Ray Stevens and the Upcoming Year...2019...

It's that time once again...we're very close to ending another calendar year...and although it hasn't become an annual tradition it's time for me to take a look at the upcoming year and the events and happenings in the career of Ray Stevens. Now, of course, I can only speculate on things that may happen and so I won't do too much of that but rather I'll focus on things that I know for certain. For example...2019 will mark the Golden Anniversary of everything Ray recorded in 1969 and this will include recordings found on his two albums that year: Gitarzan and Have a Little Talk With Myself. I won't go into detail about those two albums in this blog entry...I'll wait until we get to 2019 before I dive into those albums with my usual enthusiastic nature. Since 1969's recordings will reach 50 in 2019 that, of course, means his recordings from 1979 and 1989 reach 40 and 30 respectively. Ray never released any recordings in 1999 but he did issue recordings late in 2009 and those will reach 10 later this year but more on that in the second half of 2019.

Performing "Gitarzan" in concert is easily identified by the fact it's the only performance in which Ray is shown with a guitar. The song turns 50 next year and I've written down some notes regarding potential blog entry titles for when I take the plunge and write the Golden Anniversary blog entry. A brief look back on one of the major things that took place in 2018 in the career of Ray Stevens can be summed up in one word: CabaRay. The luxurious showroom on River Road in West Nashville opened it's doors in January this year and since we're on an anniversary kick I'll remark that the showroom reaches it's one year anniversary next month. The showroom had been in the planning stages for at least two years before it had it's grand opening in January 2018. There was a rather lengthy delay in the building's permit being cleared and given approval in spite of the fact that the land/property had already been purchased, cleared, and ready for construction but the land sat vacant during the long permit process. This meant that the showroom wouldn't be open by the summer of 2017 nor late 2017 as was hoped. The grand opening, as mentioned, happened in January of this year. There is a photo of Ray from the latter half of 2016 and it shows Ray holding the building permit with a big smile. I've got that photo in my collection...

There's a certain cliche that goes 'a picture is worth a thousand words' and this photo lives up to that expression. If you're a casual fan and do not follow the career of Ray Stevens as intently as I or some of the other fans do then you won't know just how agonizing and frustrating the process happened to be with the construction of the CabaRay on what seemed like permanent delay...but finally the building permit was issued. Even though we, as fans, personally had nothing to do with the process of getting the showroom constructed nor were we in any way part of the goings-on behind the scenes it nevertheless, for me anyway, was as agonizing as if I happened to be part of the goings-on. As a fan I, too, couldn't wait to see the showroom transformed from it's paper design and layout to an actual physical building one can walk into. A further explanation can be found within the next paragraph or two. I had never had the desire to visit Nashville or venture too far "from home" even though some may say that's a terrible mindset to not want to travel and "see the country" or "see the sights", etc. etc. I've always been a homebody and have always been happy just attending concerts of singers I like if they happen to appear within reasonable driving distance from where I live.

I don't go to sporting events either...I prefer to watch sports on TV or listen to the radio...but anyway I never had such a burning desire to travel to such a distant place as Nashville, Tennessee in my life until Ray's CabaRay showroom was opened to the public in January. I kept telling myself that I just had to visit the place. Strangely enough I never had that kind of overwhelming desire to visit a venue when he returned to his theater in Branson, Missouri in the mid 2000s even though by then I was now old enough to have attempted a trip down there. I was still a kid/teenager in the early 1990s when Ray was originally in Branson and so, obviously, it was completely out of the question back then and so it never entered my mind to visit Ray's Branson theater in person.

Anyway, my brother and I embarked on our trip/voyage to Nashville in March and we attended a concert at the CabaRay. I wrote a review of our time in Nashville and at the CabaRay back in March but I don't think I expressed the feeling I got when, from the car window, I saw the CabaRay sitting high atop the area...for me, seeing the CabaRay showroom in person with the big red letters across the front of the building spelling out the name of the showroom was like, for others, seeing the Hollywood letters on the mountain in California. I seriously want to attempt another visit to the CabaRay in 2019...but everything depends on vacation time where I work (and it getting approved in a timely manner) as well as the schedule of my brother. It's completely out of the question of my traveling to Nashville by myself and so that isn't an option.

One more look back on 2018...in August Ray received a star on the Music City Walk of Fame. There was a lot of publicity for the ceremony/event, I wrote several blog entries about it, and it played out like the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, actually. There were speakers at the event of the civic variety and each star that received this Walk of Fame honor also had their career highlights/statistics spoken of, too, by those doing the presentations...

