Ray Stevens and Forty Four shades of Moonlight...

Blasting from the speakers with the pounding of a drum as it's introduction is "The Moonlight Special" by Ray Stevens...which hit this week in 1974. The recording was his follow-up to "The Streak", a particular hit recording which dominated the rest of the calendar year. Why do I say that? Well, even though that single ran up and ran down the charts really fast, it lingered on and was kept a top priority in the music press and articles written about Ray in general. Nevertheless a follow-up recording came along in the form of "The Moonlight Special" and in it Ray demonstrated his prowess at vocal mimicry...doing broad impressions of several high profile rock and pop acts of the era...including his impression of Wolfman Jack. Here's a brief synopsis of the program that Ray's spoofing...

The comedy/novelty song is a parody of a late night television program called The Midnight Special. This weekly series ran for eight years (1973-1981) on NBC following the Friday night episode of The Tonight Show on the national schedule. In those years the late night talk show ran 90 minutes (11:30pm - 1:00am) and after the airing of each Friday night episode, The Midnight Special would then air from 1am - 2:30am. The program's time slot changed when Johnny Carson asked/insisted that NBC cut the length of The Tonight Show from 90 to 60 minutes in 1980. During the last season of The Midnight Special (1980-1981) it aired from 12:30am - 2am. The series was typically hosted by a different rock/pop act each week (sometimes country music artists that had crossed over to pop radio also guest hosted). The narrator/announcer for the program was the longtime radio disc jockey, Wolfman Jack. Although he sometimes guest hosted the show he was never officially billed as it's host...but nevertheless his larger than life personality and his very distinctive voice was crucial to the program's success on late-night television. His XERF radio program, broadcast on a station with an incredible 250,000 watts, could be heard all over the United States at night and so that voice was very familiar to radio listeners by the time The Midnight Special debuted on television. It also helped that a movie, American Graffiti, premiered in August 1973...a film which featured Wolfman Jack in several scenes set at a fictional radio station.

By the time "The Moonlight Special" from Ray Stevens hit the market in the summer of 1974 the television series it was spoofing had already been on the air for a season...so it was still relatively new...and one could say the television show itself was considered something of a programming novelty. Network television typically signed off at midnight or not long after. NBC signed off at 1am following The Tonight Show, for example. There wasn't such a thing as 24 hour programming. "The Moonlight Special" took the overall feeling of the television program and condensed it into a comedy song of 3 minutes, 47 seconds. The song itself, as mentioned at the top of the blog entry, starts off with a rousing beat of the drum and then we hear Ray opening the song with a performance of what turns out to be the song's chorus (since those set of lyrics are heard a couple more times throughout the song). After he sets up the song he 'introduces' the host, The Sheepdog, a vocal parody of Wolfman Jack. Afterward the Sheepdog enthusiastically promotes the show he's hosting in a wild succession of adjectives that parody the style of AM rock music disc jockeys of the '60s and '70s. There are three rock and pop acts spotlighted on this parody. The first act to appear is Mildred Queen and the Dips which, to any student of rock/pop music or Top-40 radio in general, should easily be recognized as a spoof of the legendary Gladys Knight and the Pips group. The satire is spot-on as Ray/Mildred performs a series of lyrics while her back-up, the Dips, repeat in harmony. If you listen to Gladys Knight and the Pips after hearing this Ray Stevens song and you find yourself laughing, thinking back to "The Moonlight Special", then you're not alone.

The second act to appear on "The Moonlight Special" is a bit on the eccentric side. Agnes Stupor and His Chickens sings a far out, ridiculous song with zany, bizarre lyrics. The shrilling, funky music accompanying Stupor's performance is something one might expect to hear in a darkened night club at the height of Woodstock. It's an elaborate parody of Alice Cooper, a shock rock entertainer that used all kinds of horror movie related props in his stage shows and often utilized snakes in his act. As a child of the '80s I only knew of Alice Cooper for a particular music video my two older sisters loved watching on MTV. I was and still am a country music fan...although in my late teen years and into early adulthood I branched out and started listening to classic rock music (branded as Oldies)...but because my two sisters are the oldest they controlled the television, more or less, back then. The song played heavily was "Poison". It wasn't until the late '90s...early 2000s...that I learned of Alice Cooper's history which meant that even though I was aware of "The Moonlight Special" I had no idea who Agnes Stupor was a parody of when I first heard the song. The third and final act to receive spotlight on "The Moonlight Special" is another spectacular parody...this time around it's a parody of piano playing legend Jerry Lee Lewis. The performance is not only spot-on as far as Ray's intentional piano pounding emulating the style associated with Jerry Lee Lewis but the fictional act's name is a parody, too. The performer goes by the name of Jerry Joe Harry Lee Jimmy Billy! Since he's the closing 'act' of "The Moonlight Special" he's considered the main attraction and The Sheepdog refers to him as the king of the rock and roll piano in the introduction.

The song concludes as Sheepdog thanks the people for tuning in and reminding them to tune in the next week for more excitement. The song fades out as Sheepdog howls...and throughout the song Sheepdog howled many times during his introductions and commentary about the performers. The single, as mentioned, hit this week in 1974 on Billboard's pop chart. It debuted July 27, 1974 and remained on the chart for 7 weeks. It's last appearance being September 7, 1974. The single inexplicably stalled midway up the pop chart. I say inexplicably because, to me, the subject matter being spoofed wasn't something obscure...it should have been embraced more at radio for the spot-on, accurate spoof of The Midnight Special that it was and therefore should have hit the Top-40, but it could have also been promoted more, too.

Research indicates that there was next to no publicity. Whether this was by design or whether it was from careless neglect on the part of a promotional team at the label it's anybody's guess...though I don't think it had anything to do with the former...but more to do with the latter...a publicity department still clinging to the massive sales success of "The Streak" from several months earlier. Regardless of why the single stalled on the charts, "The Moonlight Special" remains of one Ray Stevens greatest comical performances.

Ray Stevens and the Music Mile...

Do I have some exciting news to share on this blog entry this afternoon or what?? I don't know when the news broke but I just returned from running errands and got on the computer when I arrived home to find out that next month (August 21st) Ray Stevens is going to be among the entertainers being enshrined on the Music City Walk of Fame. The ceremony is set to take place at 11:30am Central time and it's free to the public. You can read about the event by clicking HERE. The attraction is situated at a park...when you enter you'll see the sign that reads Music City Walk of Fame Park. It's nestled within a very busy area of Nashville. You have 5th Avenue South and 4th Avenue South on either side and the you have what's referred to locally as Music Mile which it shares with Demonbreun Street. I mention that because Music Mile may not show up on GPS devices should anyone from out of the area plan on attending the ceremony. Looking at the maps of downtown Nashville, directly across from the Walk of Fame is the Country Music Hall of Fame. Also within walking distance is Bridgestone Arena. My brother and I went to Nashville back on March 1st and if you don't have GPS or have some sort of idea of where you're going it can be a little overwhelming...so if you plan on attending and you're not from the area the official address of the Music City Walk of Fame Park is: 121 4th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37203. The other entertainers receiving their Star on the Music City Walk of Fame on August 21st are Jeannie Seely, Brenda Lee, and Ben Folds.

