Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! Yes, I realize that there was probably a lot of competition last night and my guess is some of you perhaps missed the Paul Overstreet Benefit Concert at the CabaRay last night. I was not aware that it was going to be streamed live and so I wasn't able to give any sort of advance alert. I visited Ray's Facebook page during a commercial break from a television program I was watching and was surprised to find that the benefit concert was streaming. So, what I ended up doing, was every so often I'd return to Ray's Facebook page and catch some of the concert and then return to my living room and watch some of my regularly scheduled television shows. In each commercial break I'd return to my computer and catch what was happening at the benefit concert. Ronnie McDowell performed several songs and did an uncanny impression of Louis Armstrong singing "Hello, Dolly". He related an anecdote about the time he was last at the CabaRay...taping an episode of Ray's television show. When the lights came up during part of his segment of the show the camera panned over the packed showroom. The audience wasn't miked up enough and so when you watch any part of the show you won't hear a lot of applause...you'll only get the reaction from those seated near the stage where the microphones were more abundant. Lee Greenwood, and several others throughout the night, played the red Ray Stevens piano. I remarked online last night that it always looks strange seeing someone else seated behind Ray's red piano. I remember seeing Linda Davis and just a few other guests on Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville seat themselves behind Ray's red piano...again, it's something I'd seen happen, but it's something I'll never get used to seeing. Lee Greenwood, some may not know, is a multi-instrumentalist. He played Ray's piano last night...and told the story of how, as a writer, he always felt the need to have at least one or two self-written songs on his albums. He sang a couple of songs and spoke of an upcoming event that will later air on television. He closed his portion of the show with a performance of "God Bless the U.S.A.".
Lee Greenwood and Paul Overstreet auctioned off a series of alcoholic beverages. The winning bid was $5,000 a piece...the bottles being autographed by Lee Greenwood. Upon the conclusion of this auction, which come off as if it was unplanned, Paul introduced one of the special guests. Now, you may have already guessed who this special guest happened to be...if you said "the owner of this place" then you'd be correct!! Country Music Hall of Fame member, Ray Stevens, the owner and principle performer at the CabaRay, walked out from behind the curtain...standing at his side was Lee Greenwood. Ray walked down to greet Paul...and from there Ray took over the next several minutes. He thanked everyone for coming to the benefit show and he performed "Everything is Beautiful".
There were a lot of songwriters that appeared at the show last night...most of them singing the songs they'd written for numerous recording artists. Paul Overstreet himself is a songwriter turned singer. He sang numerous songs, obviously, and presented a segment spotlighting numerous writers. He sang "Forever and Ever, Amen" which was a song he wrote with Don Schlitz. He also sang a novelty song about Willie Nelson. In that song Paul did an impression of Willie, vocally. Songwriter Jeffrey Steele joined the show in the latter half for a rousing/rowdy segment. The concert last night is still online. If you visit Ray's Facebook page you'll be able to watch the event from beginning to end. I don't know how long they're going to keep the footage up but as of this writing it's still there. When you click Ray's Facebook PAGE look for the post that's time stamped September 9 at 7:09pm although if you visit his page before 7:09pm today it'll likely reflect how many hours have passed since it was posted. Above the video stream and below the time stamp is a message from last night stating that the event is LIVE! That video, while no longer live, is able to be watched from the beginning to the end. If you don't want to look for a time stamp you can always look for a Facebook post with a video embed titled Songwriters For Waverly. Ray Stevens will be in concert at the CabaRay tomorrow evening at 7:30pm. The Piano Bar opens at 5pm.