The Music City Walk of Fame now includes a Star honoring Ray Stevens and as you can see in the collage off to the left the equally legendary artist, Ricky Skaggs, did the formal induction of Ray's star on the Walk of Fame. I'd seen the Walk of Fame when I was in Nashville but this was months before Ray received a star. In 2019 I plan on visiting Nashville and the CabaRay in a more warmer time of the year, too...with the added bonus of seeing Ray's Walk of Fame star. As one could guess the Music City Walk of Fame is similar to Hollywood's Walk of Fame...and there's a certain legendary actor that has had a star on the Walk of Fame going back several decades and in a lot of his films he wore a star and I'm talking about John Wayne. As many Ray Stevens fans already know he recorded a song/tribute to John Wayne in 1989 and it's on the Beside Myself album which turns 30 in 2019. The writer of the song is Ray's long-time associate/collaborator, Buddy Kalb. It's not a heavy, deep tribute song but actually more along the lines of a clever tribute using movie titles and characters played by John Wayne...and I happen to find these kinds of tribute songs much more appealing and endearing than some kind of music creation or instrumental which would have little to do with the subject being honored or given tribute. The song I'm referring to is "Marion Michael Morrison"...which, at the time, was considered to be John Wayne's birth name but in the years following it's been changed to Marion Mitchell Morrison and I've also seen his birth name listed as Marion Robert Morrison. Whichever one is ultimately correct is irrelevant because everybody knows him as John Wayne or The Duke...and you can sing the song just as easily no matter if the middle name is Michael, Mitchell, or Robert...the melody will remain intact. Some of the films mentioned are The Sands of Iwo Jima, The Flying Tigers, and a couple of his characters mentioned in the song are McQ and McClintock.

Anyway...I have Beside Myself on vinyl and on cassette. I don't have a photo of myself with the vinyl album but here's the cassette copy. I also have it on CD under a different name, At His Best. The album, released in 1989, was his sixth studio album for MCA Records and at the time his final for the label (he'd return in the mid 1990s for a couple of projects). The album broke up the pattern of his previous five which were all comedy. This one presented 10 songs altogether (five ballads and five comedy). The ballads are featured on side one and I believe that was by design...his serious side hadn't been represented on records since 1983...and so the first five songs on this album showcase his serious side and probably by coincidence a more serious looking image of Ray is seen first on the album cover seated next to the comical/clown image of Ray of which takes center stage on side two of the album. The album's lead off is the appropriately titled "Your Bozo's Back Again". The third track is "Marion Michael Morrison" which I previously wrote about in the above paragraph. Just recently an article became available centering around John Wayne but more to the point it was an interview of Chris Mitchum (the son of the late actor, Robert Mitchum) and it was conducted by Jeremy Roberts...a name that should ring a bell with the more in-depth fans of Ray Stevens. It's Jeremy whose conducted interviews with Ray as well as Buddy Kalb in recent years...and yes, he even conducted an interview with me of all people centering around my frustrations of why Ray isn't in the Country Music Hall of Fame. You can read each of the three interviews by clicking the following links: Ray Stevens Buddy Kalb and Yours Truly. The interviews were published in December 2016 (Ray), June 2017 (Buddy), and July 2017 (mine). In the Buddy Kalb interview you'll see mention of the upcoming CabaRay and how, at the time, the parties involved were expecting to have the showroom completed and ready for it's grand opening in September of last year...so, as I was referring to earlier, it's completion and eventual grand opening took longer than expected.

The latest interview of Chris Mitchum and the connection to John Wayne can be found HERE. The title of the piece is 'John Wayne built my career'. As you'll see when you visit the page it's the third part of an interview. The second part was published in November and titled 'When Robert Mitchum considered Elvis Presley for Thunder Road' and part one was earlier in November and titled 'Chris Mitchum's Fluke Showdown with the King of Cool'. Once you visit the link featuring commentary about John Wayne that I provided you can visit the author's home page and locate the other two parts of the interview and find all of his interviews, in general, but part three ties into the career of Ray Stevens in an indirect way given the recording of "Marion Michael Morrison" in 1989. On the left hand side of each interview there's an applause symbol. This is the site's version of a 'like' button so make sure you click the applause symbol when you read the articles.

I look for Ray to release some sort of audio CD in 2019...the last album was the Christmas release Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me (2016) and before that Here We Go Again! (2015). A couple of months ago Ray had made some commentary on social media that he'd been in the recording studio and usually that means some kind of recording or an entire CD is on the way and so perhaps the early half of 2019 will feature new songs from Ray!? His CabaRay Nashville television series continues to air in local syndication on PBS and I'm hoping new episodes of the series are produced in 2019. An elusive Season Seven has yet to materialize...but the previous six seasons of the series are currently airing on scattered local PBS stations across the country...and the first two seasons are also available on DVD. In addition to the anniversary milestones for specific songs/albums by Ray Stevens in the year 2019 the biggest milestone will happen a month from now...technically less than a month from now...on January 24, 2019. Dedicated fans of Ray should know the importance of that day without my having to say it. This might be the last blog entry I write for 2018...but perhaps not...I may squeeze in one more before the calendar flips to January. Whatever I decide just remember that I'll continue to follow the career of Ray Stevens in 2019 just as I have the last several decades and I'll continue offering an informative, detailed, opinionated, and enthusiastic blog for those that are seriously interested in the career/music of Ray Stevens.

