Hello fans of Ray Stevens! Earlier today, given that it's the birthday of Bobby Bare, Ray uploaded his own performance of "Detroit City". This particular song, from the pen of Mel Tillis and Danny Dill, had been recorded by Billy Grammer less than a year before Bobby's recording was released. In fact, the song was titled "I Wanna Go Home" when released by Billy Grammer. The song became a Top-20 country hit and peaked early in 1963. Bobby recorded the song in the spring of 1963 as "Detroit City" and by the end of the summer it hit the Top-10 on the country chart and crossed over to the Pop and Adult-Contemporary formats. The single crossed over internationally and reportedly hit number one in Sweden, Norway, and the Top-10 in Denmark. Bobby's recording was released on RCA and was produced by Chet Atkins. A few years later, in 1966, Ray did the arrangement for Bobby's recording of "Streets of Baltimore". If you have the vinyl album of Streets of Baltimore you'll see Ray credited with the arrangement of that recording. The liner notes for the album were written by Eddy Arnold. Chet Atkins was the producer.
Ray speaks, briefly, about the recording session for the song. Something that one has to remember is that Ray witnessed a lot of recording sessions in his career. Now, of course, he played on a lot of recording sessions but what some may not realize is that Ray often was in recording studios during sessions and rehearsals that he, personally, didn't participate in but witnessed. He was often showing up at the recording studios of Mercury, Monument, Columbia, and RCA given his jack-of-all-trades skill set or he simply shown up due to his friendships with producers such as Shelby Singleton, Fred Foster, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Kennedy.
Hello Ray Stevens fans!! I'm a week late in promoting the April concerts at the CabaRay. I've been busy offline and have only been able to be online for a few visits each day to some social media sites and to check my e-mail. The April concerts began last week. Ray will be in concert at his CabaRay showroom six additional times this month. He'll be doing two concerts per week: April 11th, 13th, 18th, 20th, 25th, and 27th. As most of you know this is Ray's final season of concerts at his showroom and if you haven't visited the CabaRay and experienced what I call Ray Stevens World then you should make plans to attend a concert this year. You can find out all about the showroom and everything else when you click this LINK.
We're at the half year point with Ray's comedy song/music video, "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene". Ray uploaded the music video to his YouTube and Facebook pages whereas Curb Records uploaded the audio track to various streaming music platforms. The publicity photo doesn't accompany the single since there actually isn't a physical CD single. The song is available as a digital download and can be viewed as a music video, too. The photo is simply used for publicity and as a reaction to the song's title. The video debuted on YouTube on October 5, 2023. The unique views that it's received in the last 6 months puts it at 606,793. The song is very funny and it's delivered in Ray's characteristic lighthearted fashion. As is the case with other Ray Stevens recordings that tackle something topical and in the news he delivers the performance from a common man's perspective. The lyrics in the topical comedy songs that he's recorded, off and on, since 2009 are rarely heavy handed. The idea behind delivering a soft touch is to basically get your point across without pounding somebody over the head about it. I don't know if Ray has performed this song in concert...one would think that he would...so if anybody out there has went to a Ray Stevens concert at the CabaRay recently or plans to go let us know if he performs "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene".
Oh yes...perhaps the most popular or the second most popular woman from a Ray Stevens recording is Ethel. The woman that kept seeing a streaker in Ray's 1974 million selling single, "The Streak". The catchphrase, well one of them, even appears on the album cover. Throughout the recording Ray's eyewitness character continually warns Ethel not to look but it's always too late. Ray wrote and recorded a rough draft of the song shortly after reading about the fad of streaking prior to it becoming a national fad, most often happening on college campuses. Ray didn't immediately release the song but once streaking became a huge news item, perhaps reaching it's peak at the Oscar ceremony, Ray decided to put the finishing touches on his song and record it. When he released the song on Barnaby Records there were already at least a dozen or more novelty songs about streaking available. Ray has always felt that the reason his recording out performed the other songs is due to his having the concept of the song partially written weeks before streaking became a cultural phenomenon. He owed the song's success to having had the time to focus on it rather than cobbling together lyrics seemingly at random just to cash in on the fad. The single sold millions of copies worldwide. The sales figure that's often cited is more than 5,000,000 copies sold. It not only reached the top of the Hot 100 pop chart here in America but it crossed over and become a Top-5 hit in country music and a number one hit in the United Kingdom. In America the song was at number one for three weeks. It had a meteoric rise to the top...once it hit the Hot 100 it was sitting at number one within a month's time. The single reaches it's golden anniversary this year but for this occasion it's okay if Ethel takes a look and celebrates the milestone. Although the 1974 Boogity Boogity album is officially a comedy release it did contain at least one love song. It happens to be the album closer, "Just So Proud To Be Here". Ray also includes his rendition of "Don't Boogie Woogie", a rocking piano pounding performance that sounds a lot like Jerry Lee Lewis and ironically Jerry Lee Lewis would in fact record that song...one year after Ray. Here's an audio track of "Just So Proud To Be Here". I don't know if Ray chose to write a song with this as a title because of his friendship with Minnie Pearl or not. If you'd ever seen Minnie in performance she'd holler out her opening "How-dee!" and follow it with "I'm just so proud to be here...".