Hello all once again!! This blog entry is a reminder of the upcoming Paul Overstreet fundraiser taking place at the Ray Stevens CabaRay this coming Thursday (September 9th). The fundraiser is going to benefit the people of Waverly, Tennessee who experienced a deadly, devastating flood. There's going to be a line-up of performers Thursday night. The price of admission is at least $10.00 but, given it's a fundraising event, you can also purchase a ticket at a larger amount...but the minimum to get inside the event is $10.00; I previously wrote about this upcoming fundraiser but now that we're closer to the event date I've decided to write a reminder in this blog entry. The national news posted a press release about the fundraiser a few hours ago. The Associated Press (AP) posted information about the event HERE. That link also includes a link to the CabaRay website. I'm also going to post a link to the CabaRay...click HERE. Technically that link is to the Event calendar for September 9th. If you click that link after the 9th of September it will more than likely no longer be in service for obvious reasons. Also, don't forget that Ray Stevens has returned to the CabaRay for the 2021 season of concerts. The next show is this coming Saturday. In case you're wondering that's a late 1970's photo of Ray Stevens. I know that I rarely, if ever, identify the time period of the Ray Stevens photos that I post. I've always figured that you, the reader, wouldn't be as interested in knowing the time period of the photos as much as you're interested in the things that have taken place in his career from beginning to present day.
Hello all...this blog entry is more along the lines of a public service announcement. There were some devastating floods that swept through portions of Tennessee recently and there have been several benefit concerts and flood relief shows that have come up in the aftermath. Tickets go on sale today for a flood relief benefit show hosted by Paul Overstreet at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom. The show is location specific to the Waverly, Tennessee area. The United Way of Humphreys County began taking donations for flood victims following the August 21st floods and this benefit show is designed to create more awareness. The benefit show is being called Songwriters For Waverly and it's scheduled to take place September 9th at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom. The ticket sales will be donated to the United Way of Humphreys County...and, as mentioned, tickets go on sale today! You can purchase tickets to the Paul Overstreet Waverly flood benefit show by clicking HERE. In addition to Paul Overstreet there's also going to be appearances by Ronnie McDowell, Lee Greenwood, Jake Owen, Rory Feek and a number of others billed as 'surprise guests'. Although the benefit show takes place at Ray's CabaRay showroom his name is not listed in the performer's line-up if you look at some of the online articles promoting the benefit show. It's highly unlikely the owner of the facility, Ray Stevens, a noted singer/songwriter and all around entertainer, isn't going to be part of the benefit show. I guess they left his name of the list of performers because it's a given that he'll be part of the show since it's taking place at his CabaRay after all. The doors open at 5pm, the benefit show kicks off at 6pm, and it lasts until 11pm. As always parking is free at the CabaRay. You can get tickets online, by phone, or at the showroom. All of that information is available in the link I posted.
If you search the archives here on my fan created Ray Stevens blog you'll come across the review/re-cap of the CabaRay Nashville episode guest starring Paul Overstreet. When Paul guest starred on Ray's show one of the songs he performed was "Daddy's Come Around". In the country music industry Paul Overstreet happened to be a songwriter who ultimately became known as a singer. He's written many, many songs...several of them award winning...and for awhile he co-wrote with another songwriting legend, Don Schlitz. The two of them authored numerous songs that Randy Travis recorded. Paul was named BMI Songwriter of the Year for 5 consecutive years (1987-1991)...no other country music songwriter has ever achieved such an accomplishment. He recorded as a trio with Tom Schuyler and J. Fred Knobloch as S-K-O...the short-lived trio recorded one album but made the most of it by issuing a single that became a number one hit, "Baby's Got a New Baby". Paul also became active in the Christian Country format for a number of years after what they call mainstream country radio pushed him off the airwaves in the mid 1990s.
Some of the songs Paul wrote/co-wrote include: "Same Ole Me" (George Jones); "If I Could Bottle This Up" (George Jones and Shelby Lynne); "A Long Line of Love" (Michael Martin Murphy); "Forever and Ever, Amen" (Randy Travis); "I Won't Take Less Than Your Love" (recorded as a trio: Tanya Tucker, Paul Davis, and Paul Overstreet); "Diggin' Up Bones" (Randy Travis); "On the Other Hand" (Randy Travis); and so many more.