Ray Stevens: Such a Night DVD...

Hello once again!! Although I had posted a blog entry earlier in the morning it didn't necessarily feel like Christmas at the time of the writing...but now that it's been daylight outside for several hours and the Christmas programming is on television in the living room and much of the food that's going to be eaten is on the stove it feels like Christmas Day. In one of my recent blog entries I made mention of purchasing a DVD during Ray's 12 Days of Christmas Sale. The DVD arrived a couple of days ago and I've since watched it. The concert took place at The Welk Theater and Resort in Branson, Missouri in the fall of 2010. If you remember the events surrounding Ray's career during that time period then you should remember that he did a lengthy series of concerts there. The concert captured on this DVD is from October of 2010 but the DVD itself wasn't released until 2012. The sub-title of the project reflects the 50 years that had passed since the release of his breakthrough hit, "Ahab the Arab", in 1962. The official title of the DVD is Such a Night but I refer to it as: Such a Night: 50 Years of Hits and Hilarity. The concerts that took place in 2010 at The Welk Theater were largely the result of Ray's stratospheric, meteoric rise on social media video hosting sites...mainly YouTube. The on-line outlet enabled Ray to release brand new songs to the public, in green screen music video format, without the need for radio or television advertisements or creative compromise. The politically themed music videos became viral hits and several of them caught the attention of those that worked in cable news and conservative talk radio. Ray made appearances on numerous high profile cable news programs on both radio and television in this time period and the concerts he did at the Welk in 2010 were split between a segment of political comedy songs and a traditional concert comprised of non-political songs. The political segment was released on DVD in the form of Patriots and Politics while the non-political segment is showcased on this Such a Night DVD. In the political DVD captured from another concert Ray is wearing a blue dinner jacket. In this Such a Night DVD he's in a red dinner jacket.

The concert features a voice over/introduction by one of Ray's longtime friends, Ralph Emery. Ray emerges onto the stage and performs "Such a Night", a song he recorded in 1982 for his Don't Laugh Now album. It's become his concert opener...and since I've not been to a lot of his concerts (for economic/travel reasons) I don't know how many years he's opened his concerts with the song. To date I've attended a concert of his in Renfro Valley, Kentucky as well as one in Nashville, Indiana and then earlier this year at his CabaRay in Nashville, Tennessee. Anyway the concert took me back to that era in his career and I think most fans of Ray Stevens will take the same things away from the concert as I did. It shows that Ray has a restless creativity and is forever changing in the manner in which he delivers a concert or a performance. This is also several years before he released his memoir or began his television series and obviously a number of years before construction of the CabaRay showroom was ever started. In my eyes, at least, the Ray Stevens we see in this 2010 concert is different than the Ray Stevens we see on his CabaRay Nashville television series or in person at the CabaRay showroom. On the surface it seems as if Ray remains the same and yet when you go back and look at concert performances in chronological order you'll see a lot of evolution and change but it isn't drastic and therefore it doesn't overshadow his recordings or whatever it happens to be that he's working on.

Upon the conclusion of his performance of "Such a Night" he looked out into the audience and asked how many people were still in the audience. It had been documented in a couple of reviews published in local papers in Branson, Missouri and in several on-line sites that during the political segment of his concerts there were several non-disruptive walkouts by some audience members. I remember these statements and commenting on this blog and elsewhere that the people that walked out must not have knew that Ray had inserted political comedy from a conservative point of view into his stage show...all as a result of his massively popular YouTube music videos of the time...but to walkout of any performance without it being an extreme emergency is petty and small, I think. Ray opined the reason that some had walked out and after the comment it was the last political statement he made as he turned his focus to a more conventional set list of songs and stand-up routines. He joked about playing golf in Branson and flying to concerts instead of using a tour bus. He launched into his Oldies Medley which consists of abbreviated performances of "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills", "Ahab the Arab", and "Along Came Jones". After some more stand-up comedy about the traffic issues in Branson and a school trip involving a restroom, school kids, and their teacher Ray performs "Gitarzan". In an unusual twist a shapely Jane walks out on stage but is then chased off stage by Janice Copeland, the usual performer of Jane. She passed away last year at age 67 but definitely left her mark in Branson and in Ray's stage shows and music videos. In addition to Jane there's also an unidentified person in a monkey suit prancing around during the performance of the song's chorus.