Next week...on August 1st...Ray Stevens is scheduled to appear as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry. Tickets for Wednesday night's Opry presentation can be purchased HERE.

Ray Stevens: Comical Curb appeal...

It's something of a contagious pattern I've been on lately...looking back on the prolific career of Ray Stevens and spotlighting his music from the various record labels he recorded for over the decades. The one label that seemed to appreciate having Ray on it's roster was Curb Records. Yes, I know that Ray's career goes back to the late 1950s and he had success on every label he recorded for starting with Mercury Records in the early '60s but when I say I feel Curb appreciated Ray being on their roster I mean it from a distribution stand point...they issued numerous products on Ray throughout much of the 1990s and then, after his brief return to MCA (1996-1998), Curb began releasing material from Ray once again in the early 2000s...and this second run with Curb lasted into mid decade. The first release by Curb Records on Ray came in the form of His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits in the summer of 1990. This collection has since been certified Gold by the RIAA for 500,000 copies sold. As a testament to the enduring popularity of his 1984 hit, "It's Me Again, Margaret", Curb placed the publicity photo advertising that song on the album's cover. His first studio album for Curb arrived a couple of months later, Lend Me Your Ears. Photo sessions took place at Nashville's Centennial Park at the replica of The Parthenon. The album's title has a double reference. Visually it's a parody of Marc Antony from the Julius Cesar play, a character who made a speech in that play using the phrase 'lend me your ears', but the title also requests music consumers to purchase the album as in "lend me your ears...take a listen to my latest album...". Two music videos, "Sittin' Up With the Dead" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", emerged in 1990. They were a foreshadowing of things to come. Prior to those music video releases he had previously issued "Surfin' U.S.S.R." (1988) and "Santa Claus is Watching You" (1985) as music videos. The 1990 studio album also features "Barbecue" and "This Ain't Exactly What I Had in Mind"...which would later become animated music videos more than 10 years later.

Early in 1991 Curb issued a newly recorded version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" from Ray. He had previously recorded the song for his 1989 album on MCA, Beside Myself. This 1991 re-recording for Curb kept the same chorus and music arrangement of the 1989 recording but the opening verse was different. This alternate take on "There's a Star Spangled Banner" was placed on the 1991 Greatest Hits compilation that Curb issued early in 1991. It's in panel two in the above collage. That compilation is deliberately heavy on serious, ballad recordings considering the fact that Curb's first project on Ray happened to be an all-comical compilation release. The only comical recordings on the 1991 hits album is 1987's "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" and 1969's "Along Came Jones". By the time Ray's second studio album for Curb came along construction had well been underway in Branson, Missouri for the opening of The Ray Stevens Theatre. This theater opened in 1991...becoming one of the most visited venues in the Ozarks during the summer tourist season...and his studio album arrived in the form of #1 With a Bullet.

Two recordings were promoted as singles from that release. "Working for the Japanese" hit the charts and looked as if it could've had something of a decent chart life but then, out of the blue, radio programmers began removing it from their playlists as it was gaining momentum. So, yes, it was totally unfair to Ray and everyone involved behind the scenes...to play a song and then to pull it from the airwaves on the basis of perceived 'offensive overtones' is actually offensive in itself. Nevertheless it's one of my favorite songs that Ray recorded. The second single release arrived early in 1992, "Power Tools", which is actually the lead-off track on the album. Ironic that the first single from the album is the final track but the follow-up is the lead-off track. The 1991 studio album would be re-visited by Ray several times in the coming years. "You Gotta Have a Hat", while not officially promoted as a single, became a popular song in his concerts at the Branson theater in the early '90s due to it being a comment on the Hat Acts in country music at the time. "Tabloid News", a song that I always thought would make a great music video, hasn't become a music video but pieces of the song have become catchphrases among Ray's fans. A partial music video happened to emerge, though, on one of the VHS home videos. The sketch/video is referred to as the National Supermarket Checkout Examiner which, by the way, is the fictional name of the tabloid Ray sings about in the song. "Power Tools" and "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens" would eventually become animated music videos more than a decade later.

Ray's original run with Curb Records (1990-1996) coincided with his meteoric rise in Branson, Missouri along side a phenomenal series of VHS home video projects released through his own label, Clyde Records, and advertised through mail order by way of television commercials and print ads. I'm not going to touch on the VHS releases too much because those were strictly the product of his own label and weren't associated with Curb Records but I'll offer the commentary that those VHS projects more or less reinvented the career of Ray Stevens and with hundreds of thousands of sales (we're talking Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum certifications in the world of home video) but with those kinds of sales numbers for home video products in the early to mid 1990s he logically began to shift more of his focus away from audio recording and more into video marketing. Print advertisements for the VHS projects appeared in a variety of daily and weekly newspapers and I even seen an ad for one of the home video's in an issue of TV Guide. That goes to show you how far reaching the impact of those home videos were and the effort put into the marketing. The phenomenal success of those VHS home videos, coupled with the success of his Branson theater, it's easy to see why a new studio album from Ray Stevens wouldn't arrive until 1993 (roughly two years after the release of 1991's #1 With a Bullet).

The third studio album on Curb Records from Ray is Classic Ray Stevens from 1993. As you can see from the album's cover art it's a reference to classical music...complete with a bust of Ray sitting on top of the piano next to a rose and violin. The sheet music reads 'Concerto for Cornball' if I'm remembering correctly. Oh yes...I'm so detailed that I wanted to find out what was written on the sheet music way back when I first purchased the album. Anyway...this studio album has long been misidentified on so many websites as a compilation album due to it's title. If you visit an on-line music store Classic Ray Stevens is usually placed in the section labeled as compilation or greatest hits and it rarely appears among the albums in the studio album discographies of Ray Stevens found on those on-line music stores. Some sites refer to compilation albums as a sampler...and I've found Classic Ray Stevens listed/described as a sampler...it goes without saying but this sort of thing causes music consumers to assume that the songs on that album had all been previously released at some point. Songs from the 1993 album that became popular among his fans include: "Super Cop", "The Motel Song", and the lead-off track, "If Ten Percent Is Good Enough for Jesus". The lead-off track, ironically, became a much bigger hit for Ray nearly 20 years later (!!) when it was re-recorded and then, ultimately, released as an on-line music video in 2010. The video is a concert performance of the song from The Welk Theater. After the release and subsequent promotion of Classic Ray Stevens the remainder of Ray's time with Curb Records was filled out with a couple of non-studio projects. It was also, in 1993, the year that Ray closed down his Branson, Missouri theater. The closing came as a shock, obviously, to fans and probably the Chamber of Commerce and tourist companies as well. The venue had been a constant success for three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993) where he performed two shows a day for six days a week during the summer tourist seasons. However, as Ray pointed out in subsequent interviews, the idea of having a theater backfired on him simply because of the pace he was working...it became exhaustive. He never felt having a theater was a terrible idea and he loved the performance aspect but he often remarked in interviews that if he would ever re-open his theater he'd not carry such a demanding workload of 2 shows a day, 6 days a week again. Curb Records issued an audio version of Ray Stevens Live! in 1995.

