May 15, 2016

Ray Stevens Nashville, Season 2...

Hello all of you fans of Ray Stevens! If you have RFD-TV you can catch Season 2 of Ray Stevens' Nashville. It got underway a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday night's guest happened to be Bobby Goldsboro (episode 3 of Season 2). Ray's YouTube channel features commercial spots for some of the episodes. In a previous blog entry I made mention of this. On Ray's Facebook page the banner promotes the second season of his television series.

According to the RFD schedule for the next several weeks there's going to be the May 21st airing of episode 4 and then an episode from last season re-airs on May 28th before it jumps to episode 6 on June 1st. I don't know if that's a typo or if the "episode 5" installment is being held for a later airing.

You can see the upcoming air-dates by clicking HERE.

Ray competed with himself last night, too! Even though his television series aired in it's usual time slot (8:30pm Eastern) he happened to be in concert in Branson, Missouri at the Andy Williams Performing Arts Center (formerly the Moon River Theatre). So, while his program was thrilling audiences from coast to coast on RFD-TV, he was simultaneously thrilling the Branson audiences with a concert.

Jimmy Osmond, owner of the Branson venue, posted a picture of himself standing in the middle of Ray and Don Williams (one of Andy's brothers and one of Ray's former managers).

In a little more than a month (June 17th) Ray is set to release his third gospel album. I hyped it's forthcoming release in a previous blog entry, posted an image of the CD, and later I posted a blog centering on his three gospel albums (1972, 2014, 2016). As you can see I've posted a smaller image of the CD off to the left. I imagine that once the CD is released or perhaps at the end of this month there's going to be much more advertising for it's availability. His television programs, like most other television productions, are taped in advance...maybe there's going to be an upcoming episode spotlighting the release of the CD? If you remember back to 2014 and the release of the Gospel Collection there wasn't much publicity for the CD, at first, but later on Ray began turning up on religious television programs and in gospel media...all of this culminating in his co-hosting of the Inspirational Country Music Awards gala in November 2014. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry the 2014 gospel CD happened to be specified as a Volume One. For this CD there isn't a Volume Two designation but this release is the second of 2 volumes. As you can see from the photo of the CD the official title is Just a Closer Walk with Thee/Gospel Favorites. I'm sure the CD is going to be referred to as Gospel Favorites during publicity rather than utilizing the longer portion of the title.

On the concert trail this coming Friday (May 20th) Ray is going to be performing at The Villages in Florida at The Sharon L Morse Performing Arts Center at 7pm. You can read about it HERE and click their Ticket link if you're planning on attending. At the bottom of their page it lists the venue's street address and information. Ray has also taped a brief video promo and you can see it if you click HERE. The next day he'll be putting on 2 concerts at the Blue Gate Theatre in Shipshewana, Indiana. One concert at 1pm and the second at 7:30pm. You can call the venue for ticket information: (260) 768-3021.