In recent years Ray's abbreviated "Shriner's Convention" to just the opening verse and the first phone call between Bubba and Coy which conveniently inserts a line from the final phone call to wrap-up the one sided phone conversation and on this DVD the abbreviated performance is included. I don't know if the abbreviated performance is done for time constraints that are out of his control or if it's become something of a habit of shortening the song in an effort to have it part of the concert without having to perform it in it's entirety...the song is well over five minutes, though...maybe he feels the length of the song doesn't play well in a concert setting anymore since it's mostly a narration piece and most people nowadays have short attention spans. It's anyone's guess. Stand-up comedy returns in the form of Ray speaking about how he grew up listening to gospel music and how he was always marveling at how low bass singers could get. The gospel recollections conclude with a Dolly Parton joke. "Turn Your Radio On" is performed and almost immediately afterward he tells several jokes centering around his grandfather.

As we near the end of the concert Ray performs "Misty" and then "It's Me Again, Margaret". Ray tells some more jokes including one that some may think is crude or not family friendly but it's hysterical. "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" is then performed and this is followed by one more joke centering around Ray's grandmother. "Everything is Beautiful" is performed and the concert closes with "The Streak". As mentioned near the top of this blog entry Ray was performing a series of concerts at The Welk Theater in the fall of 2010. Ray's overwhelming YouTube success (November 2009 through spring 2013) he says afforded him the opportunity to reach audiences he otherwise never would've dreamed of reaching and it led to his concerts at The Welk Theater...a venue that probably wouldn't have had Ray Stevens on the radar beforehand. Several years later Ray would perform a series of concerts at the Andy Williams theater as part of a memorial. Andy had passed away in 2012 and the next month Ray was among the many performers that gave concerts at Andy's theater as a kind of send-off and a celebration of his career. In the ensuing years Ray performed select concerts at Andy's theater...culminating in a limited series of concerts in 2016 and those concerts unofficially or officially, depending on how one looks at it, but they marked the end of his professional involvement with Branson, Missouri as he set his sights on the construction of his CabaRay showroom on River Road in West Nashville, TN (which opened to the public in January of this year).

Ray Stevens Christmas Nuggets...

Merry Christmas from this long time Ray Stevens fan!! I've been a fan of Ray's ever since discovering one of his recordings, "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival", on a jukebox in a local pizza place in the late 1980s. A couple of blogs ago I put together a sort of 'celebration' of my 10th year as a blogger of all things Ray Stevens. I've always been an independent blogger with no personal or professional connection to Ray whatsoever...this fan created blog is strictly for my and hopefully your pleasure as well. Ray's been uploading several Christmas themed performances on YouTube lately. Two of the performances come from his CabaRay Nashville television series. One of them is his performance of "White Christmas" with Deborah Allen while the other is a performance of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Suzy Bogguss. 

In addition to those he uploaded a performance of "Bad Little Boy" from a television appearance in 1997...the very year the Christmas Through a Different Window album was released. The performance comes off like a live music video and by that I mean he performs it with plenty of stage props (giant toys and a giant chair to cause him to look smaller). If I recall correctly I once remarked that "Bad Little Boy" was like a modern update on the Spike Jones classic, "Nuttin' for Christmas". In fact one of the repeated phrases in Ray's recording echos the same sentiments. In case you missed it here's that video...



There's been a number of things happening in the world of Ray Stevens over the last week and a half...certainly in the last week. Events started out typical enough...several advertisements appeared on YouTube for the Christmas at the CabaRay concerts in addition his New Year's Eve celebration taking place at the CabaRay; but...then came the breaking news surrounding his decision to sell his Music Row property (which includes his long time recording studio). The buyer of the property will use the space to construct a 7-story building designed to benefit the music industry and lure economic vitality to the region once more. Detractors/preservationists are saying it's one more nail in the coffin in the destruction of Music Row's historical buildings. Those who support Ray's decision and the property sale, in general, see it as a way to bring in music-driven business and who knows? The building, based on the art work of the finished project, is certainly large enough to include office headquarters for songwriters, publishers, musicians, and the like...and serve as a beacon for those wanting to get their foot in the door in Music City. The local paper published an article all about the breaking news and it included commentary from Ray and how he had held off selling his property until the right buyer came along. At the time of the article the sale hadn't been finalized yet but it looks to be finalized probably early next year. You can read the article by clicking HERE. 

In addition to the Christmas concerts at the CabaRay, the upcoming New Year's Eve concert, the breaking news surrounding his Music Row property, and the Christmas themed YouTube video clips...on top of this a decision was made by those at RFD-TV to remove his two television programs that they'd just started airing the last couple of weeks. There wasn't any kind of explanation given...I posted several comments on RFD's social media sites hoping to get a response and I even sent a personal message/e-mail inquiring as to the reason both CabaRay Nashville and Rayality TV were suddenly removed without any explanation whatsoever. Given that I sent that message a couple of days ago I'm sure the office staff at RFD is on Christmas break and aren't going to reply until later this week or in the New Year.