Last year on March 17th Ray uploaded a performance from Paul singing "Diggin' Up Bones", one of the several Randy Travis hits he co-wrote. This year, as mentioned, Ray's uploaded a performance of a song that Paul wrote and had a hit with, an early 1990s country radio staple, "Daddy's Come Around". It was the only song that hit number one for Paul as a singer...spending 18 weeks on the chart, 1 week at number one. It was ranked the 12th biggest hit of 1990. So, with all of that build-up, here's Paul Overstreet on Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...
Hello all...in the social media world of the legendary Ray Stevens there have been a couple of video clips uploaded to celebrate the birthday's of a couple of legendary figures in country music. In this blog entry I'll be embedding a video clip of Paul Overstreet from his appearance on CabaRay Nashville. This performance by the songwriter-singer is of "Diggin' Up Bones", one of the songs that put Randy Travis on the national map. In fact, Paul was a co-writer of several songs on the massively popular Randy Travis album, Storms of Life, where "Diggin' Up Bones" originated. Paul also contributed "No Place Like Home" and he co-wrote "On the Other Hand".
This video clip from CabaRay
Nashville isn't showing up in YouTube searches if you happen to look
for video clips of Ray Stevens. The reason for this is because Ray's
name isn't part of the video clip's official title. In order for the video to
appear when one searches for Ray Stevens the video title will have to be
edited to read: Paul Overstreet- "Diggin' Up Bones" (Live on Ray
Stevens CabaRay Nashville). As of this writing the official title of the YouTube clip is: Paul Overstreet- "Diggin' Up Bones" (Live on CabaRay Nashville). Eventually, I think, the video clip will begin appearing among YouTube search results for Ray Stevens. Ironically, though, if you do a video search for Ray Stevens through Google you'll see this video among the search results. I'm sure that has to do with the username for the clip being raystevensmusic. Isn't it funny how search results work based upon which site you're viewing?
Hello once again! I just finished watching Episode Three, Season Five of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville guest starring Paul Overstreet. The episode originally aired on PBS stations last weekend but the local PBS affiliate in my area isn't airing Season Five episodes, yet, so I'm watching the current season by way of Ray's video streaming site, raystevens.tv
Ray tells you all about the premium site in this video clip...
Ray opens the show singing "Jack Daniels, You Lied to Me Again". Now, this is a song that dates back to 1990 in Ray's career. It originally appeared on his album, Lend Me Your Ears. In the 1990 recording it's done very uptempo but he re-recorded it in 2009 for his One for the Road album and slowed down the tempo somewhat. The slower performance is what Ray delivered on this episode of the TV show. I don't recall if this is the first time I'd seen him perform this song on television...I'm wanting to say I seen him perform it on Nashville Now back when Lend Me Your Ears was brand new.
Paul Overstreet is introduced and Ray asks him about his upbringing in Mississippi. Paul says he grew up in a couple of places in Mississippi...Ray asked him if he grew up with Marty Stuart. Paul remarked that he didn't necessarily grow up/hang out with Marty but knew of him. Paul talks about his songwriting and some of his collaborations with Don Schlitz. One of those songs the two wrote happened to be "When You Say Nothing At All" which had been a hit three times: Keith Whitley had the first widely known recording in 1988 which hit number one...later Allison Krauss had a big hit with the song in 1995...and in the non-country format Ronan Keating had an international pop hit with the song in 1999. He mentions his family and that he has 6 children...and he reflects on being both baffled and amazed that not one of them emerged as a doctor or lawyer but each and every one of them became involved in the music business in some capacity. He mentions one of his children having been a cast member of the television series, Glee, for six years.
He performs "Diggin' Up Bones" after telling it's history. If you're familiar with the song, noted as one of the first big hits of Randy Travis, you'll notice that Paul performs the song as it was originally written. By that I mean he sings additional lyrics that aren't in the hit recording from Randy Travis. Although his success as a songwriter was brought up at various times throughout the episode not much detail was given to just how many songs that Paul has written or co-written. Some of those songs are: "On the Other Hand", "No Place Like Home", "Forever and Ever, Amen", "Love Can Build a Bridge", and "Same Ole Me". Randy Travis had hits with the first three songs; The Judds had a hit with the fourth song while the fifth was a hit for George Jones; it was also the title track of George's 1981 album.