In 1975, still with Barnaby Records, Ray issued the single, "Misty". Now, technically, the name of the song is a woman's name but the song is actually about emotional feelings. If you've never heard the song before it's about how misty-eyed a man gets the moment the love of his life is near him. So, yes, it's still a love song but it isn't about a woman named Misty. Ray won a Grammy early in 1976 in the category of Best Music Arrangement for his recording of "Misty". Elsewhere on the Misty album there are plenty of love songs. One of the greatest on the album is his version of "Lady of Spain". There's also the delightful "Sunshine", a song that's arranged and sang with such vocal happiness that you're bound to smile throughout as you listen to it. On the opposite end of the up-tempo productions we have the sensual vibe that exists throughout his performance of "Take Care of Business". That song, from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr., uses a phrase heard throughout Ray's 1968 single, "Mr. Businessman". Layng was a writer at Ray's publishing company and if I recall correctly the songwriter chose "Take Care of Business" as a title because he felt it might grab Ray's attention to the point of his possibly recording the love ballad...or he used that title because "Mr. Businessman" happened to be one of Layng's favorite Ray Stevens songs. It's one or the other. Ray's marvelous ballad renditions of "Indian Love Call" and "Young Love" are on the 1975 album as well.
In 1976 Ray exited Barnaby Records and signed on with Warner Brothers records. His debut album for the label, seen above, is titled Just For the Record. It's a glorious album chock full of up-tempo, mid-tempo, and ballad performances. In the category of love songs this album has plenty. His rousing rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" was the album's debut single and it was followed by another love song, "Honky Tonk Waltz". A savory ballad found on here is "Once in Awhile" whereas "Cornball" is a bouncy sing-a-long kind of song where Ray sings about a guy that no matter how hard he tries he can't seem to impress the woman but he's so desperate that he feels the need to remind her that he'll always be available if she ever gets lonely. I tend to use the word, glorious, a lot when describing specific Ray Stevens recordings. I'll use that word again.. "Gimme a Smile" is a glorious love song about a strained relationship that's reached a breaking point and Ray asks for forgiveness and a smile.
So far I've touched on quite a few Ray Stevens recordings that fall into the category of a love song or those that contain women's names in the song titles in these first three blog entries focusing on Ray singing about women. In part 4 I'll be spotlighting some recordings of Ray during the years 1977, 1978, and 1980 as women's history month continues.
See the Country Music Hall of Fame member, Ray Stevens, kick off the final season of concerts at the CabaRay showroom. The final season kicks off on March 16th and there will be a total of five concerts from Ray during the month of March. Ray will appear in concert on March 16th, 21st, 23rd, 28th, and 30th. The concert season will run through December 2024 at which time the showroom will close. As far as I know there hasn't been any plans for what will occupy the showroom in the years to come. It'll more than likely remain under Ray's ownership as a place that he'll perform occasional concerts at and more than likely he'll have the showroom a destination for recording artists to perform at while they're on tour. The news of the final season of concerts broke last month. In case it's all new to you I'd suggest you read a news announcement HERE. That link will take you to the CabaRay webpage. Once there you'll be able to read the announcement as well as browse the site and perhaps decide to purchase concert tickets for an upcoming show in 2024.
The photo of Ray that you see in the upper right is from induction night at the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. In addition to the plaque that is placed inside the Hall of Fame building each member also receives a gold medallion. In each successive year following the creation of the gold medallion ceremony it's encouraged that Hall of Fame members return each year, wearing their medallions, to witness the induction of new members into the Hall of Fame. See the previous paragraph for a link to the CabaRay webpage.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! We welcome in the month of February with some exciting news. Ray's current music video, "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene", has officially reached the half a million unique views plateau. As of this writing the unique views are sitting at 502,346. Although I hadn't been writing any blog entries displaying the progress of the music video's unique views I would often check in and take note of whatever the latest numbers shown. A couple of months ago on November 16, 2023 to be specific the music video had reached 369,028 unique views. The video was uploaded onto YouTube on October 5, 2023 and so more than a month after it had made it's debut it was already well over 300,000. I checked the numbers during early December 2023 and it was sitting at 455,431 unique views on December 9th. Several days ago on January 22, 2024 the unique views count was sitting at 491,691 and so I had a feeling that the music video would reach half a million at some point and it officially reached that plateau late last night. I took note of it and it was sitting at 501,601 unique views right around this time Wednesday night. As pointed out at the top of this blog entry it's now sitting at 502,346.
As of this writing this song only exists as a music video and as a digital download. An image of Ray with his hand covering his mouth, to convey a shocked expression, is being used as a promo picture for the digital download. There isn't a CD hardcopy available for those of you out there that might be curious/wondering. In fact, as of this writing, there hasn't been any information on any future comedy albums...and if any would be released I'm sure that this song will be among the track list.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Several hours ago I come across a product being sold over on eBay that caught my eye. If you're familiar with the cassette tape releases on Ray Stevens from Warner Brothers in the late 1970s, well, this one may intrigue you considering that it's an Australian pressing of Ray's 1977 album, Feel the Music. I had seen the United States cassette copy of Feel the Music on eBay a number of years ago and it's overall cover design is identical to the other Warner Brothers cassette releases from that time period in the United States. However, the Australian copy of Feel the Music is aesthetically different as you can see.