CabaRay Nashville had been placed on RFD's schedule on Saturday night and Rayality TV was placed in the 9pm time-slot on Sunday following Hee Haw a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend neither show was on their line-up and neither were listed on RFD's on-line program guide. Prior to last weekend the two shows were listed on the program guide along side the network's other regularly scheduled shows. I know that RFD removed a massively popular series from their Sunday night line-up and placed Rayality TV there. Since then they brought back the massively popular series but yet didn't place Ray's show in a different time-slot on their network...as far as I know it was removed entirely. As far as CabaRay Nashville was concerned it was placed on the same night it previously had aired during the 2015-2016 season and yet it, too, was removed. Could I be jumping to conclusions when I wonder if Ray's most recent business decisions in any way played a role in his two television shows abruptly leaving RFD's airwaves? Is RFD going to bring the show's back in 2019 on a more permanent basis and therefore am I over-reacting concerning their disappearance from RFD? I could be over-reacting...remember, though, I hadn't received a reply yet as to why Ray's programs aren't part of RFD-TV...and so all of my irritation, confusion, and curiosity may prove to be unnecessary should both programs return to RFD's airwaves. I hope to get a reply from them just so I can try and understand their reasoning because, quite honestly, it just doesn't make any sense and it isn't fair to his fans.

Just so I don't close the blog entry on such a gloomy overtone I'm closing it with the bouncy and cute rendition of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from Ray and Suzy Bogguss. Ray adds in mostly his own lyrics...it's not a total parody or anything...but Ray's comical reaction lines deliberately keep the mood playful instead of romantic.

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville Television Series...

For a larger view you can click the photo on the left. Although it's  not a thumbnail image it should give you a slightly larger image than the one I've placed in this blog entry. It's one of the various collage's of Ray Stevens that I've made over the last couple of years. In case you missed some of my recent blog entries or hadn't heard the news...the television series that Ray's been hosting since 2015, CabaRay Nashville, has returned to RFD-TV. The program departed the RFD-TV schedule after a little more than a year on their line-up (two 13 episode seasons which included 26 repeats). Upon it's departure from RFD-TV it moved into local PBS syndication in January of 2017. The episodes that had aired on RFD-TV from November 2015 until December 2016 (26 total) were the first ones to air when the series moved to PBS syndication. While all of this was going on, though, Ray was putting together more and more episodes of the series. These brand new episodes became known as the PBS exclusives since they hadn't aired on any other network. These exclusives began airing in the summer of 2017 (officially the start of Season Three). The series continued on through seasons four, five, and six with each season consisting of 13 first-run episodes. Last night (December 15th) marked the third week since Ray's return to the RFD-TV airwaves with the airing of episode three from Season Three...but not to forget is the fact that episodes of the series continue to air on local PBS stations as well. The first two seasons of the television series have been released on DVD.

If you want to purchase them specifically as a Christmas gift you'll have until December 18th (this coming Tuesday) at the very latest to place your order. Logistically speaking any order placed after that date you'll probably not get until after Christmas. You can purchase Season One and Season Two separately but there's also a combo offer where you can purchase both seasons and end up paying less when purchased together rather than sold separately. Each DVD is $29.99 (not including shipping and handling). If you order the combo offer you'll pay $44.99 (not including shipping and handling). So, more or less, you'll be saving maybe 10 or 11 dollars off the total price when purchased together. Everything you need to know can be found in the DVD area of Ray's web-store when you click this LINK but make your purchase by December 18th if you want it before Christmas!

Now, then...are you ready for the episode list of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...here they are...all six seasons and they're in chronological air-date order. I don't know how many episodes of the show RFD-TV is going to air but use this as your episode guide. Feel free to copy, paste, and print off the episode list just in case RFD-TV does indeed air all 52 of the PBS episodes (Seasons Three through Six)...

Season One (RFD-TV):
1. Steve Wariner
2. Larry Gatlin
3. Bobby Bare
4. Don Schlitz
5. Charlie McCoy
6. Bobby Braddock
7. Jimmy Fortune
8. Aaron Tippin
9. John Conlee and Jeff Bates
10. Tanya Tucker and T.G. Sheppard
11. Gene Watson
12. James Gregory
13. Billy Dean

Season Two (RFD-TV):
1. Bobby Goldsboro
2. T. Graham Brown and Suzi Ragsdale
3. Williams and Ree
4. Leroy Van Dyke
5. The Bellamy Brothers
6. The Gatlin Brothers
7. Collin Raye
8. Darryl Worley and Lee Greenwood
9. Bill Anderson
10. Sylvia
11. Con Hunley
12. Jimmy Wayne
13. Reed Robertson