One of their other releases that year happened to be something of a retrospective of his time with the label titled 20 Comedy Hits. It features 20 songs...four of the songs are classics from the 1970s, one is the performance of "Shriner's Convention" from the Ray Stevens Live! VHS and CD, while the remaining fifteen songs come from his three studio albums for Curb Records. This was followed by Great Gospel Songs in 1996. That compilation was a collection of gospel recordings Ray did in the early 1970s and originally found on the 1972 album, Turn Your Radio On. The 1996 project tacked on a couple of additional songs from his Everything is Beautiful album from 1970. As a teenager just out of high school in the mid '90s and no access to vinyl or turntables or the early years of the internet it was a goldmine of an album, Great Gospel Songs. My personal collection of Ray Stevens items at that time was nothing to write home about. I had a lot of his cassette tapes and the VHS projects but nothing on vinyl...I didn't even know the names of any of his albums prior to 1984 at that point in time. It was only after I began corresponding with Ray's office staff via letter writing that I was sent a discography of his studio albums from 1962 to the present...but anyway...following the release of Great Gospel Songs in 1996 he left Curb Records. A home video mail order project he released in 1995 would become available in retail stores in the latter half of 1996 and distributed by MCA, the label he recorded for during the latter half of the 1980s (1984-1989).

Ray would release two studio albums for MCA in 1997 before exiting the label the following year. After several years being represented by his own label, Clyde, Ray found himself on Curb Records for a second time in 2001 under the most tragic reasons imaginable. On September 11, 2001 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York. Several other hijacked planes crashed en route to other destinations on 9/11. The man behind these attacks was identified as Osama bin Laden. The wave of patriotism that swept across America in the weeks and months after 9/11 was something I'd never seen before. Country music, more than any other genre, helped in the healing process by performing songs...many focusing around 9/11...and many of these recordings were also used for charitable causes. Ray added a comical contribution with "Osama Yo' Mama" toward the end of 2001. It was released as a single-only backed with his rendition of "United We Stand". In the collage's above I provided an image of the single release and the album release. The artwork for each release is the same...only difference being is the 10 song album has a banner behind the illustration of Ray that reads The Album. The single release became a sales success throughout the latter half of 2001 and well into 2002. It charted on Billboard's Country Single Sales chart for half a year and was certified Gold. The 2002 album contained 7 recordings from 2000 that had previously appeared on a Clyde Records release, Ear Candy, in addition to "Osama Yo' Mama" and "United We Stand" from late 2001. The only recording not previously released was "Freudian Slip". In discographies his 2002 project is listed as Osama Yo' Mama: The Album. Curb later re-released "United We Stand" as a CD single backed with "Everything Is Beautiful" in 2002.

One of the things Curb began doing in 2002 is re-issuing previously released projects from Ray that he did for other record labels. One of those happened to be a DVD release of his 1992 VHS project, Comedy Video Classics. The release came a full decade after it's original debut and this lead Curb into distributing 2003's Complete Comedy Video Collection. That particular title was originally released on Clyde Records in 2003 but when it was released on Curb Records in 2004 a couple of music videos were added and one was omitted. The 2003 version contains 20 music videos which include "Thank You" and "Hello Mama" referred to on the packaging as Bonus Videos. The Curb Records release in 2004 features 21 music videos. "Santa Claus is Watching You", found on the Clyde Records release in 2003, is replaced with "Power Tools". An additional bonus video is added in the form of "Osama Yo' Mama". On the packaging it's referred to as an Extra Bonus. The release on Curb includes small lettering on the lower left hand side which reads DVD Video. The version released on Clyde Records lacks that feature. Another big story in the career of Ray Stevens at this point in time happened to be the announcement that he was re-opening his Branson, Missouri theater. He re-opened the theater in 2004 for another three season run (2004, 2005, and 2006). In 2005 Curb re-issued Ray's 1990 and 1991 studio albums in CD format. When Ray put together a 3-CD project called Box Set he released it on Clyde Records in 2005. Curb picked up the distribution early in 2006. The collection features a wide array of recordings by Ray from the 1990s and into the 2000s. It includes his early '90s re-recordings of songs like "The Streak", "Ahab the Arab", "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", etc. etc. The recordings of those songs found on Box Set were lifted from his music videos. The material he recorded for Curb and for his own label, Clyde, during the 1990s and 2000s are original. Box Set also features exclusive recordings not found anywhere else...such as "Driver's Education", "Kitty Cat's Revenge", "Family Funeral Fight", and several others. The following month Curb issued two DVD projects on Ray. Gourmet Restaurant and Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens feature limited animation music videos of several of Ray's previous recordings. Each DVD contains five animated videos.

Are you curious about panel two in the above collage? It's a CD single from 2006 titled "The New Battle of New Orleans" written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which Curb issued as a CD-only release. The song was originally written in it's entirety by Chuck Redden and his version can be found on-line. Ray and songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, partially rewrote the song by removing original lyrics and replacing them with different ones. The original is a strong R-rated composition with heavy criticisms aimed at local and national politicians but Ray and Buddy reconstructed the song. Following the summer 2006 tourist season Ray closed down his Branson theater for good and eventually sold it to RFD television. The company uses the facility to showcase their own stage productions...heavily promoted on their television network, of course. The third panel in the above collage is a photo of Ray holding one of his Comedian of the Year trophies. Ray was named Comedian of the Year by the readers of Music City News magazine for 9 consecutive years (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994).

In 2008 Curb issued a budget priced Greatest Hits compilation on Ray sub-titled 50th Anniversary Collection. This project featured some of the re-recorded versions of several of his big hits originally found on the Box Set. The 2008 CD also features "Osama Yo' Mama" released earlier in the decade. Oddly enough the packaging of the CD had a release featuring two different head shots of Ray. In spite of the different cutouts of Ray on each CD both releases features the same songs. It's anybody's guess why Curb issued the compilation with two different images of Ray. Curb would then re-issue a couple of previously released CD's in early 2009. Hum It was originally released by MCA in 1997. It was the studio album that Ray released after he and Curb parted ways in 1996. Curb issued 1997's Hum It in Mp3 Digital Download format in April 2009 along with Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?, a CD that Ray originally issued on his Clyde Records label a year earlier in 2008. Following the distribution of those two projects in 2009 Ray and Curb Records parted ways for a second time. As one can clearly see the bulk of his time with Curb Records was largely spent in the realm of comedy video and DVD releases...more so during his second run with the label. Also, I find it interesting, that during both stints with Curb Records he found himself headlining his Branson, Missouri theater.