Yes, that's the Australian copy of Feel the Music. As you can see the album cover which accompanied the vinyl copy is on the cassette cover but then you have his name and the title of the release posted at the top. The thing that caught my eye the most is the title is shown in lower case letters. That particular album cover of a stereo speaker, as you can see, presented something of a challenge to the designers of the cassette tape release. We have Ray's name and the title of the album shown twice. In practically every cassette tape release of a vinyl album what typically happens is only the image of the vinyl album photo is used. However, in this case, since the 1977 album cover is an in illustration of a stereo speaker and not simply a photo of Ray it would've been impossible to to a magnification because Ray's name and album title is printed within the illustrated image of the stereo speaker. If they were to have done a blown up/magnified image of the album cover for the cassette tape release all a consumer would see is a large brown area...and it's hard to tell if consumers would've been able to figure out that what they're looking at is a stereo speaker should they not be familiar with the vinyl copy which contains more detail of the illustrated image. The United States cassette copy looks like this...
Do you own a copy of 1977's Feel the Music? If you have the vinyl album as I do then you know that on the back of the album it features a photo of Ray. Since the album cover is meant to look like a stereo speaker then, as you may have guessed, the back of the album looks like the back of a stereo speaker with illustrations of small screws and to indicate the look of a speaker's back panel. Also, the photo of Ray features small illustrated images of tape on the upper left and lower right hand sides. This is the typical appearance of how strips of tape look on the back of a stereo speaker holding up the plastic pouch containing the manufactures warranty. This 1977 album was almost completely written by Ray Stevens. There are 10 tracks on here and he wrote 9 of the 10 songs. The one song that he didn't write happens to be "Set the Children Free" which came from the pen of Buddy Kalb. Now, if you're a long time fan of Ray Stevens, then it should come as no surprise that the music on this album would've been considered country in 1977. In fact, Ray has always delivered what most of us would call Ray Stevens music. This means that a recording is produced and arranged as if Ray happened to have been the writer. When he's singing a song he didn't write it sounds like it was something he had written. Also, when we refer to it as Ray Stevens music what we're also saying is that the lyrics seem to fit Ray's style.
Ray has a style? Yes...if you know your Ray Stevens music then you know that he has a style. That style comes across in the lyrics but also in the manner in which he performs the song, vocally, and when on stage, visually. The 1977 album is filled with this sort of thing where Ray demonstrates all kinds of delivery based on the lyrics...and since Ray is his own music arranger he decides how the songs will sound, instrumentally, as well as how the songs will be sung (tempo) even with songs that he didn't write. What are the 10 tracks on this marvelous 1977 album? "Dixie Hummingbird" reached the country charts in 1977. It was the highest charting single release from the album and therefore, in hindsight, it's referred to as the main release from the album. The single reached the Top-50 on the national country music charts but it ranked among the Top-40 and Top-30 lists of specific markets. If you do in-depth research on a lot of Ray's single releases from the bulk of his career you'll find out real quick that he had a lot of presence/impact in specific regions (markets) throughout the Midwest, the South, and the Plains states but you'd perhaps never realize that if you simply looked at the national charts of Billboard or Radio and Records, for example. Sometimes these statistics of regional activity would be presented in sections of the trade magazines and titled 'Regional Breakouts'. What it meant is that you'd see a city listed and it would include that city/radio station's most requested or most played songs. A lot of the time each local radio station's playlist would contain single releases that had yet to make the "national charts". Ray was on these lists hundreds of times. Now, then...here are the 10 tracks on the 1977 Feel the Music album.
1. Feel the Music
2. Daydream Romance
3. Blues Love Affair
4. Alone With You
5. Junkie For You
6. Get Crazy With Me
7. Save Me From Myself
8. Road Widow
9. Set The Children Free
10. Dixie Hummingbird
In 1995 when Warner Brothers released three compilation albums of Ray's recordings they included most of the songs from this 1977 album. The songs were spread out over the three compilation releases except tracks 5, 6, and 8. The titles of those 1995 releases were Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens.
Hello Ray Stevens fans!! I know so many of you are well aware that in a couple of hours the clocks will fall back 1 hour at 2am. This will usher in the start of Standard Time which will run until March 2024 when we'll then set our clocks ahead 1 hour for Daylight Savings Time. Since most of you who read this fan created blog are fans of Ray Stevens then you'll more than likely agree with my sentiment that he's time tested and terrific. Ray is well into his 66th year as a recording artist/entertainer (1957 - present) and given that kind of longevity he's, as I wrote, time tested and terrific. As fans we know that he remains active in the recording studio as well as on the stage at his CabaRay showroom just west of downtown Nashville. There have been some new songs from Ray pop up from time to time since the latter half of last year but, so far, there hasn't been a release of any new album. As of this writing the last full length album Ray released came along in 2021, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore. The lead music video, "Hoochie Coochie Dancer", got a lot of online notice on video hosting/video sharing social media sites. Another song from that particular album, "Gas", had been released as an audio track months earlier. There were several other songs on that 2021 comedy album that I felt should have gotten some official publicity, too.. one of them being "Dis-Connected" which focuses on online dating/online chat rooms. The album's title track, "Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore", strikes a chord with it's focus on a segment of society who want to erase anything and everything that they find questionable/offensive. In a similar topical vein there's "Disorder Down on the Border".