Season Three (Local PBS syndication; currently airing on RFD-TV):
1. Harold Bradley and Mandy Barnett
2. Shenandoah
3. Michael W. Smith
4. B.J. Thomas
5. Rhonda Vincent
6. Restless Heart
7. John Michael Montgomery
8. Baillie and the Boys
9. Tommy Roe
10. Mark Wills
11. Duane Eddy
12. Angaleena Presley
13. Riders in the Sky

Season Four (Local PBS syndication):
1. Rex Allen, Jr.
2. Lari White
3. Charley Pride
4. Janie Fricke
5. Gary Mule Deer
6. Gary Morris
7. John Berry
8. Jeannie Seely
9. Don McLean
10. Felix Cavaliere
11. Suzy Bogguss (Christmas episode)
12. Deborah Allen (Christmas episode)
13. The A-Team (New Year's Eve episode)

Season Five (Local PBS syndication):
1. Ray Hilderbrand
2. Steve Wariner (edited version of series debut episode)
3. Paul Overstreet
4. Daily and Vincent
5. Jenny Gill
6. Tracy Lawrence
7. Sam Moore
8. Wilson Fairchild
9. Deana Carter
10. Gary Puckett
11. John Rich (Part One episode)
12. John Rich (Part Two episode)
13. Tony Orlando

Season Six (Local PBS syndication):
1. Jamie O'Neal
2. Mark Chesnutt
3. Special Moments (retrospective featuring out-takes and clips from past episodes)
4. Hall of Fame (Ray plays video clips of Hall of Fame guests that have appeared on the show)
5. Moe Bandy (first episode taped from the stage of the CabaRay showroom)
6. Linda Davis
7. CeCe Winans
8. Micky Dolenz
9. Tribute Show (Ray salutes Jerry Reed, Mel Tillis, Glen Campbell, and Merle Haggard)
10. Ronnie McDowell
11. Shoji Tabuchi
12. John Schneider
13. Lee Roy Parnell

His clip-filled series, Rayality TV, is also airing on RFD-TV. This unique series airs on Sunday nights at 9pm Eastern (following Hee Haw). I don't have an episode list for that series, however. It's a perfect fit because Ray's clip based series features the same kind of quick edits and cutting away from scene to scene...the sort of technical wizardry that made Hee Haw unique from a production stand-point.

Ray Stevens CabaRay Christmas...

Hello all once more!! Here we are on December 15th...ten days until Christmas...and I hadn't even started on attempting to figure out what to get some of my family for Christmas. I purchased the Ray Stevens DVD titled Such a Night: 50 Years of Hits and Hilarity. I purchased it yesterday when it went on sale. It was the final item in the 12 Days of Christmas discount sale that was taking place on Ray's website. I was not on-line during the first day of the sales event and so I missed out on the offer on the CabaRay hat. The discount sale on each of the 12 items lasted one day only. I posted a link to the discount sale in my previous blog entry back on December 9th and so for those that seen that particular blog post then chances are you participated in the discount sales event or at least were aware that it was taking place. Discount sale or not I'll more than likely put in an order for one of those CabaRay hats in a couple of days or perhaps early next year. I'm not too concerned with whether or not the item arrives before or after Christmas which is why I'm not in any hurry to place an order just yet but I definitely want one of them. I could have purchased one of them when I attended a concert at the CabaRay back on March 1st but I ended up purchasing a CabaRay Nashville coffee mug and his Love Lifted Me CD instead. When you visit Ray's official on-line store you'll see an alert posted indicating the cut-off date pertaining to items arriving before Christmas. As of this writing there's an alert giving a reminder that if you place your order by December 18th chances are it'll arrive before Christmas should you be planning on purchasing something as a gift. I purchased my DVD yesterday, as mentioned, and so I look for it to arrive in my mailbox at some point early next week...I'd be surprised if it took longer than that...given my past experiences they ship things in a timely manner.

Recently there was a write-up in The Tennessean on-line newspaper about the CabaRay Christmas and it featured a video clip. Someone at the newspaper has gone ahead and posted the video clip on YouTube for an even larger audience to see and I'm sharing the video clip in this blog entry...



*** Program alert: Tonight at 8:30pm Eastern on RFD-TV... Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville guest starring Michael W. Smith. ***

Ray Stevens: A Festive CabaRay Christmas...

Hello to all the fans of Ray Stevens!! It's been a week since my previous blog entry but I've been extremely busy due to off-line activity. Due to the nature of my job (freight handler) my work load during late November and throughout the month of December is such where I don't have much time to devote to on-line activity because of the increased hours as a result of the holidays and our customers shipping more items this time of the year. We're heading into what might be referred to as crunch time with Monday being December 10th...only 14 shipping days left before Christmas...actually, though, fewer days than that because if you want to get your item delivered on-time then this week is the most ideal to ship/mail your item with the peace of mind it'll reach it's destination before Christmas Day (which falls on a Tuesday this year).

