television series and that those episodes would be the first to originate from the CabaRay rather than the much smaller studio he'd been taping the show in since the series debut in 2015. He kept the concert more or less uptempo and sang only a couple of ballads. "Everything is Beautiful" came near the end of the concert as one could have expected. He opened the show with what's become his signature opening number, "Such a Night". He opened his Renfro Valley concert with a performance of that song and that was a concert I seen back in the mid 2000's and so it's safe to say it's his official opening number. He also performed "Misty", "It's Me Again, Margaret", "Gitarzan", "The Streak", "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Turn Your Radio On", and "Nashville". Those nine songs were performed in their entirety. Those that were performed medley style were: "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills", "Ahab the Arab", "Along Came Jones", "Shriner's Convention", and the more recent "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me". I was a bit surprised that particular song would've gotten abbreviated considering it's one of his more recent recordings. Another surprise is he didn't perform "Safe at Home" or "Thank You" which always elicit strong emotional reaction from audiences.

During the concert you could also take advantage of the jumbo screens. If you chose to look up at those you'd see how he'd appear if it happened to be a television show taping. My brother and I sat at Table 103 which is right next to the stage. If you look at the seating chart from a bird's eye view our table was the second at the left side of the stage...so we were very close to the stage. Here's a somewhat blurry photo of the table and it's relation to the stage. You see the first table at the side of the stage and then the second table and the row of tables in front of the stage. That second table on the left hand side of the photo is where my brother and I were seated. My brother sat in the chair right next to the stage (he could've rested his arm or hand on the stage if he chose to) and I sat in the chair beside the red carpeted walkway.

He closed the show with "The Streak". The gift shop and the piano bar remained opened until the venue itself closed. There may have been a possibility of Ray making an appearance at the Piano Bar after the concert and it was tempting to stay but being from out of State with financial obligations the next day (a Friday) we decided that in order to fight potential traffic issues on our way home, making our way up I-40 to I-65 North and into the heart of downtown Nashville, my brother and I opted to take one last look around the place and then head to the car. The experience was everything I had hoped it would be. The only thing missing was Buddy Kalb. I was under the impression that he was a big part of the venue, too, but I didn't catch a glimpse of him anywhere. In concerts past he was often seen around the merchandise area before and after the show. He may have been backstage/behind the scenes, though. There's a little room off to the left of the stage where I think the sound engineers and production staff monitor the performance so it's possible he could've been in there.

This being the start of the weekend be on the look out for my next re-cap of Ray's television series. His video site should have last weekend's episode available on-line at some point this weekend or it could be available on Monday. Last week's episode guest starred Wilson Fairchild. Airing this weekend on local PBS stations is the episode guest starring Deana Carter.