Time Tested and Terrific
As the banner collage above shows us... throughout time Ray Stevens has provided a smile and a lot of entertainment. Now, of course, sometimes things aren't always funny...there are plenty of times where Ray has shown the serious, somber, and reflective side in his music and in his demeanor. Where some may wonder how somebody can go from "Everything is Beautiful" to "The Streak", often back to back, within the same concert, it isn't much of a wonder to us. We appreciate all sides of Ray Stevens...even when he's being what we'd call super-serious. I don't know about other fans of Ray but I'd consider this one of those super-serious looks. Yes, there's a slight hint of a grin but it isn't the kind of grin often associated with him.
If my memory serves me correct I don't believe that there's an official color photo in existence of this pose. I've only seen this image in black and white. There's a longer photo that also exists...the full length photo shows Ray seated on a stool. The photo has appeared on a few compilation albums on Ray over the years. The compilations are associated with the RCA/BMG label and so it's been my theory that the photo originated at some point in the early 1980's during Ray's time on RCA (1979-1983). A compilation from 1990 titled Everything is Beautiful and Other Hits and another titled The Last Laugh from 1999 feature this image of Ray. When I mention official color photo at the start of this paragraph I'm making an assumption that the image used on the 2007 re-issue of The Last Laugh colorized the black and white photo of Ray. The only RCA recording on the 1999/2007 compilation is "Shriner's Convention" from 1980. If you look for the release online you'll come across comments criticizing the album's title. Their complaints stem from the album containing a mix of comedy and non-comedy recordings from Ray. Ironically, the compilation is titled The Last Laugh and yet the comedy song he recorded in 1980 titled "The Last Laugh", while with RCA, is not on the album.
Speaking of RCA.. in 1980 he recorded "The Watch Song". In this hilarious recording we hear the story of a man (played by Ray) who gets in a bar fight. Now, as we listen, it's made clear that the guy is beaten up yet he's more distraught over the fact that his wrist watch got destroyed in the fight. This causes the beaten up guy to go ballistic where he fatally wounds the opponent...and while sitting in prison awaiting his time to go to the electric chair he seeks the advice of newsman John Cameron Swayze throughout the song. Why? Well, John Cameron had also appeared in dozens of commercials for the Timex wrist watch company.
Here's a LINK to that 1980 recording from Ray Stevens.
We're now less than an hour away from the fall back an hour time change...and here's an audio example of the time tested and terrific Ray Stevens asking "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?"..
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! In my blog post from a few weeks ago where I spotlighted the upcoming October CabaRay concerts from Ray Stevens I mistakenly listed a Thursday concert (October 26th). I didn't click that particular date and simply assumed he'd be in concert that night. However, I have since found out that his CabaRay showroom is hosting an event called The Indie Country Showdown. The event kicks off on October 26th and it'll be at the CabaRay for the duration of the contest. The first night of the contest, as mentioned, is October 26th. Additional nights are November 2nd, 8th, and 16th. Participants in the contest will be voted on and the surviving participants will return for the subsequent rounds...and through the process of elimination the November 16th installment of the contest will determine the winner.
This being Saturday, October 14th, Ray will be in concert tonight at the CabaRay showroom. Tickets and all of the information can be found by clicking HERE.
In the meantime.. Ray's current music video, "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene", has vaulted beyond 200,000 unique views!! As of this writing it's gotten 238,346 unique views. You can watch the video below..
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!!! The last installment of the CabaRay Nashville bundle series that I wrote on this blog was back in early July so I think it's about time I posted a new installment. In part five I've randomly selected episodes of Ray's CabaRay Nashville television series to embed. Episodes of the show make their YouTube debut every Friday night. Some of these episodes making their YouTube debut had previously aired on RFD-TV but a bulk of them aired on local PBS affiliates across the country. There are some local PBS stations still carrying episodes of the television series but a much wider exposure, even larger than RFD-TV's reach, began when Ray started uploading one episode per week on his YouTube channel. There are/were quite a few fans of Ray that didn't live in areas where local PBS stations carried his music/talk show and so for those fans these episodes will be new to them. If you've been a fan of Ray's for any length of time (longer than 5 years) then you should be familiar with this television series even if you hadn't had the chance to see it until episodes of it began debuting on his YouTube channel. If you've been a long time fan of Ray and are aware of his signature songs but don't necessarily keep up with his career then this television series might be all new to you as well. In Part Five I'm embedding the following episodes... click each guest star's name to see the episode on YouTube...
John Rich holds the distinction of being the only guest to have two separate episodes. Ray explained that there was so much footage taped that he and the production team decided to make two episodes out of the recorded footage. Whenever the series airs on PBS in local syndication it's always in batches but in chronological order and the two episodes with John Rich are always shown as they were intended to be shown... Part one airs first followed by the second part the following week.