After parting company with Curb Records in 2009 Ray hasn't recorded for a major label since. Later on in the year he released a certain music video on-line via the hosting site, YouTube...and in closing I'd like to say some things about that music video because of it's major impact on Ray's career and the direction it took over the next several years (2010-2013).

That music video, "We The People", eventually spread like wildfire (this sort of thing was coined as 'going viral') and much like the mail order/direct market television commercials from the early '90s reinvented his career as a mogul of VHS home video this 2009 YouTube music video reinvented his career as an internet music video star...and for the next several years he created exclusive video content that he would upload on his YouTube channel. The exposure that these topically driven on-line videos received not only reinvented his career (cynics/critics referred to it as pandering) but it actually introduced him to thousands upon thousands of people who would otherwise have no idea who he was...so he was reaching audiences in ways he otherwise wouldn't have...and all this on-line exposure and discovery coming after more than 50 years as a recording artist.

Suffice it to say 2010 became the biggest year for Ray Stevens, as far as high profile coverage was concerned, since 2002 and he did it all without the aid of any major record label help or radio station airplay. Since 2010 Ray continued to release on-line music video content and occasionally he would release audio CDs...and even though the internet videos brought him a wave of exposure it was nothing like the exposure he'd later receive after jumping into television headfirst with a weekly music series...first airing on RFD-TV and then locally syndicated on PBS stations across the country. His CabaRay showroom opened in January of this year in West Nashville. This showroom has an even more spectacular design than the theater he owned and performed at in Branson and this time around he's working at a more relaxed pace...only two shows a week (Friday and Saturday nights). The television series is recorded in batches during marathon taping sessions a couple times a year...much like the production of Hee Haw (1969-1993) and Larry's Country Diner...and as a tie in with the title of this blog entry I'd say the CabaRay has tremendous curb appeal...and the interior is just as spectacular.

Ray Stevens CabaRay: Jerry Reed Tribute...

Hello once again...it's been kind of a busy week off-line for me and the weekend seemed like the perfect time to put together another fan created blog entry about Ray Stevens. During this past week a couple of things have appeared on-line that I'm finally getting around to spotlighting in this blog. The first is the announcement that the CabaRay will be the setting for an upcoming tribute to Jerry Reed. It's set to take place in a couple of months. The specific date is September 5th at 7:30pm Central Time. You can find out information about the CabaRay, including street address, by clicking HERE. I am familiar with a lot of Jerry Reed's recordings and I know of his association with Ray Stevens but I was not aware that there's been an annual tribute show for Jerry Reed that's taken place in September for the last several years. The one taking place this year is billed as the 7th annual Jerry Reed Tribute. I'm sure most of you are familiar with quite a few of his songs: "Amos Moses", "Tupelo Mississippi Flash", "When You're Hot, You're Hot", "She Got the Goldmine I Got the Shaft", "You Took All the Rambling Out of Me", "Lord, Mr. Ford", "Another Puff", "Texas Bound and Flying", "Crude Oil Blues", and the massive "East Bound and Down".

On one of the recent episodes of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville entitled Tribute Show there was a segment in which Ray spoke of his longtime friendship with Jerry Reed (which included teenage recording sessions under the guidance of Bill Lowery in the late 1950s) and Ray sang "When You're Hot, You're Hot". In case you're wondering this Tribute Show is Episode Nine of Season Six. As most people also know in addition to his singing career Jerry also had an acting career and was a wizard on a guitar (although his stage presence and personality often overshadowed his guitar prowess). You can purchase tickets to the Jerry Reed Tribute at the CabaRay by clicking HERE. I'm sure Ray is going to take part in this...it's at his showroom, after all, and both he and Jerry Reed were friends. In the late '70s and in the early '80s a lot of the television specials that Jerry took part in as host or co-host often included Ray as a guest and I think in some instances it was Jerry Reed's insistence on getting Ray on those programs. Ray even had a cameo appearance in one of Jerry's movies, Concrete Cowboys. There was a 1979 country music television special that Jerry hosted and one of the guests was Ray Stevens. Jerry introduced Ray and spoke of their long association...referring to Ray as a genius and saying he's "crazier than I am...". Ray performed "Freddie Feelgood" and "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

Back on July 17th (this past Tuesday) this photo of Ray Stevens appeared out of the blue on his social media sites with a caption that read: "Ray doing what he does best". There was nothing else said about the photo and there wasn't any sort of follow-up post of any kind to indicate the purpose of it appearing...but it nonetheless has caused a lot of his fans (myself included) to speculate that perhaps there's some sort of new CD in the works or perhaps there's going to be a release of a CD that's long been in production and is just now ready to be released. That's initially what the overall feeling is concerning the photo. There's also the possibility that there's no hidden message about the photo and that it was posted simply because they wanted to post it. He's wearing a hat and I recognize it from photo sessions a couple of years ago but, still, that doesn't take away from the photo appearing from out of nowhere on a Tuesday afternoon and the reason (if any) behind it. Now, in addition to the announcement of the upcoming Jerry Reed Tribute at the CabaRay and this mysterious photo, there was also a nice video upload advertising the gift shop at the CabaRay. I attended a concert at the showroom back on March 1st of this year. The gift shop was open but you could tell that it was still in it's infant stage because there were several neatly stacked boxes over in a corner which may have contained items that had yet to be put on display. Looking at the video clip how I wish I would've attended a concert at some later date...the gift shop looks packed with more items than how I remember it in person. When I attended a concert there the showroom had only been open to the public for a month (it opened in late January 2018 and my concert was March 1st) and with this being late July it's officially been open for half a year.

Ray Stevens and the abc's of RCA...

Hello one and all...as I made mention in a previous blog entry the current season of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television series wrapped up a couple of weekends ago and so most of my blog entries are going to be more along the lines of the kind I used to do before I began devoting most of my time to writing reviews and comments of his television program.

A couple of blog entries ago I wrote about Ray's under-rated stay at Warner Brothers Records in the late 1970s (1976 through 1979) and I revealed a collage that I created revolving around his music of that period. You can read that blog by clicking HERE. I posted it back on July 10th but it's something that I'm going to periodically refer to from now on because of my desire to spotlight those recordings to anybody that visits this fan created blog page.

Although I don't really need to remind anyone I'll go ahead and do so for any new readers that come across the blog:

I celebrate/spotlight all areas of Ray Stevens career. I also take pride in the fact that I offer accurate, fact based information when it comes to albums, music videos, or appearances from both the past and present by Ray Stevens. I also never marginalize any aspect of his career. There are some music historians and music fans, in general, that only blog about the widely known aspects of Ray's career and offer very little else about him or they offer partially accurate information due to sloppy research. I came across a discography of Ray Stevens from some website...it was an image taken from one of those music guide books...that discography had more skips than a well worn vinyl album. Albums were omitted and some had the wrong year of release. Sloppy...sloppy...need I type it again? Sloppy!

