Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part One...

Hello all once again!! The beginning of another month is underway...which also means a slate of upcoming concerts by Ray Stevens at his CabaRay showroom. He performs there mostly on Friday and Saturday evenings and occasionally on a Thursday, too. The August series of concerts got underway this past Friday (August 2nd) and the remaining August concerts are being held on the following days: 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, and 31. The bold numbers indicate a Thursday night concert. I can't say it enough and for some it may sound like a broken record but if you have not visited this venue and taken in it's spectacular design, interior decoration, and the concert itself then I suggest you plan a trip to Nashville and add the CabaRay to your list of destinations. The CabaRay webpage is easy to navigate...everything you need to know can be found HERE.

Did you all catch any episodes of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville over the weekend...either on local PBS stations or the national RFD-TV network? Here in my area I'm fortunate to have an hour of Ray (yay!!). The local PBS station aired an episode guest starring Linda Davis at 8pm Saturday night...followed at 8:30pm on RFD-TV with an episode guest starring Gary Puckett.

I have this image posted first in the pictorial time-line over on the right hand side of the blog due to it being the first commercially issued single on Ray Stevens. The single, as I made note of off to the right, came along on Prep records in 1957. This label was owned by Capitol Records...in the music industry Prep was known as a subsidiary due to it being owned by a larger company. "Silver Bracelet", written by Ray, started it all. It's a good song and if you know anything about pop music in the mid '50s to the mid '60s then you're already aware that a lot of the recordings of that time period have been referred to as teenage ballads if they weren't explicitly a rock and roll vocal performance. This is part one of a series of blog entries where I'm attempting to examine Ray's road to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Yes, as you can imagine, the road leading to this much deserved honor wasn't a road that was under construction for decades with election to the prestigious hall being an absolute certain. Ray's career has long been identified by the various styles of music that influenced him growing up in Georgia...with country music being among those music styles...but a lot of his phrasing leaned more toward rhythm and blues artists and pop music vocalists. His fondness for comedy/novelty songs had been there from the beginning as well...the B-side of "Silver Bracelet" is a novelty titled "Rang Tang Ding Dong I'm the Japanese Sandman". Interestingly, though, a lot of on-line music sites credit "Silver Bracelet" as the B-side even though neither side of the single has an A or B designation. I think a lot of historians, given Ray's reputation for comedy, retro-actively consider "Rang Tang Ding Dong" as the A-side...but that's my opinion. The bottom line is this is the single that's considered his debut on records. It was not a national hit but Ray has often said that it was a local hit in Atlanta, Georgia. Ray was still in high school and had earlier fronted a local band, The Barons, in addition to becoming a radio disc jockey on a local station, WGPC, and so he was receiving a lot of experience as a performer/presenter long before his name ever appeared on vinyl...but had it appeared on vinyl it would've been Harold Ragsdale! His name had been changed for professional reasons by Capitol Records producer, Ken Nelson.

Born Harold Ray Ragsdale on January 24, 1939 he became Ray Stevens on records in 1957. Prior to this, as mentioned, he was known as Ray Ragsdale and during his sophomore year in high school (1954-1955) he and a co-host, Mary Dale Vansant, were personalities/disc jockeys on Albany, Georgia radio station, WGPC, hosting a program called The Record Hop. Sock hops were all the rage at the time...and Ray's band, The Barons, performed at a lot of sock hops. Relocation based upon his father's work forced the family to move from Albany to Atlanta, Georgia and as a result Ray graduated high school in Atlanta rather than Albany following the 1956-1957 school year. The origin of the stage-name, Ray Stevens, is derived from his middle name, of course, and the maiden name of his mother, Stephens, but spelled on records as 'Stevens'. In research from years past I discovered that in high school he went by the name of 'Ray Ragsdale' instead of 'Harold' or 'Harry'. Bill Lowery published the "Silver Bracelet" recording and as explained in earlier blog entries he was something of a mentor of Ray in those very early years...persuading Ray to pursue a career in music education rather than education in architecture. According to Ray's memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, Bill Lowery's influence guided him to make the decision to enroll in Georgia State rather than Georgia Tech. When Ray entered college he continued his recording career. It's worth pointing out that this secondary passion in architecture led to Ray, decades later, becoming something of a mogul in real estate and having a hands-on approach in the design of his former music theater in Branson, Missouri as well as his current venue, the CabaRay, in Nashville, TN. Ray's recordings for Prep were followed by a series of recordings for the Capitol label itself but eventually Ray found himself on a label owned by Bill Lowery, NRC, which stood for National Recording Company. The recordings Ray made for Capitol and NRC were post-high school and were recorded while Ray was attending Georgia State. In this era Jerry Reed, Joe South, Billy Joe Royal, and Ray were all featured performers on a local music series, The Georgia Jubilee.

One of the recordings that Ray did for NRC almost became his first breakthrough national hit...a novelty song issued in 1960 titled "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" based upon the fictional character of the same name. The single was on it's way at breaking into the national Hot 100 pop chart but all of that hype and advertisement for the song caught the attention of the lawyers of King Features Syndicate, the owners of the character. They threatened a lawsuit and so NRC pulled all of the records off the market. Ray remained in college and continued recording whenever he could...ultimately, though, he found himself, as he often remarked, and I'm paraphrasing: "receiving real time experience in the music industry..." and a pursuit of a degree became less important and he dropped out of college at some point in 1961.

It was during this calendar year that he was signed to Mercury Records and it was also during this time period in which his career started to fall under the guidance and direction of Shelby Singleton and he began making himself known as a session musician and music arranger. Ray also found himself in the hustle and bustle of the booming Nashville Sound era that had been sweeping country music into crossover territory since the late 1950s. Although Ray, on records, was marketed as a pop artist and his background consisted largely of pop, novelty, and rhythm and blues influences he always included country music as a favorite listening choice as well and he seemingly felt at ease with pop music, rhythm and blues music, and country music and he worked almost equally as a singer/songwriter/musician/arranger/producer in those music formats and he would eventually form a music publishing company. It is in this era, 1961-1962, in which Ray formed his life long friendships and associations with producers and session musicians up and down Music Row. To name only several: Shelby Singleton, Chet Atkins, Harold Bradley, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer, as well as members of The Jordanaires and the list goes on and on. Felton Jarvis, a legendary music figure in his own right, was also associated with Ray...but more in a personal kind of way...for he was Ray's brother-in-law. The two men happened to marry a couple of sisters and so they were brothers-in-law for many years.

I'd like to say that once Ray joined Mercury Records in 1961 that he suddenly became a big time recording artist but, in truth, he was becoming an in-demand session musician and his prowess in the art of music arranging became the main source of his creative output...he hadn't made an appearance on the national music charts yet...this would change in 1961 but he wasn't the 'super-star' overnight...this ascension didn't come along until the next year. He was still living in Atlanta, Georgia in 1961 as well...and this, too, changed when the calendar flipped to January 1962. However, I'm wrapping up part one of this mini-blog series in the year of 1961 and in a future blog entry I'll pick up the narrative as we walk down Ray's road to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I may stretch out this blog series to run through mid October...for it's during the month of October (usually the last week) in which newly elected members of the Country Music Hall of Fame are officially inducted in the private gala known as the Medallion Ceremony. I'm wanting the final part of this mini-blog series to conclude right around the time Ray is officially inducted.