Hello Ray Stevens fans!! The news broke a couple of days ago but I am just now getting around to making it part of this blog.. what news? Well, this coming October 3rd at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee the legendary country soul performer, Ronnie Milsap, will perform his final Nashville concert. Ray is going to take part in the final concert performance. I have not seen any definitive information as to what all is going to take place. It's being billed as The Final Nashville Show a Tribute to Ronnie Milsap. So, some of the things I've seen online that are mostly assumptions, is that Ronnie will individually perform a lot of his songs with the large list of guest stars. I've also seen assumptions where the guests will sing a specific hit from Ronnie's career prior to him taking the stage to close out the evening. So, as of now, I don't exactly know which format will take place on October 3rd other than knowing that whichever one it is Ronnie will definitely be performing. As soon as I heard of Ray's involvement I began thinking of Ronnie's songs and what could possibly suit Ray or, better yet, which songs would fit him like a glove should the format of the guests singing Ronnie's hits be the one that's revealed. I thought of Ronnie's hits with the titles "Nobody Likes Sad Songs", "Cowboys and Clowns", "Houston Solution", "Don't You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me", and "Back On My Mind Again". I thought of those for a couple of reasons. Ray's songs are typically up-tempo and rarely, if ever, are the lyrics actually truly sad or mournful. In the songs that deal with lost love that he's recorded, for example, there's sadness or heartbreak in the lyrics but nothing painful. Another reason I thought of those songs is they're direct and not filled with a lot of vocal acrobatics like some of Ronnie's emotional ballads like: "Let's Take the Long Way Around the World", "It Was Almost Like a Song", "Stranger In My House", "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World", or "Inside".
Ray and Ronnie both share a fondness and love of multiple music styles. Whereas Ray absorbed the music of country, gospel, and pop he also loved the rhythm and blues songs that were all over the place in his youth. In addition he also loved novelty songs. Ronnie, on the other hand, loved the bluesy/soulful sounds of various recording artists in addition to loving country music and early rock and roll. Ray, as you can see, was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. He is a member of various other Halls of Fame as is Ronnie Milsap, too. Ray is a few years older than Ronnie. They were both born in the month of January. Ray was born January 24, 1939 and Ronnie was born on January 16, 1943. Ronnie was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014. The two of them performed together, very briefly, in a television movie in 1979. They sang "It's Only Temporary" and a screen cap closes out the blog entry.
To recap... Ray Stevens will be among the guest stars on the final Nashville concert by Ronnie Milsap on October 3rd at Bridgestone Arena.
Hello Ray Stevens fans! It slipped under my radar and I suppose it slipped by your radar, too, but just a few minutes ago while browsing on-line search engines for Ray Stevens content I came across a news item posted by Branson Tri-Lakes News where the Mayor of Branson, Missouri declared July 11, 2023 as Ray Stevens Day. I don't know why the webpage is only now showing up in search results. If it had been online sooner I would've made mention of it a month ago.
This is a fascinating bit of information due to the fact that 2023 marks the 30th year since Ray closed down his theatre (for the first time) in Branson. The legacy of his theater will forever live on through a couple of video releases: Ray Stevens Live! and More Ray Stevens Live!. When Ray opened up his theater in the summer of 1991 it had been under construction for a number of months... news began surfacing late in 1990 that he was set to open a theater in Branson in 1991. This theater, for those unaware, was designed by Ray and he also had it built...it wasn't a situation where Ray had moved into an already existing venue.
Ray performed there during the concert/tourist seasons of 1991, 1992, and 1993. He left the theater after finishing up the 1993 season but he didn't sell the theater...instead, he rented the theater to a group of executives that operated a music show called Country Tonite. Their music show headlined Ray's theater for 10 years (!) until 2004. Ray returned to Branson to headline his theater once again. Prior to Ray's theater opening up for the 2005 concert season, in 2004, he had the interior redecorated and he installed some new features like a mammoth electronically controlled bust of a gorilla that would rise up from the floor and lift Ray, while seated at the piano, in the air during a performance!!.
Ray's return to Branson took up the 2005 and 2006 concert seasons. Now, following the 2006 season, Ray left his Branson theater for the second time and officially put the theater up for sale. It was purchased by RFD-TV within a few years of it going on the market. Ray returned to Branson a few more times in the coming years... first, to perform during a 6-week engagement at The Welk Resort Theatre (2010) as well as a series of tribute/memorial concerts at the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre (2012) and in 2015 he briefly re-appeared in Branson for an appearance at the Moon River Theater. The local news headlines in Branson for that brief 2015 return triumphantly declared that 'Ray Stevens returns home to Branson'.
However, with the exception of the few and far between re-appearances, his days of being an owner of a Branson theater had come to an end when he put his own theater up for sale in 2006. As many of you know Ray opened up a new kind of venue in 2018 called the CabaRay and it's in West Nashville. It's an intimate venue and Ray based it's interior design on numerous venues he performed in during his years playing the Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs in the '70s and '80s. Do you want to know something fascinating? After all this time there usually isn't a day that doesn't go by that some fan on his social media pages doesn't ask if he's ever going to return to Branson or do anymore concerts down there. So, happy belated Ray Stevens Day. It's plain to see the town of Branson still appreciates your brand of entertainment.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Now, do I have an extremely wonderful treat in store for you all in this blog entry! Earlier today what I consider an extremely rare episode of Nashville Now from October 1985 made it's debut on YouTube. The episode, as far as I'm concerned, carries that rare title because it probably hasn't been seen since it's original airing almost 40 years ago but more importantly is it brings together Ray Stevens and Roger Miller for an extensive period of time. The show's host, Ralph Emery, was on vacation and so the guest host happened to be Roger Miller. I'm sure all of you reading this are aware of who Roger Miller is/was. He was a singer/songwriter who also had a knack for writing humorous songs. A lot of his humor/novelty songs were in what some might call the ditty category...often fast paced and laced with a lot of addictive scat singing and lyrics that go by so fast it's sometimes difficult to catch all of the little one liners and jokes. Roger once hosted his own network show on NBC in the fall of 1966...and we all know Ray was a recurring guest and summer host for Andy Williams...and so they both had a lot of experience on camera.