But let's move along to the subject of this particular blog entry. I call it the abc's of RCA and I title it as such because I'm going to shift some focus onto his RCA recordings in the early 1980s. I've written on this subject before...my older blog entries indicate as much...but I like to update my commentary and revisit past subjects rather than let previous thoughts and analysis rest in the archives. These RCA recordings were on the heels of the under-rated Warner Brothers recordings and like the recordings on that label his RCA material is rarely, if ever, available for purchase in any detailed quantity.

The RCA years in the career timeline of Ray Stevens cover 1979 to 1983. Ray signed with RCA in the latter half of 1979 and he went to work on his first album for the label...the results surfaced very early in 1980 in the form of the single, "Shriner's Convention", in February. The comedy album, Shriner's Convention, surfaced as well. The single and the album both hit the Country Top-10. I have a vinyl copy of the 1980 album in addition to the cassette release. The single received a lot of publicity in various country music trade magazines of the time period and given that the song and album were devoted to comedy (his first comedy album in 6 years) it forever more cemented his image as a comedy/novelty act among country music consumers. Around the same time that "Shriner's Convention" was hitting in America RCA issued one of the tracks from the album as an international single. "Hey There" was issued as a single in Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany, and in the Netherlands. That single's B-side is "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me" which is also the B-side of "Shriner's Convention". I've never been able to find any chart data on "Hey There"...no data on chart statistics or what month the single was released...but there are plenty of images of the single available on-line and I'll post one of those images later in the blog entry.

Anyway, upon the fast climbing success of "Shriner's Convention", just as in times past, whenever Ray saw success with a comical project he'd almost immediately distance himself from it and return to serious, non-comedy recordings. After the meteoric success of "Shriner's Convention" and everything that came with it early in 1980 he ultimately began work on a serious follow-up. In the fall of 1980 Ray emerged with "Night Games". Sufficient enough time had lapsed between the release of the rollicking "Shriner's Convention" in February and "Night Games" in August. Ray performed "Night Games" on a 1980 television special honoring his long time friend and sometimes business associate, Chet Atkins. On this same television special he and Chet performed a rendition of "Frog Kissing" which Chet had a hit with in 1976. Ray produced, arranged, and published the recording session. In the era of the Urban Cowboy fad "Night Games" told the story of life in singles bars and the relationships that form in darkness but often vanish in the light of day. The song climbed into the Top-20 on the country music chart.

The B-side of "Night Games" is a love ballad called "Let's Do it Right This Time". Each of these recordings, from the pen of Buddy Kalb, appear on Ray's 1981 album, One More Last Chance.

As you see in the above collage in panel two Ray is dressed in cowboy attire with an alluring woman at his side. On the back of the album Ray appears in a casual shirt and wearing the cowboy hat that the alluring woman is wearing on the front of the album. I have the album on vinyl but not in cassette which is why there isn't a photo of myself and a cassette version. Prior to the release of his 1981 album, however, the title track was issued as a single in January 1981 and it eventually became a Top-40 hit on the country charts. "One More Last Chance" is a super recording...stellar use of steel guitar and electric guitar...and you've heard songs referred to before as a lover's plea...well, this one is a highly emotional lover's plea. So much was put into the production...it's also a lengthy recording. There are numerous lengthy recordings on this 1981 album...it's ballad heavy...but some are kind of uptempo but still lengthy. The B-side of "One More Last Chance" is "I Believe You Love Me".

It is such a great album and, for me, it remains a mystery as to why no further single releases or publicity arrived for the rest of the calendar year concerning the One More Last Chance album. If you were at the movies in the summer of 1981 you no doubt heard Ray singing on The Cannonball Run movie. He sang the theme song, "Cannonball", and a love ballad, "Just for the Hell of It". The movie opened in theaters on June 19, 1981. Prior to this he appeared on the soap opera, Texas, and performed "One More Last Chance" on camera. It's credited on-line as episode 217...the original air-date being June 10, 1981. So, no, it wasn't like 1981 was a bleak year or anything in his career. What turned out to be Ray's final studio album for RCA arrived early in 1982 in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This album was far less ballad heavy and it also represented some changes on the technical side. Ray enlisted a co-producer, Bob Montgomery, and on several recordings the arranger was Ron Oates. On practically every studio album by Ray Stevens dating back to 1970 Ray is credited as both producer and arranger...and the keyboard/piano/organ/synthesizer player.

On this album Ron Oates is credited with keyboards and is the credited arranger of "This Old Piano", "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love", and the album's first single, "Written Down in My Heart". Ray is credited as the arranger on the other seven recordings. The neon-like cover art in the lettering seen on the vinyl copy ties into the '50s era rock and roll feel of the album's lead-off track, "Such a Night", along side the abundance of electric guitars heard throughout the album. Yet, "Written Down in My Heart" is a soothing love ballad with just a few touches of electric guitar. The single hit the country music Top-40 in early 1982...the B-side is the mid-tempo "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". The last single RCA released on Ray appeared in the spring of 1982, "Where the Sun Don't Shine". This sing-a-long carries a southern gospel overtone in the music arrangement but the lyrics offer a humorous story about a man leaving a woman and offering parting advice in the form of the song's title. It made the country music charts but didn't crack the Top-40. Ray remained an RCA recording artist, contractually, into 1983.

The company released a Greatest Hits compilation on him that year which was comprised almost entirely of recordings of Ray from Monument Records and Barnaby Records (covering the years 1968 to 1975) but it tacked on two recordings from his 1980 debut album for RCA. "Shriner's Convention" and the album track, "The Dooright Family", appeared on the 1983 compilation. In hindsight RCA should have included the six single releases from Ray during his brief stay on RCA and then filled the remainder of the album with older songs but instead there are only two RCA recordings on 1983's Greatest Hits. "Hey There", interestingly, is never included on any compilation album even though we all can clearly see it was released as a commercial single but yet the equally hilarious recording, "The Dooright Family", which was never released as a commercial single, has long become prominent on several compilation albums. Ray even produced a music video of the song in 1995...so it's gained a reputation among fans as being a 'hit' song in spite of it never being commercially released as a single.

After Ray's RCA contract ended he went over to the Mercury label for one album (1983's Me) and then he signed with MCA about midway into 1984. During his stay at the label he enjoyed much sales success for the rest of the decade as he embraced the comical image he had tried so valiantly to distance himself from for pretty much his entire career up to that point.

RCA, in the meantime, released a compilation in 1985 called Collector's Series. A brief overview of Ray's time with the label...it features eight recordings chosen seemingly at random...from his three studio albums for the label. This title would be re-issued in 1987 with a slight change in song selection. In the 1985 copy it includes his 1981 hit, "One More Last Chance". In the re-issue in 1987 that song is omitted and replaced by the non-hit, but comical "Put It In Your Ear" from the 1980 Shriner's Convention album. I have the 1985 vinyl and cassette copy of Collector's Series.

