Ray Stevens and his A-Team Band...

Oh it's me once again!! Those of you who have seen episodes of the Ray Stevens television show, CabaRay Nashville, will no doubt be very familiar with the house band that Ray refers to as The A-Team. This nickname is in reference to the famed Nashville session musicians of the '50s and '60s who were heard on hundreds of recordings that came out of Nashville...mostly country but they were also used on pop music recordings, too. The musicians were credited as the A-Team and the music was known as the Nashville Sound. Ray's musicians on CabaRay Nashville have, mostly, all appeared on his recordings, too. Now, just to name several musicians: Jerry Kimbrough, Steve Gibson, Denis Solee, Tommy White, Scott Weckerly, Mike Noble, Buddy Skipper. There are more musicians that have took their place on the CabaRay stage during taping of Ray's television show but I only named several.

The production of new episodes is on temporary hiatus but there are 78 half hour episodes that air, out of chronological order, on numerous local PBS affiliates. CabaRay Nashville originated on RFD-TV in November 2015 and it remained on their line-up until late December 2016. The series moved to first-run local PBS syndication in January 2017 but later returned to the RFD-TV airwaves in January 2019...remaining on local PBS stations as well. In November of 2019 the series vanished from the Saturday night RFD-TV line-up without explanation but it continues airing in local syndication on PBS stations as of April 14, 2020.

Yesterday Ray uploaded an instrumental performance by his A-Team of "Sugarfoot Rag"...the lead guitarist on the performance is Steve Gibson. He's not one of the regular musicians on the show but he happened to be there for that taping. The same is true for saxophonist Buddy Skipper. He appears on several episodes along side the show's resident saxophonist, Denis Solee. You will find Denis listed on dozens upon dozens of Ray Stevens albums and for a period of time Steve Gibson was the name seen in the musician credits of Ray's albums. He's credited as one of the guitarists, along with Jerry Kimbrough, on Ray's 2015 album, Here We Go Again!. Ray is very loyal to the musicians that work on his albums and the musicians that appeared on the television show and his concerts. It's safe to say they're all the same musicians. Some artists have a road band and then there's the studio band. Ray is one of those that often has his road band on his records and playing behind him on television appearances.

Here is Ray's A-Team performing the country music classic, "Sugarfoot Rag"...