Ray performed two songs on the episode. The first, "Vacation Bible School", and the other was his current single at the time, "The Haircut Song". Roger promoted Ray's 1985 album, I Have Returned. An irony is that the episode aired in October 1985 but it would be another 5 months or so before the album would reach it's peak of number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart in the spring of 1986. Another irony is Roger opened the show with the whimsical "A Hand for the Hog"...whereas Ray, on the I Have Returned album, recorded a song called "Kiss a Pig".
The episode was basically dominated by both the guest host, Roger Miller, and guest star Ray Stevens. The other guests were actress Nicolette Larson who had a music career at the time, and a duo called the Vega Brothers. Throughout the episode during the interview portions Ray and Roger come across like a comedy duo or comedic rivals...cracking jokes and telling one liners in the hopes of trying to make the other laugh or to out-zany the other with one wild story after another. Roger's joke about why Willie Nelson crossed the road had the two of them in a brief fit of laughter. Some may feel a bit uneasy with Roger's very loose style but if you're familiar with him then it won't come across that way...anytime I'd seen him on TV he always come off as a bundle of nerves yet there's no denying his talents.
He sings several songs in the episode, of course. The highlight is "River in the Rain" from the Big River musical, a production that brought him several Tony Awards. He closed the show singing "King of the Road". I am deliberately brief with this overview because I don't want to give everything away and to fully appreciate the chemistry that Ray and Roger had on this episode it's best to just provide a link to the episode and tell you to treasure and savor the episode. Two legendary figures sharing the stage and having a big time doing so. Here's the LINK.
If you've read my previous blog entry I was debating with myself as to what to call this series of blog posts where I spotlight an audio track from a random Ray Stevens album. I've decided to go with the blog title Audio Diary, for now, until I come up with something different at some point. The inspiration for this series of blog posts stems from the abundance of online music sites that provide all kinds of songs and albums by Ray Stevens. I was mainly focusing on YouTube and Spotify since those two sites are the ones I frequent the most whenever I listen to Ray's songs. The audio track today is "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" from his 1978 album, Be Your Own Best Friend. The smooth love ballad comes from the pen of Ray Stevens and like most of his Warner Brothers recordings it was out of print for nearly two decades until 1995 when, out of the blue, Warner Brothers issued three compilation albums of Ray's recordings for the label. Those compilations are titled Cornball, The Serious Side of Ray Stevens, and Do You Wanna Dance?. The cover photos come from an international publication of artwork. Ray's photo, depending on if you have cassette or CD copies, is either found in the inside fold out cover or on the back of the CD. To date, those 1995 compilation releases are the only showcase for his Warner Brothers recordings...the actual studio albums from the mid to late 1970's have yet to get a digital download release or even a compact disc re-issue. Here's the LINK to the audio track "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right". When you're browsing eBay or some other online store this is the album featuring the audio track spotlight, "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right"...the vinyl album titled Be Your Own Best Friend.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! This is part four in my periodic blog entry series where I provide links to numerous episodes of CabaRay Nashville. In the previous installment I left off at Season 5, Episode 1 guest starring Ray Hildebrand. In this installment I'm going to feature five episodes...one of the episodes is from Season 4 and the other four are from Season 5. In case you're wondering there are still several local PBS stations that air episodes of Ray's program...but for slightly over a year now he's been airing the program once a week on his official YouTube channel. Each "season" consists of 13 half hour episodes. If you do the math, we're up to Season 5, Episode 6, meaning that 58 half hour episodes have aired each week on YouTube so far.
Season One: 13 episodes
Season Two: 13 episodes
Season Three: 13 episodes
Season Four: 13 episodes
Season Five: 6 episodes (as of this writing)
Here are the five half hour episodes featured in this installment of the YouTube bundle...
If you search the archives of this blog you'll find my reviews of each episode of Ray's TV series. When Ray decided to start uploading episodes of the show each week on his YouTube channel last year I, at first, began writing new reviews of the episodes but then I figured that it would be better to every so often write a blog entry and provide links to several episodes at once. The main reason I decided to do the bundle blog posts is because the show is airing on YouTube...available for all to see. In years past the show was only available on local PBS syndication and not everybody was able to see the show and so I felt the reviews I wrote helped those that weren't able to see the program. Now, since it's being uploaded each week on YouTube, everybody with an online connection can see it.
