Ray Stevens and Chet Atkins go Frog Kissing...

Well, it's me once more...and a couple of days ago (June 20th) Ray Stevens marked the birth date of the late guitarist/record producer, Chet Atkins, by uploading a video clip from 1977 of the two of them "Frog Kissing". What?? In case it's new to you "Frog Kissing" is a song from the pen of Buddy Kalb (one of Ray's longtime co-writers and business associate) and it was vocally performed by Chet Atkins with harmony vocals by Ray Stevens. I've written about this particular performance in the past as it's part of an episode of The Marty Robbins Spotlight series. Ray Stevens appeared twice...once as the spotlight artist himself and then as a special guest when Chet Atkins was the spotlight artist. I saved a couple of screen caps from Ray's appearances on those two episodes but I've not posted them too often.



Ray's only involvement in this episode was, as mentioned, to participate in the performance of "Frog Kissing". He produced the recording session and he also published and arranged the song. The single was released on RCA Records in 1976 and it became a hit single. It was placed on a 1976 album titled The Best of Chet Atkins and Friends. This wasn't the last time Ray and Chet would appear on television together. Several years later, in 1980, the two of them performed "Frog Kissing" on a television special Chet hosted. When the cable channel, The Nashville Network, got underway in 1983 it provided national exposure to a lot of country music personalities that hadn't tasted national television exposure in their careers and for some it re-introduced a national audience to artists that perhaps were last seen nationally in the '50s or '60s. Keep in mind that country music has always been portrayed as secondary or even non-existent in the eyes of network television programmers and if not for nationally syndicated country music programs of the '50s, '60s, and '70s (prior to the launch of The Nashville Network) there wouldn't have been hardly any exposure for country music performers.

The benchmark series of this cable channel was Nashville Now, hosted by Ralph Emery for a decade (1983-1993). This led to a lot of appearances by artists that were featured on previous television and radio programs hosted by Ralph Emery...and Ray Stevens was no exception and on several episodes of Nashville Now the guests happened to be: Chet Atkins, Boots Randolph, and Ray Stevens. All three in the same episode!! There's at least one episode (from 1990) in which Ray and Boots appear together. The Nashville Network ceased to exist in 1999 and was rebranded in 2000.

The often mentioned connection between Ray Stevens to Chet Atkins is how in the early '60s Chet utilized Ray's multi-faceted talents in the recording studio which enabled Ray to become a much sought after session musician and music arranger...and ultimately a record producer in his own right. There is also another professional connection in the field of real estate...and that's not all. Chet wrote a song with songwriter Margaret Archer that Ray recorded in 1987...the satiric look at televangelists entitled "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?". 

Later on in the 1990s Chet appeared in a 1995 episode of the Crook and Chase series, Music City Tonight, an episode promoting the Ray Stevens VHS movie, Get Serious! (Chet had a brief cameo appearance playing an accordion). When Ray was recording songs for his 9-CD box set, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music, he included a song from the pen of Chet Atkins and Billy Edd Wheeler titled "I Still Write Your Name in the Snow". That song originally appeared on a 1996 album from Chet titled Almost Alone but I don't know exactly when the song was written...chances are it could've been something dreamed up years earlier but never recorded until 1996.

I always found Chet to be whimsical and funny in his own kind of way...not overly talkative...unless you hit on a subject that inspired him to be talkative and I imagine he could tell you the model, make, and year of release of practically every guitar ever manufactured or at least could identify the type of guitar on sight just by looking at it. He was very helpful in the success and evolution of Ray's career even though, ironically enough, Chet never produced a Ray Stevens recording during all of those decades of friendship.