If you're ordering anything from the Ray Stevens on-line store for a Christmas gift either for yourself or someone else then I'd suggest ordering this week (December 10th through the 14th). I think Ray's office staff take the week of Christmas off...at least in the past they usually have suggested to get your orders taken care of prior to the week of Christmas to ensure delivery. Ray is promoting what's being called The 12 Days of Christmas Sale. You can read all about it by clicking HERE. The sale began on December 3rd and lasts until December 14th. The discount price is only good for one day and they'll be promoting Day 7's discounted item later on today. As mentioned the discount price is only good for one day only...tomorrow the item's regular selling price is intact.

Christmas at the CabaRay, of course, is still in progress. An on-line article became available back on November 25th, according to it's time stamp, and it's an article promoting the concert series. I wrote a blog post on November 25th, ironically enough, but there isn't any link to the article in my blog post. I don't know the time of day I published the blog post and so the article may not have been posted on-line yet. The 25th of November was on a Sunday and chances are my blog post was in the early morning hours of November 25th...and given that the on-line article was posted at 4pm I was certainly not aware of it because on Sunday afternoons I'm in front of the TV watching football games from 1pm to 7pm and I usually go to bed after the first or second quarter of the Sunday night game. Anyway, you can read the Christmas at the CabaRay article by clicking HERE. The article features a great photo of Ray, on stage at the CabaRay, with the Christmas decorations behind him. The back-up singers dressed in red.

December 2018 also marked something else happening in the career of Ray Stevens but it hasn't been advertised or promoted much...Ray Stevens is involved with the RFD-TV network once again. If you remember it was RFD that originally aired his television series when it was titled Ray Stevens Nashville. The network aired the show, if I recall correctly, from November 2015 until December 2016. The first 26 episodes (Seasons One and Two) of the series aired on RFD. After it's run on RFD it moved to local syndication on PBS and it was re-titled Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. It's aired on local PBS stations nationwide, in scattered markets all over the country, since January 2017 and episodes of the series are still airing on local PBS stations but now they've been brought back to RFD. Since the network originally aired the first two 13-episode seasons during their initial broadcast of the series they're airing the PBS episodes which never aired on RFD and chances are were never seen by a general audience.

The series, as a whole, has had 6 seasons and 78 half hour episodes produced so far. This means there's 4 seasons worth of episodes that RFD hasn't aired...and my guess is they'll air all the episodes that have been produced from Season Three until Season Six (52 half hour episodes altogether). The network has Ray's CabaRay Nashville series airing Saturday nights at 8:30pm following The Marty Stuart Show. Last night's episode of CabaRay Nashville was Season Three, Episode Two guest starring Shenendoah. In a future blog post I'll post an episode by episode guide list. I've posted these in several previous blog entries but I've written so many blog posts (yay!!!) that the entries containing the episode lists are literally buried in the archives.

In addition to CabaRay Nashville on Saturday nights the network has also started airing Ray's previous series, Rayality TV, on it's Sunday night schedule at 9pm following Hee Haw. If you recall Rayality TV is a program that originally aired on a re-launched Nashville Network before it became Heartland Television. Those episodes weren't seen by a national audience since coverage of Heartland Television then, as now, is spotty given that some cable providers do not carry it in their line-up.

But anyway...the local PBS station in my area that's aired Ray's show since March 2017 is still airing the series. They're re-airing Season Four. Eventually Ray will be producing new episodes of the television series, at least I assume he will, because at some point or another re-airings will become too familiar and audiences will be wanting new episodes to see. I'm thinking new episodes will start to go into production at some point in the spring or even summer of 2019 so that by the time RFD has aired all of the PBS episodes new to the network more episodes will become available by November/December 2019...at least that's how it appears it'll play out...but again that's only my theory and I'm like you are...making assumptions and guessing when it comes to the unpredictable nature of Ray's career with all it's twists and turns...attempting to figure it out is pointless...just take it as it plays itself out.

A general audience that isn't as consumed with all things Ray Stevens as I am or some of you may be, well, for a general audience these airings on RFD will be 'new' to those viewers and I'm thrilled that the show is once again airing on a network that nearly every cable provider has on their line-up and that it'll be airing in one time-slot rather than multiple time-slots on various days of the week. Some cable providers still offer RFD as a premium but a larger number of providers now offer it as a basic channel with no extra cost...and since CabaRay Nashville will be airing nationwide in one time-slot it'll be much more easier for viewers to find.