Ray mentions Paul's association with Contemporary Christian music and Billy Graham. Paul won a Dove Award for his recording of "There But for the Grace of God Go I". Paul performs "Seein' My Father In Me".
He tells of one of his goals was to be on Hee Haw one day. He shares the story of when that dream became a reality but says that he wasn't ready for what happened next. He was contacted to be at the studio for a recording session at eight in the morning. Half-jokingly he remarked that he doesn't sing that early in the morning and that all he really wanted was to get into the cornfield. Although not directly stated I'm assuming his desire for a cornfield segment was strictly for the opportunity of trading one-liners with an assortment of Hee Haw Honey's. Paul laments that he never got the chance to do a cornfield scene. He performs what was to be his only number one hit as a solo artist, "Daddy's Come Around". He had another chart topper, a trio recording, on a song he co-wrote titled "I Won't Take Less Than Your Love". That trio was made up of Paul, Tanya Tucker, and Paul Davis.
Ray brings out bagpipe player, Jay Dawson. Ray explains that although he himself is a multi-instrumentalist he simply can not play the bagpipes. Jay kicks off the closing performance, "Pledging My Love". Ray recorded this song for his 2004 album, Thank You. The neat thing about it is Jay performed the bagpipes on the actual recording...if you look at the musician credits you'll see his name listed as the bagpipe player.
Episode four should guest star Dailey and Vincent...I'll try to get some more detail and post a complete Season Five guest list. The fourth episode is airing on PBS stations this weekend and will be uploaded onto Ray's premium video site next weekend.
In a follow-up blog entry I decided to do some internet searching and although I hadn't found a complete guest list for Season Five of the Ray Stevens locally syndicated PBS series, CabaRay Nashville, I've been able to discover who are likely going to be part of the line-up. I searched some image sites (Instagram, specifically) and looked up photos tagged under Ray Stevens and my memory was refreshed to the late spring/early summer months of 2017. This would be the point in time in which the episodes making up Season Five were likely to have been recorded. Ray Hildebrand's photo with Ray had a May 2017 year of release attached to it. Some other photo's from recording sessions taking place in the first half of 2017 included Ray with the likes of Jenny Gill, John Rich, and Tony Orlando. When I seen those photo's it jogged my memory. I did some further look back and found a Facebook post from June of 2017 in which Ray mentioned that he was in the middle of taping episodes for "a new season" and accompanying his post was a photo of him and guest, Sam Moore.
Now, going with that information I researched earlier this morning, combined with the information I already knew surrounding Season Five I feel I can safely say that this is an abbreviated line-up of guests for this current season of episodes...keep in mind that this guest list is not in chronological air-date order...
Ray Hildebrand, Steve Wariner (edited Season One episode), Paul Overstreet, Dailey and Vincent, Jenny Gill, John Rich, Sam Moore, and Tony Orlando. So far that's 8 broadcasts...so there's 5 episodes whose guests I have no information about. Until a list becomes available of this season's guest stars I'll have to rely on the uploads at Ray's video streaming site and those videos are posted a week after they've aired on PBS stations.
A sampling of local PBS affiliates currently airing episodes of his show: KET2/WCVN; APTV; WXEL; WNIT; WNPT; KRWG; WLJT; KMOS; KCTS9.
If any of you visitors/readers of this fan created blog are familiar with those local PBS stations check their websites for detailed information concerning air-times of Ray's television program. The station I watch his program on is KET2, a sub-channel of WCVN. Those in Washington state and in a good percentage of Canada, from what I've researched, can view Ray's program on KCTS9 but they air his show in a less than desired time slot of 4:30am...so you all are more than likely going to set your DVR and record his show. Since his television series is in local PBS syndication it means that not everybody is going to see the same episode every week. Some affiliates are airing Season Three episodes and other PBS affiliates are airing Season Four episodes. As I've mentioned KET2 is repeating episodes from Season Three. I don't know when they'll start airing Season Five episodes.