I used to have the 1987 re-issue on cassette but the tape was eaten by a malfunctioning player. The image in the fourth panel in the collage is the CD copy of the 1987 release of Collector's Series. Even though this eight song RCA compilation provides only material from his RCA period in each release (1985 and 1987) each one omits a couple hit songs: "Night Games" and "Written Down in My Heart"...but because it spotlights the RCA recordings and since no other compilation that's come along features as many I consider Collector's Series an essential purchase for fans looking for early '80s recordings by Ray Stevens. The next best thing is seeking out his vinyl albums from that time period. Those vinyl albums are: Shriner's Convention (1980); One More Last Chance (1981); and Don't Laugh Now (1982).

Here are the commercial singles, year of release, and catalog number for Ray Stevens on RCA:

"Shriner's Convention"; 1980 PB-11911
"Hey There"; 1980 PB-9525
"Night Games"; 1980 PB-12069
"One More Last Chance"; 1981 PB-12170
"Written Down In My Heart"; 1982 PB-13038
"Where the Sun Don't Shine"; 1982 PB-13207

Ray Stevens CabaRay Billboard...

Hello one and all...I've been dealing with some personal happenings off-line and so I hadn't had a chance to add a recent blog entry until now. This one will not be too lengthy as it's mostly going to spotlight a couple of things pertaining to the Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom. Several weeks ago a new billboard was unveiled along the highway advertising Ray's showroom.

Isn't it a sight to behold?? The image is clickable! Anyway...there happened to have been a billboard advertisement in the past which also cross promoted his PBS television series, CabaRay Nashville. That particular billboard highlighted the program's airing on NPT (Nashville Public Television). I have the image of that billboard saved on my computer and statistics show that the billboard appeared on-line for the first time in the summer of 2017. If many of you remember it was the summer of last year when Ray had hoped to have the CabaRay open to the public but the actual grand opening didn't take place until this past January. In the opening couple of months Ray appeared at the showroom nearly every night (except for Sunday). I attended a concert there on March 1st...my first ever trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Since then he's operated the showroom as a weekend destination (Friday and Saturday) and within the last month it became sort of the unofficial home of Larry Black's long running television series...episodes of Larry's Country Diner have recently began taping at the showroom. The showroom is located off I-40 in West Nashville. It's physical street address is 5724 River Road. If you use GPS or MapQuest in your road travels here is the information you'll obviously need:

Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom
5724 River Road
Nashville, TN 37209
(615) 327-4630

The Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom is, of course, one of the recent destination spots for tourists and music fans alike in Nashville but the longest running destination would be the Grand Ole Opry. Ray guest starred on the Opry last week (July 3rd)...billed as the Tuesday Night Opry. WSM radio has aired the Opry since it's debut in 1925 and it's on WSM's website where you can find archives of relatively recent Opry broadcasts. Last Tuesday's broadcast is now on-line and I've provided an audio link. This is a link to the full 2 hour show. If you only want to hear Ray's portion of the show then you'll need to start playing the clip at the 43 minute, 55 second mark. Bill Cody reads a commercial for the CabaRay (since it's the sponsor of Ray's portion of the show) and then he introduces Ray to a thunderous reception. You can listen to the broadcast of the July 3rd episode by clicking HERE.

Here's a larger image of the billboard I opened the blog entry with...

My largest Ray Stevens Collage...

Hello all once again!! A very early Sunday morning here as I write another fan created Ray Stevens blog entry. There hasn't been any updates over on WSM's website in their Opry archive section and so, as of this writing, I don't have any audio link to provide of Ray's July 3rd guest appearance. In my previous blog post I made mention that I already had the idea of what this blog entry would be about and so I'm unveiling what could possibly be my largest Ray Stevens collage. I make collage's for pure enjoyment and to spotlight albums, single releases, or photo's of Ray over the years...often I add photo's of myself showing off whatever I might be writing about.

After I finished writing a recent blog entry about some of the compilation albums that have been issued on Ray Stevens I got the idea to try and put together a collage of nothing but Ray Stevens on Warner Brothers Records. This would cover the years 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 in his career timeline. What I did was I gathered up images of his vinyl studio albums from those years and I gathered up images of his single releases from those years on the label and I put them all together in a collage. I didn't concern myself with whether or not the single release I chose to place on the collage was from the U.S. or the international market but I did attempt to arrange everything in chronological order.

If you're long time readers of this fan created blog page then you should be very aware of how much I champion Ray's music and career, in general, but then I often give heightened coverage to his Warner Brothers recordings. A lot of it has to do with my personal feelings given my enjoyment of the songs he recorded but also what drives my focus is how under-rated that era of his career generally is and so after I began this fan created blog nearly 10 years ago I took it upon myself to spotlight his late '70s material at any opportunity. In a lot of the compilation albums that were issued on Ray Stevens over the decades (from the mid '80s onward) and then in the ones that appeared later in the 1980s and especially the 1990s there tended to be a pattern of covering an abundance of his Monument and Barnaby recordings (specifically the years 1968 through 1975) while more or less skipping over Warner Brothers (1976-1979) and RCA (1980-1982) except for a couple of novelty recordings for each of the two labels. I may do one of these collage projects spotlighting his RCA recordings but for now here's the one I did spotlighting his Warner Brothers era:

Now, I know this is way too small for anyone to actually see the writing on the albums and the single releases but you can click the image for a somewhat larger view. Anyway...this is probably...well, actually, it is the largest Ray Stevens collage I've created. In his three years with Warner Brothers he recorded four studio albums and one compilation album. The compilation album arrived in 1979 to cover the years 1976, 1977, and 1978 but it also featured his hit, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", from earlier in the year which up to that point was only available as a vinyl single. The 1979 album is the fifth one in the collage off to the left (the first panel in row two). If you are familiar with Barry Manilow then you should see the comical connection in art work. Barry's 1975 album had a similar cover design and letter font and the name of his album that year was Trying to Get the Feeling whereas Ray's album in 1979 is titled The Feeling's Not Right Again (named after a song on Ray's previous studio album in 1978). I also added a comparison image of the single release of Ray's recording next to the cover design of Barry Manilow's second studio album. I have almost all of Ray's studio albums on vinyl and I have a vinyl copy of the "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" single but my copy doesn't feature the picture sleeve. My copy, which I bought on-line, arrived in a plain paper sleeve. I've seen auctions on eBay for the single and it's picture sleeve but those, obviously, were always out of my price range and so I opted for the cheaper alternative. I wanted the vinyl single anyway...not having the picture sleeve didn't change my feelings concerning the actual song. As you see in the collage there are five images of vinyl albums, 2 comparable cover art depictions, and eight single recordings. Here is the breakdown of everything you see...starting with the vinyl albums:

Just for the Record (1976); Feel the Music (1977); There is Something on Your Mind (1978); Be Your Own Best Friend (1978); and The Feeling's Not Right Again (1979).

