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

Hello once again!! I put the finishing touches on Part Eight earlier this morning and now we've come to Part Nine. We are also entering a point in time in the career of Ray Stevens which signaled major changes as far as career direction was concerned...even though the changes weren't so dramatic to cause much of a noticeable change overall. Did that even make sense? If it didn't I'll be more clear within my commentary. Ray's publishing company was experiencing success with the chart hit of "Don't Boogie Woogie" by Jerry Lee Lewis early in 1976. The song, if you remember, had originally been recorded by Ray in 1974 and it's from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr. The recording by Jerry Lee Lewis was on Mercury Records and produced by Jerry Kennedy. It wasn't a major Top-40 pop or Country hit but it made the Country charts nevertheless and if you listen to Ray's recording of the song it eerily anticipates the eventual recording from Jerry Lee.

Outside of his career Ray had something of a scare on March 30, 1975...for those that didn't know about it Ray was involved in a car accident on a back road in Kentucky around 1am. The details of the car wreck indicated that the Mercedes he was driving hit a pile of mud, grass, and other debris...apparently from a mudslide...and he lost control of the car and slid into a ditch. The car was totaled and obviously covered in mud and grass. Inside the car, as passengers, were Ray's brother, John, and Ray's manager, Don. Ray and his brother were treated in a Kentucky hospital but transported to a Nashville hospital while Don was treated and released in Kentucky.  

The first single release from Ray in 1975 shown up in the spring. The song in question happened to be "Misty" and during it's first weeks of availability Ray was recovering from the car wreck. The reports said he had a black eye and several facial bruises. The arrangement of this song featured not only the piano but it also showcased the fiddle, banjo, and the steel guitar among the dominant instruments. The arrangement was country...aligning itself more toward a Bluegrass flavor...and it was the first single from a forthcoming stellar album from Ray which was also titled Misty. "Misty", the single, would go on to reach the Top-10 on the Country music chart and the Adult-Contemporary chart here in the U.S. and it also reached the Top-10 in the United Kingdom, Australia, and on Canada's Country music chart and their Adult-Contemporary chart. The single reached the Top-20 on the Hot 100 in the U.S. and the Top-20 on Canada's pop music chart. Ray performed the song on several country music programs...one of those performances took place on Pop! Goes the Country hosted by Ralph Emery and another performance arrived on an episode of Hee Haw. In both of these appearances Ray had a beard but yet on the album cover of Misty he's noticeably clean shaven.

Barnaby finally released a follow-up single...arriving in the fall of 1975 in the form of "Indian Love Call". This happened to be arranged by Ray in a classic rhythm and blues sound...it could very well be considered borderline Doo-wop...a far cry from the traditional performance of the song which had become a monster hit for Slim Whitman as an uptempo love plea showcasing his yodeling and tenor vocals. Ray took his version of the song into the Country music Top-40 as well as the UK Top-40 pop chart. The sheet music for "Indian Love Call", by the way, featured a bearded Ray Stevens leaning against a tree. I made a collage awhile ago of the Misty album side by side with a compilation album as a visual comparison of clean-shaven Ray and bearded Ray side by side from the same year.

The Misty album, as mentioned, is a stellar project. Ray did his versions of several pop music standards and one country music classic. All of the cover songs feature different arrangements from the original recordings...and in addition to "Misty" and "Indian Love Call" there's his versions of "Over the Rainbow", "Cow Cow Boogie", "Oh, Lonesome Me", and "Deep Purple" just to name several. Barnaby Records released "Young Love" as a single in December of 1975...and if you've never heard his version of the song before it gives new meaning to the phrase 'slow, dramatic ballad'. Ray more or less rings every ounce of emotion from each and every word to distinguish it from the super up-tempo delivery often accompanying the performance from pop and country music singers alike. Ray's version charted Country here in the U.S. as well as the Country music chart in Canada (peaking just inside the Top-50 in both countries) and it made an appearance in the lower reaches on the Hot 100 pop chart. The song also landed on the Adult-Contemporary chart here in the U.S. where it peaked outside of the Top-40.