The only hindrance of local syndication is a series is at the mercy of the local programmer who chooses the time of day or day of the week a series will air. Some programmers, since the human element plays a part in decision making, some programmers I'll charge with deliberately placing a series in a graveyard slot for the purposes of not having it played on the more prestigious prime time line-up when, in theory, all eyes are watching. The term off-peak hours is used more nowadays than graveyard slot but the overall goal remains the same: the deliberate attempt to bury a series. In my research ever since CabaRay Nashville began it's local syndication airings on PBS stations I've found that there were quite a few stations that programmed the show in the over-night hours. Sure, a viewer can always DVR the series so a time-slot isn't much of a big deal anymore, right?

Well, not exactly...you still need/want a series to air at a time of day that a general audience is more likely to be watching. The fan-base will go out of their way to find a show, that's pretty much a given, but a general audience is not like that. If a series isn't easily found then chances are a general audience will simply give up and not even bother trying to it which is why favorable time-slots are still important even in this overly saturated technology age. When Ray's television program originally aired on RFD it was the network's highest rated series...and I hope it'll once again rise to number one during this renewed relationship with the network.

Ray Stevens: Greatest Hits U.K. Mp3...

Hello once again...the calendar flipped to December yesterday and on this second day of December, which happens to be my birthday, by the way...but on this second day of December I came across a compilation project on Ray Stevens only being sold as a digital download/Mp3. The funny thing is the United States version of Amazon isn't carrying the Mp3 but the international Amazon marketplace is. I came across an image of Ray from a few years ago being used for a Greatest Hits release. The image is in black and white but it's a recent photo from a function at the Country Music Hall of Fame. You can see the logo in the background. Anyway...I clicked the image and it took me to a site offering a 20 track compilation of Ray Stevens recordings. The recordings are chosen pretty much at random but are exclusive to his earliest years (1957-1965) but, interestingly enough, a couple of notable recordings are not featured among the 20.

The information surrounding this project shows that it became available on November 22nd and that it's on a label called Vintage Jukebox. I did some research and found that the label's other releases feature cover photo's with what I call the split screen effect and so it isn't something unique or exclusive to the Ray Stevens compilation. Even though it isn't available on a physical CD it's nevertheless being publicized with this visual as if there's a CD available. In the LINK to Amazon.co.uk there's a section that indicates that the release is also available as an audio CD but this is false. The link to the audio CD that they provide will take you to a page selling a Ray Stevens 1991 Greatest Hits compilation from Curb Records. I have no idea why they placed a link to an entirely different project there but the fact remains this 2018 compilation is only available on-line in Mp3 format. Once you visit the Amazon.co.uk site you'll obviously notice that the pricing is in a foreign currency...there isn't any U.S. prices listed. I have no idea what 3 pounds, 49 pence translates to in American dollars off the top of my head. I know there's a currency website calculator where you enter a foreign price and it'll give the equivalent price in U.S. dollars. This Vintage Jukebox release features Ray's version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" which, as far as I know, had only been available on vinyl as the B-side to 1961's "Jeremiah Peabody" (one of the two notable recordings not found on this 2018 release...the other being his 1962 breakthrough hit, "Ahab the Arab"). I listened to the brief audio clips of each recording and they're all original. I mention this because as many of you are aware it's become something of a habit from numerous labels both foreign and domestic, as well as major and independent, of using re-recordings of his hits instead of the originals.

A couple of years ago (2014) there was a similar compilation project released on Ray Stevens on another overseas label, Jasmine. That particular release was available as both an Mp3 and a CD. I've got the CD in my collection. That project was titled Ahab, Jeremiah, Sgt. Preston and More...The Early Ray Stevens and you can read my review of that CD by clicking HERE.

The differences between the 2014 and 2018 projects are in presentation style. The 2014 release was chronological, for the most part, in the sequential order of the track list. There are 31 recordings on the 2014 project and the first 15 that make up the CD are the A and B sides of single releases from Ray covering the years 1957 to 1959 across a couple of record labels (Prep, Capitol, and NRC). The rest of the songs on the 2014 release are from Mercury Records (his 1961 "Jeremiah Peabody" single, the entire 1,837 Seconds of Humor LP from 1962, and several recordings from his 1963 This is Ray Stevens LP). The CD release also featured a booklet of liner notes.

The 2018 release is exclusively on-line, as mentioned earlier, and so there isn't a liner note booklet and the songs spotlighted are mostly the ones found on the 2014 project but not in chronological order. The 2018 track list boasts 20 recordings including what may be the digital debut of "When You Wish Upon a Star" and there's also the inclusion of the tragically under-rated "Bubblegum the Bubble Dancer" which rarely appears on many compilation releases even though it was once available as a commercial single in 1964. I didn't provide a track list for 2018's Greatest Hits because there's one available at the Amazon United Kingdom webpage. Earlier in the blog entry I provided a link to the 2018 Mp3 compilation...but to save you all some time from having to scroll back up to click that earlier link here it is AGAIN.