February 27, 2018

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...Sam Moore

Well, hello once more! I'm on vacation from work all this week but yesterday I happened to literally be away from the house from mid morning until around eight last night. My brother and I were driving around, stopping at various places, inserting addresses and generally testing out a new G.P.S. device I purchased for a road trip we're planning this coming Thursday morning. When I arrived home I checked Ray's premium video site and discovered that episode seven of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville had become available for viewing.



As you can tell from the embed the special guest is Sam Moore. Ray opened up the show giving a brief history on the song "C.C. Rider" which set the tone of the episode. He perhaps half jokingly said that it's the official opening song for live performers but didn't specifically single out Las Vegas. Ray spoke of somebody that I'd never heard of...a guy named Wayne Cochran...and then went on to tell how Wayne more than likely influenced the Vegas-era performing style of Elvis. Ray then says that Wayne Newton began opening shows with "C.C. Rider", too. Ray performs the song and it includes shout outs to several members of the band as well as interaction from the harmony singers.

Ray introduces Sam Moore and upon entrance Sam lets out a "How-dee" in the style of Minnie Pearl. Ray mentions his love for rhythm and blues and says that's the music he heavily gravitated toward as he got older and into his teen years. Ray lists several of his favorites in addition to how he worked with quite a few during his years at Mercury in the early '60s. Sam mentions of working with the likes of Ray Charles and Brook Benton. Ray Stevens and Sam perform "Rainy Night in Georgia" which had originally been recorded by Brook. Afterward Ray asks how it was like to sing with Conway Twitty. Sam remarks that he was incredibly nervous prior to meeting Conway for the recording session and once he saw him in person he thought to himself "My...you have a lot of hair!". The audience laughs...but, of course, the funny thing is at the time Conway and Sam recorded their version of "Rainy Night in Georgia" in 1993 Sam's hair had a lot of length to it as well.

Ray asks about Sam's latest CD, An American Patriot. Sam tells of being at a social event and getting chills realizing that he was standing in a spot where Martin Luther King, Jr. once stood and then he does a vocal drum roll and presents Ray with a t-shirt promoting Sam's CD. The project was released in October of 2017 but this episode was taped during recording sessions which had taken place months earlier than that (the latter half of June 2017 to be specific). Sam performs his rendition of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and by song's end the entire cast (including Ray) and the audience are in a hand clapping, sing-a-long presentation. Ray asks him to sing another song...and you can guess what the request would be...Ray asks for "Soul Man". Sam comically refuses to do it but this leads into his 'giving in' and performing it anyway. It's in this performance where Sam has the audience standing up to provide dance routines during the performance. Genuinely getting a kick out of it he proclaims how much fun he's having doing the show. Ray eventually comes out to thank him for being on the show. Sam departs the performance area.

The guests exiting the stage area is something that's become a part of the show recently. I think it began in the latter half of the previous season where the guests exit on-camera. In most episodes up until last season after Ray thanked the guest for appearing it would edit to Ray being center stage or at the piano to perform the closing song. Like I mentioned, here lately, the episodes show the guest leaving the performance area and then the camera pans back over to Ray, seated at the piano or standing, and he starts to perform the closing song. This time the closing song is "Save the Last Dance for Me". Ray had recorded the song, partially, in 1978 and used it as part of what he called a Dance Trilogy. A medley of three dance songs incorporated into a single performance. This trilogy of songs include: "Do You Wanna Dance?", "When You Dance", and "Save the Last Dance for Me". It's the lead-off track on his 1978 Rhythm and Blues tribute album, There is Something On Your Mind.

Episode Seven of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville, guest starring Sam Moore, officially aired on local PBS stations last weekend (most air-dates were on Saturday February 17th). As I mentioned in a previous blog entry the local PBS affiliate in my area will begin airing Season Five episodes the first weekend of April but they will begin with Episode Eight and won't air the first seven episodes of the current season. Like a broken record I have to say it again: Thank God for RayStevens.tv. If it weren't for this premium on-line website I'd not have been able to see the first seven episodes of this season and up until the other day it seemed as if I'd not be able to see Season Five air on KET2 until later this year sometime. I'm glad the rest of Season Five will be airing on television and reaching a more wider local audience than the episodes otherwise would have but I'd never understood why the local PBS station never aired Season Five from it's beginning in early January but chose to repeat the first half of Season Three in it's place.

The next episode of the series will guest star Wilson Fairchild. This episode aired this past weekend on local PBS stations and so I'll provide a recap of this episode after it's been uploaded onto the Ray Stevens video site I provided a link to in the previous paragraph.

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