Ray Stevens: Gene Watson CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello once again!! After posting my previous blog entry I noticed that I didn't start off that blog with a greeting of any kind. This past week (October 11th) was the 77th birthday of the legendary country music singer, Gene Watson. If you follow Gene's career you'll know that he still records and before the pandemic came along he was still actively touring all over the country. In his career he's had 48 chart hits between the years 1975 and 1997. He had a little bit of difficulty getting his records on the radio for a brief period of time in the mid 1980s but he managed to rack up additional Top-40 country hits throughout the remainder of the '80s...with occasionally some of them reaching the Top-10...but the bulk of his biggest hits were within a 10 year period, 1975-1985. 

He would have one more Top-10 hit after 1985, "Don't Waste It on The Blues", in 1988. That was his 20th and final Top-10 single. He reached number one just once on the U.S. Billboard Country chart with a single titled "Fourteen Carat Mind" in 1981. He had reached number one for the first time on Canada's Country chart in 1977 with "Paper Rosie", a single that hit the Top-5 here in the U.S. 

The hit that's considered his signature song, "Farewell Party", peaked in the Top-5 in 1979. A lot of people mistakenly think it hit number one. Gene guest starred on the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television series and performed two songs. In this video clip it contains Ray interviewing Gene and a performance of "Farewell Party". That song's been recorded by a wide variety of entertainers: Little Jimmy Dickens, Johnny Bush, Waylon Jennings...just to name a few. Gene, if you didn't already know, is a huge fan of the late country music legend, George Jones. One of Ray's background vocalists, Sheri Copeland, shares a past with both George Jones and Gene Watson. In this clip you'll see Sheri and Gene discussing their past and their friendship with George. 

Gene prefers to remain true to the honky-tonk sounds in country music and to remain a traditionalist...some of his solid country recordings in the latter half of the 1980s clashed with the slicker sounds heard on 'New Country' radio stations...which explain why so many of his singles were hitting but yet were peaking in the lower rungs of the chart. If he'd only had airplay support at the time a lot of those singles that peaked outside the Top-10 would've no doubt been strong Top-10 performers and more widely known. The 1990s, however, were a different story for almost everyone in the country music business who had their professional debuts 20 to 30 years earlier. He's become involved with country gospel music in a really big way. He unexpectedly hit number one in the latter half of 2016 with a gospel flavored single from the pen of Larry Gatlin, "Help Me". He hit the top of the Cashbox Christian Country chart. He then issued a CD titled My Gospel Roots in 2017. One of the single releases, "Old Roman Soldier", became another chart topping hit in 2018...reaching number one on the Cashbox Country Christian chart. Cashbox is only available as a digital trade publication. Gene followed that single with another number one hit on Cashbox's Country Christian chart: "Build My Mansion Next Door to Jesus". On receiving the news it's reported that he remarked "I'd never, ever hit number one three times in a row in my entire career!!". Gene became a member of the Grand Ole Opry this year. Now that I've written a lot about Gene Watson...here he is on Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...