November 13, 2016

Ray Stevens: Upcoming Christmas CD...

Hello one and all...this is going to be super short notice but an upcoming Christmas CD from Ray Stevens is expected to be released tomorrow (November 14th). It's a 10 song collection...7 of the recordings are exclusive to the CD while 3 of the recordings have previously been released. The previously released recordings are "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (both recordings from the 2012 Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music) and "Merry Christmas" (originally released as a music video in 2012...first appearance on a CD collection).

The upcoming release is titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. Ray's on-line store has it for sale already and it'll go on sale all over the internet on November 14th. Several days ago I did a music search for Ray Stevens and discovered this upcoming release but I never made mention of it on this blog because I knew very little about it. Ray hadn't even publicized it's upcoming release, either, and so I decided I'd better keep my discovery to myself just in case the release appeared on-line prematurely (such things are known to happen). Amazon's Mp3 store is the place I discovered the project, by the way. The CD's title track comes from the pen of country music artist Jeff Bates. I didn't know this until another Ray Stevens fan pointed it out. There is audio/video of Jeff performing the song but I've deliberately kept myself from viewing it. I want to discover the song through the Ray Stevens recording and then later I'll take a listen to the recording by it's writer.

So, then, just what exactly are the 10 songs on this CD? I've already listed 4 of them (the 3 from 2012 and the previously unreleased title track). The remaining 6 recordings are: "Frosty the Snowman", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "All I Want for Christmas Is You", "Christmas Bells (In the Steeple)", "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", and "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day". Isn't that cover photo lovely? It's a scene perfect for a Christmas card, and speaking of which, if you order the CD from Ray's on-line music store you'll receive a Christmas card as a free gift. The card spotlights the cover of the CD. I did some research on some of the recordings and I found out that track 9 had been published by Ray's company and previously recorded in the early '60s by Brenda Lee. Much in the way you can seek out the Jeff Bates recording of "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", also known as The Donkey Song, you can also find the Brenda Lee recording of "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day". The awesome thing about this is the fact that Ray published the song but had never recorded it until now. If you happen to have the Brenda Lee recording then you've already been aware for years that Ray's Ahab Music Company published it. It's something I happened to just find out during my research several days ago. For clarification: Ray's main publishing company (he has several) hasn't been called Ahab Music Company since the late '70s. He changed it to Ray Stevens Music, the name it continues to operate under, but songs that originated prior to the change in name have to remain under their original publishing credits. If you see any song credited to Ahab Music Company then those publishing credits occurred prior to 1978. In addition Ray has several record labels. Clyde Records is the main one but lately he's been using the CabaRay Entertainment imprint.

The songs, in order, are: "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "Frosty the Snowman", "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", "All I Want for Christmas is You", "Merry Christmas", "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day", and "Christmas Bells (In the Steeple)".

You can purchase your copy of Ray's latest CD by clicking HERE.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Show your appreciation for the music of Ray Stevens...leave a comment...