June 17, 2018

Ray Stevens performs "My Dad"...

Hello one and all on this Father's Day 2018! I was going to post about a particular Ray Stevens recording, "My Dad", and I already have a photo collage put together spotlighting the commercial and promotional single as well as the album it originally appeared on in 1983...a vinyl album titled Me. On Father's Days past I've mentioned "My Dad" on this blog page and this time around, as you can tell, it's no different. However, there is something new to add...a performance of the song by Ray Stevens! It's rare indeed to see Ray perform the song...and as far as I know the last time he performed it on television was the mid 1980s on a telecast that I've only read about in vintage country music publications but never seen with my own eyes. That performance (from 1984) was part of a television special featuring other recording acts.

"My Dad" emerged from an album Ray Stevens recorded for Mercury Records in 1983. The album is chock full of romantic ballads and uptempo sing-a-long performances...including a song that critics may consider a novelty song, "Game Show Love", but if critics should label it as such it's only because of the song's title and it's construction of lyrics (name dropping titles of game shows and their catch-phrases) but as far as the vocals are concerned Ray performs it straightforward without a slightest hint of comedy. It's the album's closing track and one of the uptempo songs I was referring to at the start of the paragraph. The album was produced by Ray and Jerry Kennedy. This was sort of a reunion as the two of them worked together in the early to mid 1960s on numerous recording sessions. Jerry was often a session musician on Ray Stevens recordings back then and sometimes he was credited as Orchestra leader. On the single release of "Ahab the Arab" in 1962 it credits Jerry Kennedy as such. Ray's main record producer was Shelby Singleton but both he and Jerry Kennedy are credited as producers on a series of recordings Ray did in the mid '60s while under a unique contract. The language of this contract gave Mercury the right to issue commercial recordings on Ray while he held another job with a competing label, Monument, as strictly a session musician/A&R man. In other words he wasn't allowed to record anything for Monument until his recording contract with Mercury ended in the latter half of 1965. After the contract ended with Mercury then Monument began to issue commercial singles on Ray for the first time.

Ray recorded "My Dad" twice in his career. There is the 1983 original from the Me album and then there's a fairly recent re-recording found on a CD titled Bozo's Back Again released in 2011. It's on that particular 2011 CD where Ray also revives a couple of other songs from the Me album: "Game Show Love", "Kings and Queens", and "Me".

Earlier today a performance of "My Dad" by Ray Stevens was uploaded onto YouTube. The performance is from an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television series. The performance originated from the television studio on Music Row where Ray used to tape the show prior to it's move to the actual CabaRay Showroom in West Nashville. Episodes taking place at the CabaRay began airing this season (starting with Episode Five guest starring Moe Bandy).

But anyway...here's Ray Stevens singing "My Dad"...


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