Fun and a whole lot of entertaining goes on every week at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom in west Nashville. If you're a tourist and visiting Nashville then I suggest you add the CabaRay to your destination list. The showroom is just west of downtown Nashville and easy to get to. Later I'll be embedding a link to the showroom and once you visit the official website you'll find all the information you'll need. Ray performs at his showroom every Saturday night. The showroom's doors open at 5pm. When you're there, awaiting Ray's concert, you can browse the gift shop and or sit in the piano bar. In addition to the gift shop and piano bar there's all kinds of photos, paintings, and awards lining the walls. There are several trophy cases displaying the various awards and certificates Ray has received over the decades. He is a member of various Halls of Fame and has a Star on the Music City Walk of Fame. The pianist inside the piano bar is John Jonethis...and the bar is informally nicknamed the Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium. The atmosphere at the CabaRay is light and up-tempo...and I've often described the showroom as Ray Stevens World. If you're a fan of Ray as I happen to be and you live within a few States of Tennessee I suggest you take a vacation to Nashville and visit the CabaRay on Saturday evenings. As a fan of Ray Stevens, the moment you walk through the CabaRay's main entrance, you'll get this feeling that'll come over you. Actually, I got the feeling the moment I saw the big red letters of the CabaRay come into view from the interstate. It's a feeling of euphoria, I guess? Ray will be in concert at the CabaRay five times during the month of July... you can catch him on July 1st (tonight!), July 8th, July 15th, July 22nd, and July 29th. You can read all about the showroom and purchase your tickets when you click HERE. Don't forget to explore the website once you're there. The link I provided only takes you to the Events/Concerts page. You can click on the area that reads Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom once you're at the Events page and it'll take you to the website's home page. The home page is where you'll find the various tabs... the photo section, referred to as Gallery, is great.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! It hasn't gotten much coverage outside of a pocketful of southern media outlets but recently the Musicians Hall of Fame unveiled a restored statue of the late record producer and guitarist legend, Chet Atkins. Ray Stevens, as you may or may not know, was a close friend and sometimes business partner of Chet. Although the word, inseparable, wouldn't apply to the two of them since they each had separate paths in the music industry, nevertheless, chances were that whenever either of them were hosting, or, were the recipient of some sort of award at a music industry gala you could be sure that one would support the other with an appearance.
A good example is Chet's guest appearance on an episode of the syndicated TV show Marty Robbins once hosted in the mid 1970s. Ray made a special guest appearance on Chet's episode and the two of them sang "Frog Kissing", the song Buddy Kalb wrote that Ray produced, arranged, sang harmony vocals on, and that Chet sang! This is a screen cap from that 1977 television appearance. Chet's singing and Ray is obviously delighted to watch his long time friend vocalizing in addition to playing the guitar. I think the 1977 performance was the first time the two ever did the song on television. I know they later performed it in a 1980 television special saluting Chet's career...but this was probably the first time they performed it on TV.
The Chet Atkins statue currently at the courtyard of the Musicians Hall of Fame had been a public statue for over 20 years in downtown Nashville and a tourist attraction. In Ray's 2013 music video of his 1973 song, "Nashville", you'll see the statue in the latter part of the song. The statue's original unveiling was on January 20, 2000. The statue's removal from the corner of 5th Avenue and Union Street was the result of a couple of factors. It had become, due to the weather, slightly deteriorated. It had sat in all elements of weather for over 20 years. The main reason for the Musicians Hall of Fame stepping in and taking control of the statue is that the planned renovation of that area of downtown Nashville didn't include the statue's presence...so, the hall of fame decided to take the statue and have it on display at their location.
Now, along with the unveiling, which Steve Wariner did, there was a commemorative plaque accompanying the event. You will see the plaque in the photo below. The plaque states Chet's name and his birth and death dates (June 20, 1924 - June 30, 2001); it includes a C.G.P. attachment next to his name; those initials stand for Certified Guitar Player. It then describes the purpose of the plaque and the history of the statue; also included is a quote from Chet and a credit to the statue's sculptor. The plaque also states June 9, 2023 as the official unveiling date at the Musicians Hall of Fame. Here's a photo of Ray and some of the attendee's of the June 9th event...
Hello fans of Ray Stevens...and in this second blog entry of June 4th I wanted to make mention of an upcoming television appearance by Ray Stevens. This appearance may very well have aired in your local market but it hasn't aired everywhere. The PBS series, Songs at the Center, will feature Ray on their first episode of the new season of shows. The episode has aired in some places of the country, as mentioned, due to it being a syndicated national program on local PBS affiliates. The episode is set to air in this area on June 16th at 11:30pm and I have my DVR programmed to tape the episode.
