June 11, 2017

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville DVD!!

News broke several days ago about an upcoming product concerning Ray Stevens. I became aware of the product while doing one of my Google image searches for Ray. I happened to come across an image of a DVD offering the first season of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville (13 episodes). Whenever I come across something about Ray that's out of the ordinary I contact Ray's people and ask questions. The image was credited from originating at Ray's site. Since I write a fan-created blog focusing on Ray I prefer to post information that's official and accurate.

Admittedly I was aware of this product for several days...but I didn't feel secure enough to post much about it...so I privately shared the images with some other fans of Ray Stevens. I contacted Ray's people about the DVD but didn't get a reply...they were obviously planning/preparing for the CMA Music Festival. (Note: I wrote about his appearance at the Fan Fair event in my previous blog post from earlier this morning.).

Anyway, after sending Ray's people a message about this mysterious DVD image that I came across, I visited his website. Once the page opened up there's a great big advertisement for the DVD. Upon seeing this I realized that the DVD image credited to Ray in the Google image search happened to be official. Even though I had clicked the image of the DVD and it took me to Ray's store I still didn't feel okay writing about the product because of the lack of publicity for it...but considering the big advertisement at Ray's website I'll officially add my enthusiasm and excitement for this product and I'll spare no hold-back.

Isn't this a lovely sight?? This is something that I'd been hoping for ever since Ray debuted his television series back on RFD television in November 2015. I had hoped that a DVD of the program would emerge at some point and sure enough it has. Ray moved the show from RFD to PBS in January of this year. I've since placed my order for the DVD and I can't wait for it to get here...finally I'll be able to see episode 1 (guest starring Steve Wariner) in it's entirety and the several episodes that the DVR didn't record (namely episode 9 guest starring John Conlee and Jeff Bates!) and the episodes the DVR automatically removed (3 altogether!!). There were more episodes that aired on RFD than just 13 but the air-date schedule happened to confuse a lot of people and apparently it's unique production cycle is the reason for it's departure from RFD (but that's just my guess). It operated under a 13 week first-run/13 week rerun schedule. Once the 13th episode reran, new episodes would begin to air for 13 more weeks (a total of 26 first-run episodes and 26 reruns comprise a 52 week calendar year). Most television programs air 26 first-run episodes and then go into their hiatus/rerun period during the summer months. Ray's program wasn't taped in the 26 first-run, 26 rerun style...so the first 13 episodes billed as Season One could arguably be referred to as half a season. I'm hoping a Part 2 is also on the horizon featuring the remaining 13 episodes that originally aired on RFD. There has also been footage shot for an additional 26 episodes but the footage hasn't been constructed/edited into individual half hour programs yet. Once the editing process is completed then those episodes will start airing on PBS, too.

How can YOU order your copy of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville series?? I'm glad you asked!! You can purchase your copy of the DVD by visiting Ray's store and do what I already did...order it! You can visit the web-store by clicking HERE. If you have never ordered from his site before you will have to register as a customer and provide the usual details (name, shipping address, e-mail, payment method, etc. etc.). It's a 4-disc collection. Episodes 1 through 4 are on Disc 1, episodes 5 through 8 are on Disc 2, episodes 9 through 12 are on Disc 3, episode 13 and Bonus material is on Disc 4. I'm assuming the bonus material are out-takes, bloopers, etc. etc. Once I get the DVD and watch it and take note of the sound/picture, etc. etc. I'll post my review.

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