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

Hello once again!! As we move along the road leading up to the Country Music Hall of Fame induction of Ray Stevens we arrive in 1982. Ray was in the middle of his recording contract with RCA Records and had issued two studio albums, so far, for the company. A third studio album arrived in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This fabulous album blended country music, bluesy country music, and rock and roll flavors within the ten songs found on the album. The album's cover photo features Ray looking very serious and holding a smiling mask. The photo that appears on the back of the album has a smiling Ray Stevens holding a frowning mask. Ray, of course, was continuing to make music of a more serious nature and on this album he splits time between love ballads and uptempo love songs. The previous album featured heavy use of slow love ballads. The 1982 album kicks off with the uptempo "Such a Night" (a song Ray would use several decades later to open up his shows). RCA issued the first single from this album early in 1982...the love ballad "Written Down In My Heart". This single reached the Country Top-40 and if you happened to be a viewer of Barbara Mandrell's television show then you would've seen him perform this song in one of his appearances. The love ballad was backed with a mid-tempo love song, "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". In the production of this album Ray enlisted Bob Montgomery as a co-producer. This was the first time since 1969 that a Ray Stevens studio album featured a co-producer with Ray. The studio albums from 1970 to 1981 were produced solely by Ray.

In the spring RCA Records issued "Where the Sun Don't Shine"...this particular song is given a southern gospel music arrangement and it's considered a novelty song as one would think when looking at the song's title...it's more than a novelty song, though...it's a break-up song more or less and Ray tells the woman what she can do with everything in the house she owns as well as her friends and family. This bouncy single made the Country charts in the summer of 1982 and it turned out to be Ray's final single release on RCA Records. The rest of the year consisted of Ray out on the road touring and appearing on various television programs. He had become a familiar face on the annual fan-voted Music City News awards telecast...co-hosting several of the telecasts dating back to 1980. The organization used to telecast a Songwriters Awards event...and given Ray being a songwriter as well as a music publisher he either co-hosted or performed on this telecast frequently throughout the early to mid 1980s. In the meantime the calendar rolled into 1983 and while Ray hadn't issued a single since the spring of 1982 nor an album since Don't Laugh Now, RCA was still obligated contractually to release a compilation album on Ray. This Greatest Hits arrived in the summer of 1983 and it made the Country album chart...but strangely enough RCA didn't fill the album with too many recent hits from Ray...instead they placed "Shriner's Convention" and "The Dooright Family" on the compilation album (both songs, on RCA, come from 1980) but the remainder of the album collects specific hit singles from the period of 1968 through 1975. Ray, in the meantime, signed a contract with Mercury Records...the label upon which he became a major recording artist in the early '60s. In the annual Fan Fair event (now called CMA Music Fest) Ray performed on stage during the Polygram Records show. Polygram is/was one of Mercury's subsidiary labels. Ray's latest studio album arrived in the latter half of 1983 with the unusual title of Me.  It reunited him, professionally, with Jerry Kennedy and the two of them are credited as the record producers of the 1983 album.

The album, as I've stated several times in this fan created blog, is one of my all-time favorites from Ray Stevens. Me comes across as such a departure from some of the albums he recorded in this era but I've never really been able to explain how so. There's a melancholy feel throughout the album...a number of love songs on here are about lost love...and the mood of the music goes hand in hand with the somberness. The album's first single, "Mary Lou Nights", is one of those bluesy country songs...with the harmonica taking center stage in the performance. The B-side, on the other hand, should have been an anthem for state tourism and adopted by the Chamber of Commerce as a jingle but it wasn't. The song I'm referring to is "A Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee". It's such a great song...the lyrics paint a portrait so well that it sounds like it was destined to be turned into a music video. It's very catchy...as is another song on here called "Game Show Love". No, it isn't a novelty song, even though music critics past and present may try and label it as such given the catchphrases and titles of game shows mentioned throughout. It's a break-up song, actually, about a man finally learning that the woman he's loved wasn't serious...it's all been a game to her. The album's lead-off song became the second single release from the album. The title of the song sounds like a novelty but when you listen to it you'll get goosebumps: "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out". The ballad featured "Game Show Love" as it's B-side on the single release. Not released as a single but an incredible song is "Special Anniversary". Mercury released a third and final single from the album in early 1984...the emotional "My Dad" from the pen of Dale Gonyea. "My Dad" was backed with "Me" on the single release. "My Dad" dealt with the importance of father's and it made an appearance on the Country singles chart in the first half of 1984 but it didn't reach the Top-40...and after the one album deal with Mercury Records it was time to shop around for another record label.

You might say that Ray was at a crossroads in his career at this point in time. Yes, for much of the 1960s, 1970s, and into the early 1980s he recorded his share of serious songs and he produced, arranged, recorded, published, and or played on many, many serious recordings of his own and for other recording artists...and yet even with all of this his public image was one of a comedian/novelty artist/clown. It might seem like an easy decision now or perhaps destiny but Ray decided to make a major career move in 1984. Some critics and historians may downplay this career decision as not 'major' but something done out of necessity or they may take another approach and determine it isn't much of a career move if one were to look at his public image. The change in music direction arrived in the late summer of 1984...pretty much 35 years ago this month. Ray had signed with MCA Records upon the conclusion of his Mercury contract and the early results shown up in September of 1984 with his first single release for the label...the uptempo, bluegrass flavored "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye". This single featured the satirical "Joggin'" as it's B-side (a novelty about joggers and exercise fanatics). A funny thing happened, though. MCA released his debut album for the label, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, in November of 1984. "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" was, frustratingly, still in the 'testing' stage at radio stations. Country disc jockeys began playing another song from the album on the air...the satirical "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". Well, one thing led to another, and MCA had a hit on their hands...one after the other word of mouth spread about this squirrel song and MCA issued it as a single in November of 1984. The B-side is "Ned Nostril", a song in which Ray does a Johnny Cash impression throughout. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" became such a hit that Country radio had no choice but to play it...and the results helped the single catapult into the Country Top-20 in early 1985 and the album became an enormous hit as well...and I'll get more into detail about the album and the resurgence in Ray's overall popularity when I pick things up in Part Thirteen.