What you fans of Ray Stevens need to do is check the websites of the PBS television stations in your area. Once there check their program guide for Songs at the Center. All the PBS websites have a navigational tool and a list of the programs they air. When you do the TV show search, and you find out that your local PBS station carries the show, it'll provide all upcoming episodes of the series...and the one with Ray Stevens should be among the search results along with it's air-date and time. The host of the series is a guy named Eric Gnezda. Once I watch the episode in a few weeks I'll definitely write an overview/review in a future blog entry. The episode was taped at the CabaRay showroom in west Nashville earlier this year.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! As we head near the end of May let's turn our attention to the month of June. Specifically, the concert dates at the CabaRay showroom next month. Now, if you know your country music, you'll know that June has always been referred to as Country Music Month for as long as I can remember. I have never looked it up to find out exactly why the month of June has that designation for country music...but I'm guessing that it has something to do with the various events within country music that take place each June. First off it's the month that features the CMA Music Fest...a series of concerts where recording artists (both established and newcomers) interact with their fans. It was originally known as Fan Fair and it was held in June...then decades later it was re-titled CMA Music Fest. The long out of print country music magazine, Music City News, held an annual awards show each June...and for many years it was something of a centerpiece of Fan Fair. Ray won the Music City News Comedian of the Year award every single year from 1986 through 1994 (Nine consecutive years!). The awards were fan-voted. The organization also had a Songwriter Awards gala...and Ray co-hosted the event a couple of times and he performed on that particular program, too. When you visit the CabaRay you'll be able to see his various awards...including the 9 awards as Comedian of the Year (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994). He has his awards housed in several display cases. Almost all of Ray's awards are a direct result of you, the fan...yes, it's worth noting that he has what I call music insider awards from music publishing companies (specifically BMI) and he's been elected to several Halls of Fame...but the bulk of his awards and plaques reflect the amazing support the fanbase has shown him over the decades. The fans are responsible for all of his Comedian of the Year honors; the readers of Country Weekly magazine awarded him a Golden Pick Award as their Favorite Comedian in 1995; and not to forget all of the Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum songs, albums, VHS tapes, and viral online music videos...and during the month of June think about stopping by the CabaRay showroom while you're in the vicinity of Nashville during Country Music Month. It's on River Road just west of downtown Nashville. Ray will be in concert at the CabaRay showroom during the month of June on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th. You can read all about the showroom and purchase your tickets when you click HERE.
Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! In the last half year or so I had posted several blog entries centering around the next-to-last episode of Larry's Country Diner guest starring Ray Stevens. I posted a blog entry spotlighting the audio tracks of Ray's performances that were uploaded onto YouTube and Spotify, specifically, since I feel those sites are incredibly user friendly and easier to navigate. I later wrote a blog entry that featured my review of that Ray Stevens episode of Larry's Country Diner. The full episode is on YouTube and I've posted it. However, the individual music performances of Ray from that episode hadn't been uploaded in video form onto YouTube...but we're probably about to get all of those performances from the November 2022 episode as separate video uploads. Why do I state that? Well, it's because his performance of "The Gambler and the Octopus" from that November 2022 episode was uploaded onto YouTube yesterday. If my hunch is right we'll probably get individual on-camera performances of the other songs he sang on that episode. The song comes from Ray's recent comedy album, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore.
Although it's been on the market for a couple of years, now, it's still considered his recent studio album because he hasn't released any new studio album since. In the music industry there's a phrase called 'riding an album'. I touched on this in a fairly recent blog entry. It's jargon for the time spent either promoting an album or the songs from an album...and usually a record label or a recording artist will spend at least 1 year or typically no more than 2 years 'riding' an album.
The album was released in October 2021 and so we're technically 1 year and 7 months since the album's debut. I don't know if Ray will be releasing anything in the near future but perhaps by October when the 2021 comedy album is 2 years old (an eternity in the music industry) there will be a new studio album for our listening pleasure. In the meantime, however, this is the 2022 performance of "The Gambler and the Octopus" on Larry's Country Diner. The screen-cap used on YouTube captures Ray at a moment in the song where he's in the process of grinning prior to shaking his head in disbelief over how confident the gambler seems to be. Some of you that look at the screen-cap may think he's crying but he isn't.
Hello fans of the legendary Ray Stevens!! I came across a video clip on YouTube yesterday of songwriter Layng Martine, Jr. discussing his association with Ray and how much of an impact Ray had on his career. If you're a long time fan of Ray then you will probably know some of the things that Layng discusses in the interview but don't let that persuade you not to watch the video clip. Layng, based upon the things he discusses, loves Ray Stevens as much as we all do. When you watch the video you'll easily follow along as Layng talks about meeting Ray for the first time and how unassuming and modest Ray happens to be. Layng became a writer for Ray's publishing company and the two had a pair of massive hits as a writer/publisher team. Layng elaborates on Ray's work ethic and talents in the recording studio. He also lets a lot of us Ray Stevens fans know what it was like being in the recording studio with Ray and watching him make records. Layng has nothing but praise and respect for Ray as a person as well as high praise for Ray as a singer/songwriter/musician/publisher. Layng sheds some light on Ray's modesty as well as his integrity. The two hits that they enjoyed were "Rub It In" and "Way Down". The former had actually been recorded by Layng...released as a single on Barnaby Records in 1973 and produced by Ray...but the record company released it at the wrong time of the year. However, not all was lost. Billy 'Crash' Craddock recorded the song and it became an enormous hit...and sharing in that success was Layng as the writer and Ray as the publisher. The other big hit for the writer/publisher duo came in 1977 with "Way Down", recorded by Elvis Presley. It was released in what turned out to be the final months of Elvis' life...reaching the Top-10 not long after he passed away. Ray published more songs that Layng wrote but those two were the biggest commercial hits. The video's title is 'Writing for Ray Stevens - Layng Martine, Jr.'. The interview is conducted by Otis Gibbs. It is a fascinating and fabulous interview but rather than just go by my obviously pro-Ray Stevens biased opinion take a look for yourselves. The video clip is a little more than 13 minutes in length and it goes by quickly, too...it's that engaging and informative. Do you know what an escalator is? Keep your ears open for that topic as you enjoy this video. The photo they used of Ray is from a photo session in 1975. A very similar photo later, in 1980, appeared on the cover of a September issue of Country Song Roundup. It might even be the same photo but with the outdoors backdrop cropped out.
