April 16, 2018

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...Jamie O'Neal

Hello to all the fans of Ray Stevens!! Well, I learned earlier this morning when I visited raystevens.tv that there have been some changes in the CabaRay Nashville presentation. For several weeks I've been mentioning that Season Six will mark the debut of episodes taped at the CabaRay Showroom but I found out that a couple of episodes taped during the Season Five sessions at Ray's Music Row location will kick off Season Six.

On the weekend of April 7th the episode guest starring Jamie O'Neal aired on local PBS stations and it was uploaded onto Ray's video site yesterday. That is when I discovered that her episode kicks off Season Six. I should have known because each season has 13 episodes...which meant Tony Orlando's episode was the final episode of Season Five if you're keeping track.

I've updated the episode list I previously posted in a couple of other blog entries to reflect the start of Season Six. I know that Mark Chesnutt's episode aired on local PBS stations this weekend (April 14th) and it'll be uploaded onto Ray's video site next weekend. This will be episode two of Season Six...and then the episodes taped at the CabaRay Showroom should start to air. As of this writing I have no chronological guest list for Season Six. Once a guest list is made available I'll edit this blog entry and fill in the rest of the season's line-up.

Season One: (January - March 2017)
1. Steve Wariner
2. Larry Gatlin
3. Bobby Bare
4. Don Schlitz
5. Charlie McCoy
6. Bobby Braddock
7. Jimmy Fortune
8. Aaron Tippin
9. John Conlee and Jeff Bates
10. Tanya Tucker and T.G. Sheppard
11. Gene Watson
12. James Gregory
13. Billy Dean

Season Two: (April - June 2017)
1. Bobby Goldsboro
2. T. Graham Brown and Suzi Ragsdale
3. Williams and Ree
4. Leroy Van Dyke
5. Bellamy Brothers
6. The Gatlin Brothers
7. Collin Raye
8. Darryl Worley and Lee Greenwood
9. Bill Anderson
10. Sylvia
11. Con Hunley
12. Jimmy Wayne
13. Reed Robertson

Season Three: (July - September 2017)
1. Harold Bradley and Mandy Barnett
2. Shenandoah
3. Michael W. Smith
4. B.J. Thomas
5. Rhonda Vincent
6. Restless Heart
7. John Michael Montgomery
8. Baillie and the Boys
9. Tommy Roe
10. Mark Wills
11. Duane Eddy
12. Angaleena Presley
13. Riders in the Sky

Season Four: (October - December 2017)
1. Rex Allen, Jr.
2. Lari White
3. Charley Pride
4. Janie Fricke (originally aired on RFD)
5. Gary Mule Deer
6. Gary Morris
7. John Berry
8. Jeannie Seely
9. Don McClean
10. Felix Cavaliere
11. Suzy Bogguss (originally aired on RFD)
12. Deborah Allen
13. New Year's Eve Cast Show

Season Five: (January - April 2018)
1. Ray Hildebrand
2. Steve Wariner (edited airing of the series debut episode)
3. Paul Overstreet
4. Daily and Vincent
5. Jenny Gill
6. Tracy Lawrence
7. Sam Moore
8. Wilson Fairchild
9. Deana Carter
10. Gary Puckett
11. John Rich
12. John Rich, Part Two
13. Tony Orlando

Season Six: (April - June 2018)
1. Jamie O'Neal
2. Mark Chesnutt (current episode as of this writing; I'll add the rest of the season's guests once they become available).

And so now...here's my recap of Jamie O'Neal's episode...

Ray opens the show performing his version of "Open the Door, Richard". He had recorded this for The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music but never mentioned this during his brief introduction/backstory about the song. Upon the conclusion of the song Ray mentions his early years in Nashville as a member of the A and R department of Mercury Records. He mentions that the guest on this week's episode also began her career at Mercury Records and by pure coincidence also worked in Mercury's A and R department. The initials stand for Artists and Repertoire...which basically means the person in charge of listening to songs, writing songs, or finding songs that he or she feels best fits a recording artist among a whole host of other functions.

Jamie mentions how much she loves classic/traditional country music and she name drops several legends such as Dolly Parton, Larry Gatlin, and Hank Williams. She mentions her birthplace being Sydney, Australia but at the age of five her family moved to the United States which Ray acknowledged is the reason she doesn't have an Australian accent. Ray brings up Hank Williams being universally recognized as a traditional country music icon and says he'll be performing one of Hank's songs later in the show but suggests that he and Jamie perform a duet rendition of Hank's "Hey, Good Lookin'".



After the duet performance Jamie tells of how she and her family used to do the county fair circuit opening for the headlining acts. Ray asks about her studio, which she said is nicknamed The Grotto, at the suggestion of her husband. She goes into detail about how much she loves the studio life but says that one of her dislikes is the audio mixing...saying she doesn't know how to do it. Ray asks about her record label, Momentum Label Group, of which she speaks about it's formation. He asks her to sing once again and she performs a song she said is brand new and hasn't been released called "Just Whiskey". Afterward she performs her signature hit, "There is No Arizona", a number one country hit for her in 2001.

Ray closes the show singing "Your Cheatin' Heart", the Hank Williams song he hinted at earlier in the show. As previously mentioned Mark Chesnutt was the special guest on this weekend's episode of CabaRay Nashville and once I see it next weekend on Ray's video site I'll write a recap of it. Episode three should take place at the CabaRay Showroom. Some of the guests on Season Six will be Moe Bandy, Mickey Dolenz, Lee Roy Parnell, and CeCe Winans...but as of this writing I don't know when their episodes are going to air.

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