The single releases, the month and year of release, and their catalog numbers:

"You Are So Beautiful" (April 1976; WBS 8198)
"Honky Tonk Waltz" (August 1976; WBS 8237)
"In the Mood" (December 1976; WBS 8301)
"Get Crazy With Me" (January 1977; WBS 8318)
"Dixie Hummingbird" (May 1977; WBS 8393)
"Be Your Own Best Friend" (July 1978; WBS 8603)
"I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" (March 1979; WBS 8785)
"Get Crazy With Me" (June 1979; WBS 8849)

The comparable cover art depiction is of the picture sleeve of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" and Barry's second studio album, Barry Manilow II. If you look at the chronological listing of single releases you'll notice a couple of things...at least I took notice right away. The first is the lapse of time between the release of "Dixie Hummingbird" and "Be Your Own Best Friend". There's more than a year separating the two. Then there is no further single releases throughout the rest of 1978 even though the Be Your Own Best Friend album had plenty of single worthy recordings such as "Comeback", "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right", or the re-recorded "You've Got the Music Inside" which had originally been recorded in 1973 by Ray. Another thing you should notice is the re-issue of "Get Crazy With Me".

Warner Brothers originally issued the single in January 1977...right on the heels of Ray's surprise novelty hit with his chicken clucking rendition of "In the Mood". In the original release of "Get Crazy with Me" in January 1977 the B-side happened to be "Dixie Hummingbird". Ray's "Get Crazy with Me" isn't a novelty song but it's title would suggest otherwise and it's my guess Warner Brothers felt the title could serve as a follow-up and therefore become an immediate hit. Later on Warner Brothers re-issued it upon the strength of Ray's novelty hit, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

The re-issue of "Get Crazy With Me" in 1979 featured "The Feeling's Not Right Again" as it's B-side. Let's add more to this vinyl sea of confusion by pointing out "Dixie Hummingbird", the original B-side of "Get Crazy with Me" from January of 1977, when it was issued as an A-side single in May of 1977, it's B-side happened to be "Feel the Music". The funny thing is Ray performed "Feel the Music" on television several times in the mid '70s and once in the early '90s but I don't think he ever performed "Dixie Hummingbird", the actual A-side, on television...ever!

In the last couple of paragraphs I had some fun relating the single release pattern of Ray's Warner Brothers recordings but let that not scare you from seeking out those recordings. You are likely to find Mp3 copies of select recordings at Amazon. If you look up the 1995 compilation albums: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens then you'll find a lot of his Warner Brothers recordings. They're, to date, the only definitive look at his late '70s recordings. The only thing that could top those releases were to be if Warner Brothers were to re-issue Ray's actual studio albums in a series of CD's or Mp3's but there's been no indication such a thing will ever happen so those 1995 releases are your only hope in hearing those obscure recordings.

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...Lee Roy Parnell

Hello once more...I just finished watching episode 13, Season Six of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. The special guest happened to be Lee Roy Parnell. This episode originally aired in local syndication on PBS stations the weekend of June 30th and it's since been uploaded to Ray's video site, raystevens.tv.

Ray opened this episode performing "Barbecue"...and it was the first time I'd seen him perform the song on any television appearance since 1990. He performed it on an episode of Nashville Now when the album it originally appeared on, Lend Me Your Ears, was relatively brand new. He released an official music video produced with limited animation in the mid 2000s as one of a handful of music videos he issued direct-to-DVD prior to the launch of his YouTube channel several years later. The "Barbecue" music video can be found on YouTube. If you pay close attention to the band during the performance you'll see a certain figure playing prominent guitar...and it would be the special guest, Lee Roy Parnell...



Ray calls Lee Roy over to the piano after the performance. Lee Roy had played on Ray's Lend Me Your Ears album in 1990. I knew this but during the performance of "Barbecue" and even with seeing Lee Roy standing among Ray's house band it never hit me until Ray and Lee Roy began talking. In the studio recording the main instrument is the harmonica. The first bit of conversation that Ray brings up is Lee Roy being a member of the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ray asks how he got from Texas to Nashville. Lee Roy describes his trek to Music City and how one of his first jobs came in a publishing house for Polygram. His first commercial recordings arrived in 1990 after having signed with Arista's relatively new country music imprint. The label had a lengthy history in pop music but in the early '90s the company branched out and in country music they benefited from the enormous sales and radio popularity of Lee Roy Parnell, Alan Jackson, the Brooks and Dunn duo, Pam Tillis, and Diamond Rio just to name several.

After Lee Roy spoke of his songwriting work at Polygram Ray brought up Tim Dubois and Arista Records. Lee Roy mentioned his record producer at the time, Barry Beckett. Lee Roy also mentioned that many of his own demo recordings winded up being placed on his albums. Ray brings up Merle Haggard and how inspirational, both musically and vocally, he happened to be for Lee Roy. This leads into a conversation about the mid '90s Merle Haggard tribute album; the title isn't given but it's Mama's Hungry Eyes: A Tribute to Merle Haggard; in which Lee Roy recorded "Workin' Man Blues" with Steve Wariner and Diamond Rio. The recording was credited to Jed Zeppelin (a pun on the rock band, Led Zeppelin) and in 1995 it received a CMA Award as Music Event of the Year. Ray and Lee Roy perform a really loose rendition of "Workin' Man Blues" where the music is front and center and high emphasis on the blues is in order. At various moments in the performance Lee Roy blends a number of verses but it doesn't take away from the overall performance. Ray does several piano solo's and Lee Roy counters these with his slide guitar solo's. It's such a loose interpretation with heightened music emphasis that the actual lyrics become secondary.

After the rousing duet concludes Lee Roy performs "Love Without Mercy", his sixth single release (and second Top-10), from 1992. Prior to the performance, though, he introduced an addition to the harmony singers. Lisa Stewart appeared along side Ray's trio of harmony singers for this performance as well as the next, "On the Road". After achieving considerable success in country music during the 1990s Lee Roy did an about face and traveled back to his earlier music influences and spent years outside the mainstream country music scene performing bluesy songs heavy with his famed slide guitar style. His proficiency on the guitar, especially the slide guitar, resulted in the famed Gibson guitar company manufacturing a line of Lee Roy Parnell guitars. Given the years spent performing in a bluesy fashion it impacted the way he performs the country music hits he had in the 1990s. This means that his performances of those two songs are dramatically different, vocally, in their execution compared to how they sounded in the early '90s.

After the performance from Lee Roy and the wild applause died down Ray closed the show performing "Abilene", a monster hit by the late George Hamilton, IV. Prior to the performance Ray took the time to show some pictures from the CabaRay interior which included an image of George Hamilton, IV along side several others.

And so with that Season Six comes to a close...keep in mind there are only 13 episodes in each of the CabaRay Nashville seasons. There hasn't been any information on Season Seven or when recording sessions will get underway. As soon as I find out anything about a Season Seven I'll blog about it, of course! Season Six began airing on April 7th...exactly three months ago. Since there isn't any concrete information about the future of the series I suspect Season's Six and Five will rerun on local PBS stations or air for the first time on newly added PBS stations. It's possible that the show won't be back with new episodes this calendar year. Again...if I find out anything I'll blog about it.

