March 11, 2018

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville: Deana Carter...

Hello to all the fans of Ray Stevens and those that stop by out of curiosity. I just finished watching the ninth episode of Season Five of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. This episode originally aired on local PBS stations the weekend of March 3rd but was recently uploaded onto RayStevens.tv. The special guest was Deana Carter.

Ray opened the show performing his take on "Night and Day". A brief history is in order...Ray recorded the song in the mid 2000's for a CD of his titled Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What??. The tribute CD became available in 2008 on his Clyde Records label. You can see more information about the CD by clicking this LINK. It takes you to Ray's official web-store at his website. Ray introduces Deana Carter by inquiring if she shaved her legs for the appearance.

One of the first discussions revolved around her childhood and upbringing as the daughter of performer and session musician, Fred Carter. She mentioned that it was a help and a hindrance in that it can provide all kinds of perks and with having a connection to the industry through a relative it carries the potential of getting a foot in the door a lot more easily but at the same time she mentioned it can be a hindrance because of all the expectations of being a relative, this case an offspring, of a noted musician. She mentioned that as a typical twenty-something she often didn't take the advice of her father and others older than herself because she felt the desire for independence.

Deana speaks about her entry into the music industry and how a demo tape made it's way to Willie Nelson, which, as a result of his hearing it, enabled her to get a segment on Farm Aid VII at the Super Dome in Louisiana that year (1994). She mentioned being terrified and that she was the only female artist on the entire show that year. She drew laughter when mentioning 'demo tape' given how everything nowadays is digital and she got laughs when mentioning that during her early days in Nashville she was always thinking of a back-up plan in case things didn't work out. She mentioned Jimmy Bowen being the main key into her getting on records when he signed to her Patriot Records in 1995. Her debut CD on Patriot was released in the United Kingdom but it was transformed a year later after it got a re-release on Capitol Records in the United States (only a couple of songs from the debut version made it onto the re-release in 1996). The debut CD's title was the eye catching Did I Shave My Legs for This? The photo's of the CD are also strikingly different. On the UK release in 1995 she's standing in front of images of skyscrapers and looking very urbane whereas in the US release in 1996 the photo has a close-up of her in a field among a collection of wild flowers in a green shirt and about as far away from urbanity as you can get. If you Google the images of the 1995 and 1996 releases of her debut CD you'll see what I'm referring to.



Deana performs "Did I Shave My Legs for This?". Ray brings up a song that she had a hand in writing that received a Grammy nomination called "You and Tequila". She mentions having co-written the song with Matraca Berg. Deana and Matraca recorded their own solo version of the song but a duet version by Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter emerged in 2010. Their recording became a Top-10 country hit in 2011, sold over a million copies as a digital download, and it received a Grammy nomination. Deana recalled how personally gratifying it was to receive a Grammy nomination as a Songwriter and how it carries an entirely different emotional reaction than being nominated as a performer/artist. After she performs "You and Tequila" she is then asked to perform her breakthrough song, "Strawberry Wine". This song was one of the new recordings in the 1996 release of her debut CD...meaning it wasn't on the UK version a year earlier.

Ray closes the show performing "Oh, Leo Lady". He mentions that the idea of the song came as a result of his discussing astrology with his bass player. Although not mentioned by name I'm assuming that bass player to be the late Stuart Keathley (who also doubled as the engineer of Ray's albums). The song appears on Ray's 1982 album, Don't Laugh Now. This is the first time I've seen him perform the song and probably the only time it's been performed on television.

The episode of CabaRay Nashville airing on local PBS stations this weekend will be uploaded onto RayStevens.tv next weekend. That episode guest stars Gary Puckett. You know the routine by now...look for my recap/review of that episode next weekend sometime. I'm in the early adjustment stages of the time change. We lost an hour earlier this morning at 2am when we set our clocks ahead to 3am. As of this writing it's 7:25am Eastern time.

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