Ray Stevens: Andy Williams performs on The Ray Stevens Summer Show...

I didn't know exactly if I should title this blog entry Andy Williams Sings on the Ray Stevens Show or Andy Williams performs on the 1970 Ray Stevens Summer Show, etc. I knew that whatever title I'd come up with would be wordy and so I settled on the title that I came up with. Andy Williams was a very important figure in the career of Ray Stevens. Andy allowed Ray to appear on several occasions on his NBC television series during the 1969-1970 season. The networks, by and large, didn't want to air repeats of variety shows during the summer months and so when the star of a show took off for the summer break there was the need for a replacement host. Andy and associates chose Ray Stevens to host the 1970 summer show. Ray had recently signed to Andy's record label, Barnaby, after a lengthy run on Monument Records, and Ray wanted his debut for the company to be a hit and something that could be used as a theme song for the upcoming summer show. In the video clip you'll hear Ray refer to Andy as "my daddy and the sweetheart of the south" and he says that about Andy out of respect. I say that because someone asked on one of Ray's social media accounts if Andy was Ray's father. The answer to that would be, no! Ray's father happened to be a man by the name of Willis. The show having Andy on as a guest lent itself to a lot of comedy because it was actually Andy's show that Ray was guest hosting during the summer break. The appearance gave Andy some jokes to level toward Ray...asking him how he's been doing since taking over the show, and as they begin to chit chat, music starts playing and the announcer tells us that the reason they're drowning out the conversation is because, frankly, they feel their chit chat is boring, which draws a lot of laughs but then, after the music stops, the scene ends with Andy asking Ray a question that had become a running joke throughout the 1970 summer series. Andy sings "One Day of Your Life" which was a huge hit for for him on the Adult-Contemporary chart...peaking in the runner-up position. It's more adult oriented and that's why it had it's greatest impact on radio formats that played pop music that adults preferred to listen to and purchase. Andy croons out the song in his typical delivery. The song is from the pen of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and it was issued as a single in June of 1970. The release came between Andy's version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "It's So Easy".