A very serious looking Ray Stevens...full of beard...leans up against a tree. This photo appeared on the cover of the sheet music for "Indian Love Call". In contrast to the smiling Ray Stevens...full of beard...on the cover of 1975's The Very Best of Ray Stevens this serious looking Ray was more along the lines of how he wanted his music to come across. His contract with Barnaby Records was soon to expire, it turned out, but perhaps contractually Barnaby was allowed to release one more single on Ray in the spring of 1976...and it was his take on "Lady of Spain" backed with "Mockingbird Hill". This single Bubbled Under the Hot 100 and didn't appear on any other national chart publication in spite of it's greatness. Ray does a vocal impression of Fats Domino as he sings an uptempo version of "Lady of Spain" set to a sort of Spanish-Mexican rhythm and sound. In the meanwhile Ray had signed a recording contract with Warner Brothers early in 1976 and had recorded some songs for what would be his debut album with the label. Ray had been on Barnaby Records since 1970 and the bulk of his commercial successes were on that label. Ray had been a recurring presence on the Country music charts and on mostly regional country music television programs as far back as 1969 thanks in large part to the efforts, help, and industry influence from the likes of Chet Atkins, Ralph Emery, and people we'll never know about that were instrumental in guiding Ray's career and steering him into the Country Music industry. Ray's tenure with Warner Brothers began with the release of "You Are So Beautiful" in the spring of 1976. This cover of a familiar love song was arranged in a Bluegrass fashion along the same lines as "Misty" but it had a blended arrangement ranging from uptempo to mid-tempo and at one point it veers off into a soulful delivery before picking back up during the closing moments of the song. The single was a Top-20 country hit in the U.S. as well as Canada. His debut album for Warner Brothers, Just for the Record, is filled with Country sounding songs but he retained his own style and his choice of songs in addition to the ones he wrote were uniquely his own. No matter the music format that his songs were finding their way to his influence over those songs still took center stage which is why so many music critics over the decades have sometimes found it maddening that they can't categorize him. In short Ray Stevens sings what Ray Stevens wants to sing...no matter the genre or the song's origins.

This album contained songs such as "Gimme a Smile", "Once in Awhile", "One Man Band", an unusual ballad dealing with meditation called "OM", as well as his next single release, "Honky Tonk Waltz", which hit the Country music Top-30 in the fall of 1976. Layng Martine, Jr. penned the uptempo "Country Licks". Those that are devoted to Ray's career will know this interesting bit of trivia but for a general audience it may be noteworthy. This album marked the debut of a songwriter credit for Buddy Kalb. He penned "One and Only You"...and Buddy would go on and become a fixture in the career of Ray Stevens. His name is often given, officially, as C.W. Kalb, Jr. but there are some credits that use the nickname of Buddy. The album opens up with the melancholy but majestic ballad, "Cornball". The following year the pop duo, The Captain and Tennille, would have a Top-20 pop hit with Ray's song, "Can't Stop Dancing". You can hear Ray's version on this 1976 album. In the early months of Just for the Record one of Ray's prior releases, "Misty", received a Grammy award in the category of 'Best Arrangement accompanying a Vocalist'. This was Ray's second Grammy win. Now, on the heels of "Honky Tonk Waltz", Ray issued a bizarre novelty song...a chicken clucking version of the pop music standard "In the Mood". The single was officially credited to the fictional group, The Henhouse Five Plus Too, with the intentional misspelling of two as too. This single became a Top-40 pop and country hit in the U.S. and it reached the Top-40 in the United Kingdom. The international releases credited the single as Ray Stevens...only the domestic release featured the fictional Henhouse Five Plus Too credit. This single arrived in the last weeks of 1976 and it reached it's peak in January the following year.

In Part 10 I'll be looking at the years of 1977, 1978, and possibly 1979. Are you afraid I'll reach 2019 well before mid October? My idea behind this mini-blog series was to provide an overview essay/narrative of his career from 1957 to the present and have it conclude right around the time he's to receive his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in mid October. I'll being putting together Part 10 at some point tomorrow or I may hold off until next weekend.