October 21, 2017

Some Vintage/New Ray Stevens Items...

Hello all...it's an early Saturday morning here as I type up this latest blog entry. This time around I'm blogging about a couple of vintage but new to me items from Ray Stevens. First off is a CD that Ray released 10 years ago that I never owned a copy of until now!! In 2007 he released a CD titled Hurricane. The CD features 12 songs...five of which are re-recordings of previous songs. At the time of the release I purchased the 7 original recordings, as Mp3's, but lately I began thinking of the physical copy of the CD...plus the fact that the Mp3's that I had previously purchased were lost on a computer I no longer operate...and so I purchased a CD copy of Hurricane about a week ago during one of Ray's web-store discount sales and it arrived in the mail yesterday.

The first six songs on the CD had never appeared on any previous Ray Stevens album and the same goes for track eleven. Tracks seven through ten and track twelve are the re-recordings. In order: "Hurricane", "Sucking Sound", "The Cure", "Bubba the Wine Connoisseur", "Hey Bubba Watch This!", and "Rub It In". Dedicated fans of Ray Stevens may take a moment and ponder over "Rub It In". Ray has long been linked to this song but until this 2007 CD was released he had never recorded it. In the early '70s Ray produced a version of the song recorded by it's writer, Layng Martine, Jr., and released it on Barnaby Records. Ray also published the song...which proved very beneficial...because the publisher of a song tags along with any artist that records the song. The version by it's writer didn't became a big hit but later on Billy "Crash" Craddock recorded the song and it became a monster hit. If you have the single or if you come across an image of it on-line you'll see Ray's publishing company credited as Ahab Music Company on the upper left hand side of the label sleeve. In the '80s and '90s the song's title was parodied in a long series of television commercials for Glade...their jingle was called 'Plug it In, Plug it In!". The seventh never before available song on the CD is "Down Home Beach". The re-recordings include: "Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat", "The Camping Trip", "Makin' The Best of a Bad Situation", "Stuck on You", and "Hugo the Human Cannonball". Four of those re-recordings were turned into limited animation music videos. For those that have seen those videos the recordings you hear originated on this Hurricane CD.

The second vintage item is truly a gem of obscurity and in very limited quantities. Long time readers of this fan created blog are aware of how I have complained over the years about the lack of cassette tape on eBay of studio albums Ray recorded during the hey day of cassette tape. I have a blue cassette tape of Boogity Boogity (the oldest cassette of Ray that I own; from 1974). Next in line is a 1980 cassette of Shriner's Convention. Then everything from 1984 to 2002 I have in cassette format, too...but that was until a couple of days ago...

Into my possession came a cassette copy of Don't Laugh Now, a 1982 Ray Stevens album. As you might know I already have all of Ray's studio albums in vinyl format starting with 1963's This is Ray Stevens and stopping with 1989's Beside Myself...but the cassette tape collection prior to 1984 is really small and I act like a kid in a candy store anytime I obtain something rare. I'm forever on the look out for cassette versions of 1981's One More Last Chance and 1983's Me. I know cassette tape was manufactured throughout the 1970s but I just never, hardly ever, come across anything on cassette from Ray during that time frame. Cassette versions of Losin' Streak, Nashville, and even Just For the Record have come up for sale on eBay but the prices are outrageous. Don't Laugh Now was just the right price! This is the album that contains the single releases "Written Down In My Heart" and "Where the Sun Don't Shine". The album opens up with "Such a Night"...a song that only recently became something of a staple in Ray's set lists during concerts. The album also includes "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" and one of my all-time favorites, "Oh, Leo Lady". I made the images small...you can always click them and a larger image should appear. If a larger image doesn't appear then the small image will just have to do.

As a reminder...tonight's episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville will guest star Charley Pride. I'll give my commentary about the episode in my next blog entry. I should have it up either late tonight or in the early morning. Here's the promo for the episode...


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