The last couple of blog entries I published were by design, actually. I knew the current season of Ray's television show was coming to a close and so I wanted to get back into the habit of blogging about other aspects of Ray's career since there won't be anymore episode recaps of his television program for awhile [~something that I love doing and something that's become a habit, actually~]; but anyway, it's going to be a little strange not having that rush of excitement I get each time I go to Ray's video site to see the latest episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. I'm already planning my next blog entry, though, so it isn't like I'm at a loss for things to spotlight in this fan created blog page. I make notes on paper (yes, even in the age of internet and keypads I still use pen and paper when I choose to) but I make notes about whatever aspect of Ray's career I'll be blogging about so that when I decide to get started on a blog entry all that's left for me to do is simply create the text of the blog entry and add images if I so desire.

Now, either in my next blog entry or in one that follows, I hope to have a link to audio footage of Ray's recent guest appearance at the Opry. Last week (July 3rd) Ray guest starred on the Tuesday Night Opry. WSM radio puts archive performances of each Opry broadcast onto their website. At last look (this morning) the most recent archive performance was the June 26th broadcast of the Opry which was a week before Ray's guest appearance. I'm thinking that the first Opry broadcasts for the month of July will appear on-line later this week after tonight's airing of the Grand Ole Opry but that's just my guess. Once the audio becomes available I'll provide a link.

Ray Stevens: Compilation Look-Back...

Earlier in my blog posts I posted some entries surrounding the abundance of compilation albums you can find on-line released on Ray Stevens. Those releases are largely available on vinyl but there's a lot of them available on cassette and CD, too. Some of the compilations that I've posted about are ones I have in my own collection or they're collections I found while visiting on-line music stores and I saved their images for future blog entries. I've posted quite a few blog entries surrounding a certain 1979 compilation album that I do not have in my collection but I happen to like the cover art and obviously the songs found on that album are a must-have for any newcomer to Ray's career. The album often comes up for sale on eBay...and some of you may wonder if the album often comes up for sale then why haven't I purchased it by now?? One of the main reasons is the price is not reasonable (for me) and most, if not all, offerings are from the United Kingdom and the most recent offering is asking almost thirty dollars for it (which doesn't factor in international shipping, handling, and taxes). If I ever come across this compilation album on-line for a much more economical selling price I may at long last make a purchase...but for now I love the album from a distance...

The Best of Ray Stevens, as this one is titled, was released in 1979 on the Imperial House label in the United Kingdom. It's a 2-LP collection of 20 songs. The obvious recordings are here: "Ahab the Arab", "Mr. Businessman", "The Streak", "Everything is Beautiful", "Gitarzan", "Along Came Jones", "Misty", "The Moonlight Special", "Turn Your Radio On", "Bridget the Midget The Queen of the Blues", and 10 more. I wouldn't begin to guess how many compilation albums released on Ray Stevens have been given this title. The Best of Ray Stevens and another often used title, The Very Best of Ray Stevens, have long sent confusion for a number of fans because you can't necessarily refer to a compilation as The Best of Ray Stevens because the most loyalist of fans will wonder if you're referring to this 1979 release or perhaps the 1970 release by Mercury Records or maybe an import album from another part of the world or perhaps a compilation imported to America from Canada. The most often used compilation title is by far Greatest Hits. I grin as I type this because of the sheer number of Ray Stevens compilation albums that have been titled Greatest Hits over the decades. A lot of these compilation albums are the result of mass production of easily licensed recordings. A majority of Ray's Monument and Barnaby recordings fell into that category. By this I mean the recordings weren't too expensive and a lot of compilations on Ray Stevens began to surface in the late 1970s, and especially throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, as an assortment of record companies began to offer many compilation albums on Ray that often featured the same set of songs but in different sequential order depending on which album you purchased.

Some compilation albums would tack on a couple new selections just to keep things a bit different but by and large the 20 songs found on this 1979 album would make numerous appearances throughout the next decade on many of those compilation albums. Ray didn't have a say in those releases, either. To my way of thinking, and it's based on snippets of interviews I'd heard and read from Ray, the only greatest hits releases that he actively took part in and was truly aware of their existence were: Greatest Hits (1971; Barnaby); Greatest Hits (1974; Barnaby); The Very Best of Ray Stevens (1975; Barnaby); Greatest Hits (1983; RCA); Greatest Hits, Greatest Hits Volume Two, and Get The Best of Ray Stevens (all in 1987 on MCA); His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits (1990; Curb); and Greatest Hits (1991; Curb). In fact, the 1991 compilation on Curb Records features an alternate version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner", a song that originally appeared on his 1989 MCA album, Beside Myself. In the 1989 recording Ray tells the story of a P.O.W. in Beirut in addition to celebrating the American Flag itself. In the 1991 alternate recording it retains the same chorus and music arrangement but the verse lyrics are completely different. If you're not a devoted fan or student of all things Ray Stevens then you wouldn't be aware of the two completely different versions of the song. You'd think by looking at the track list that it's merely the same recording previously released on Beside Myself. Way back when I purchased 1991's Greatest Hits, believe me, I was also surprised to hear this different take on the song. By the way, you can click on each of the images of the LP for a larger view. As I mentioned I do not own that 1979 compilation album but it's safe to say the versions of "Ahab the Arab" and "Harry the Hairy Ape" come from his 1969 Monument album, Gitarzan, instead of the original recordings on Mercury in 1962 and 1963 respectively. The inspiration for this particular compilation album seems to be the recording that the record label tacked on as the last song on side two of the second LP. "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" was a hit for Ray on Warner Brothers in 1979 and so this song was added to the more familiar line-up of recordings. The songs found on the LP range from the years 1968 to 1975 and then it jumps to 1979...curiously omitting the hit recordings he had during 1976-1978...which only added to the obscurity in the next decade of his Warner Brothers recordings as they weren't kept in print.

In 1995 Warner Brothers seemingly out of the blue issued a 3-CD/3-cassette collection of many of his recordings for the label in the late 1970s. As a member of Ray's once active fan club and in the years before the internet explosion came along I used to type letters and mail them to Ray's fan club seeking information about whatever happened to be on my mind at the time and when I spotted those Warner Brothers compilations I sent off a letter telling of the Ray Stevens goldmine of music I found and how rare these songs happened to be (I'm sure they also realized how rare his Warner Brothers recordings were and still are and probably knew of the compilations beforehand); but, anyway, in the next fan club newsletter that arrived in the mail I was given some recognition by Ray's office staff in a brief section where they thanked me for letting them know that some of Ray's out of print and obscure recordings were available for purchase once again.

I bought those 3 compilation albums released by Warner Brothers with some of the high school graduation money I got...they're titled: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens.