The ballad side of Ray Stevens comes into full display on Great Country Ballads. I've written several blog entries promoting the album leading up to it's release date (today) and I've written commentary on several social media sites throughout the afternoon. In my previous blog entry I provided my review of the collection. I looked over some of the things I wrote and, as always, I found things I dwelled on too much and other things I didn't give enough spotlight to. I chose the photo of Ray to capture the overall serious mood of the brand new album. One of the things that, in hindsight, was important to do from a marketing standpoint was not emphasize that it would be a traditional country music album. The album's title doesn't specifically suggest there's going to be 'classic country' arrangements backing these recordings...it's simply an album of love ballads that originated in country music but performed in a completely different way by the legendary Ray Stevens. I found out that Denis Solee is the saxophonist heard on these recordings. He's usually the one on mostly all of Ray's albums. He appears on Ray's CabaRay Nashville television show, too, and so I should have just assumed it was him but I wanted to be accurate. Since it's a digital album there aren't any credits for musicians or the engineer. The songwriter and publisher credits are visible on digital downloads, though. The image below is a promotional banner advertising that the new digital album is now available. It's not an image link to an online store! Almost 10 years ago I used a banner advertisement for Ray's Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music on most of my blog entries and on social media sites I was often asked why the banner wasn't linked to Ray's online webstore. So, before anyone clicks the image, it isn't a link to any online store. It's just a promotional banner for the digital album.
Ray's been working on these albums for a number of years. If you have Ray's 2014 memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, he made mention of two of the albums in that memoir...they were a work in progress. The albums had been in the planning and development stage for more than 6 years and, at last, they're starting to see the light of day. Ray will release 3 more digital albums over the next three months...one new album per month (March, April, and May). In June a box set will be released with all 4 digital albums available in CD format. Curb Records, as mentioned in a previous blog entry, has uploaded the audio clips from the album onto YouTube. The album is on Ray's Spotify page and you can find it on all the digital music stores. I purchased mine on Amazon. This isn't an official audio clip from Ray's YouTube channel...instead it's one of the audio clips on YouTube provided by Curb Records. It's Ray's rendition of "I Can't Stop Loving You". That song is a classic...having been recorded by it's songwriter, Don Gibson, as well as Ray Charles in addition to Conway Twitty and hundreds of recording artists. Ray Stevens brings a different arrangement to the iconic song as only he can.
Well, well, well...it's me once again!! I've just finished listening to and taking notes about the brand new Ray Stevens album, Great Country Ballads. The album had several surprises as far as instrumentation is concerned. If you're going into this with the mindset that it's going to be a wild, zany vocal display of mayhem and comedy then you'll be surprised by the seriousness with which he performs these 12 songs. The album's title should be a clue for those unaware of what lay in store on this album...you'll be treated to 12 ballads performed with updated arrangements by Ray Stevens. I took notes on all of the songs but I'm not going to critique each and every song. I mainly took notes, out of habit, so I could look to them when writing my review. The digital download opens with "Please Help Me, I'm Falling". Ray establishes how 98 percent of the album will sound with this opening track. He lowers the tempo from what most may recall from the original by Hank Locklin. Ray puts in a lot of soul and rhythm and blues flavor before bringing it to it's climax. To my ears those are the sounds that Ray is generating on the recording...some may consider it smooth jazz.
His rendition of "Crazy" is similar to how he performed it in the late 1990s on an episode of the country music show, Primetime Country. That performance is on YouTube. The song comes from the pen of Willie Nelson and it was a huge hit for Patsy Cline and it was a hit for Emmylou Harris and later, Reba McEntire. His take on "City Lights" is unlike any version previously available...from the pen of Bill Anderson it became a hit for Ray Price and later, Mickey Gilley, and Bill himself recorded a version of it a couple of times over the decades. Ray Stevens gives it a sung-narration feel and he's over-dubbed his own voice to create a background harmony. He does this on several other recordings but the bulk of the harmony singing on the album comes from his usual female group. The thing about a digital download is there's no musician credits or who the harmony singers are...no credits for the engineer, publishers, songwriters, production team (even though it's safe to assume the entire album was produced and arranged by Ray Stevens). Curb Records has the audio clips of Ray's songs on YouTube already. I've embedded the audio of "City Lights"...
When you listen to the album you'll notice that there's a recurring saxophone solo that pops up in most of the songs. The saxophonist may be Denis Solee or it could be Buddy Skipper. I'll try and find out who the musicians are. We may have to wait until June for the CD copy to become available. You can tell that Ray is thoroughly enjoying himself as he goes from song to song putting his spin on these classics. The belting out of "Bouquet of Roses", for example, and the over-dubbed harmony and the saxophone solo...it all comes together to highlight even further that this album is every much the music arranger's joy as it is the singer's joy...and in this case the music arranger and singer are one in the same! The album is titled Great Country Classics but they're presented in a very different way and you'll notice this right away with the opening track on through much of the album. "Room Full of Roses" is one of the songs that features a saxophone solo and the song's tempo is not like the rendition popularized by Mickey Gilley. In Ray's rendition there is no piano pounding and boogie woogie overtones...instead there's a softer delivery and there's piano but nothing like what you'd hear in the up-tempo version. I had heard Ray's rendition of "Your Cheatin' Heart" on YouTube...he put out a sneak preview audio clip that I embedded in a previous blog entry. It was the only song, to that point, that ended with a mid-tempo conclusion. The album lives up to it's title as ballad heavy.
Now, then, when you hear "Making Believe" come across your speaker I believe you'll also feel the way I did. As soon as I heard the intro and the opening lyrics I immediately felt that this may be treated as a future single release. By that I mean it may become a song Ray frequently highlights whenever he goes back to putting on concerts. It just has that sound that makes one think it's possibly going to be one of the songs used for publicity/promotion. It features dobro and fiddle...the first appearance of those instruments on this album. The rendition of "Sweet Dreams" was probably recorded during the same session as it, too, features dobro, violins, and a saxophone! The closing song, his rendition of "Till I Get It Right" is fabulous. It's slower than the original by Tammy Wynette. The album, overall, is a great showcase of Ray's music arranging skills and his vocalizations. It's a ballad heavy album and so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone considering the album's title. It's the first of four all new albums that are to be released on Ray Stevens this year. The next album arrives late in March and it'll be a lot more up-tempo by it's very nature considering it's going to be a Bluegrass album.
Yes, I'm looking at the time down in the corner of my laptop and it's showing 1:29am on February 26th!! What was that? I typed February 26th!! The day has finally arrived...the day that the first of four all-new Ray Stevens albums hit online stores. It felt as if this day wouldn't get here quick enough!! I put in my order for Great Country Ballads about 20 minutes ago. I went to look at the order confirmation and what I saw was a message stating that it's been categorized as a Pre-Order and the date of purchase shows February 25, 2021! I knew that the Amazon headquarters, well, the main one, is out on the West Coast where there's a 3 hour time difference but I didn't think such a thing would prevent East Coast customers from hearing the music on release day...after all it's February 26th here in the East.
Anyway...I'm sure later this morning I'll be able to listen to the music I purchased. I'm reminded of what had taken place when I purchased the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" a couple of months ago. I ordered it but it took nearly half a day before it shown up in my music player. So, I'm assuming I won't be able to listen to the digital download until later this morning. Anyway, I'll be awake around 3am just in case that's the magic time of the morning when my download will be playable. I know that YouTube has some of the songs from Great Country Ballads already uploaded and ready for anyone to listen to. Curb Records provided the audio tracks to 8 of the 12 songs over on YouTube. I'm torn between waiting until my music player on Amazon allows me to listen to the digital download I purchased or going over to YouTube and listening to the songs there. If you're wanting to purchase the digital download from Amazon you can click the following LINK.
Oh what it's like to be a night-owl! I woke up about 20 minutes ago and discovered that Ray Stevens has uploaded an audio clip on YouTube of one of the new songs on his upcoming album, Great Country Ballads. The song, "Your Cheatin' Heart", a definite country music classic from the pen of Hank Williams. That's not the only song on Ray's upcoming album that was made famous by Hank. Ray also does a version of "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You". Country music website The Boot had an exclusive earlier this morning with the audio clip of "Your Cheatin' Heart". Since then Ray has uploaded the audio onto YouTube. I'm including a link to The Boot so you can read what's in the article. You can read the article from The Boot by clicking HERE. You can even listen to the audio clip on their webpage or, of course, you can listen to it below in the video embed. Ray, as one could expect, provides a much different arrangement. As touched on in previous blog entries one of his longtime passions is the construction of music...wondering whether or not a song needs the addition of a saxophone, or more guitar than an original included, or, taking out a signature instrument and replacing it with, perhaps, a saxophone...whatever it takes to make it come across an entirely different song. His rendition of "Your Cheatin' Heart" is unlike those that have previously been released by other recording artists over the decades. The use of the saxophone on this recording isn't intrusive...when some people see the word 'saxophone' they think of the honking, roaring saxophone heard on The Coasters comedy songs...but in this setting the saxophone is played softer...the style heard in the smooth jazz format. Listening to the song no doubt creates even more anticipation of getting the entire digital download album tomorrow!! Yes...we're now one day away from Great Country Ballads being released!
Hello all once again!! As we wait in anticipation for the release of the brand new Ray Stevens album let's take a look at a love ballad that he recorded for his 1982 album, Don't Laugh Now. This album was released on RCA Records and it was a blend of mid-tempo songs, up-tempo songs, and ballads. I have it on vinyl and cassette tape. "Written Down In My Heart" was the album's first single release and it reached the Country Top-40. The song comes from the pen of a writer credited as W.T. Davidson. I looked him up and there's only a couple of songs credited to the writer...and it's Ray's song that was the biggest hit for the writer. Now, the website I looked at only focuses on single releases...so it's hard to tell if the writer had any album cuts by recording artists. An album cut, or album track, is what's referred to as a song that appears on an album but wasn't released commercially as a single.
The song, as you can tell if you're listening to it as you read, is a love ballad. It was released as a single in February 1982. RCA even released a gold color vinyl promo single...copies of it can sometimes be found on eBay and images of it can be found on websites that specialize in vinyl singles. The performance comes from Ray's appearance on Barbara Mandrell's television show, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters. I created a four panel collage of Ray's 1982 album. I feature an image of the vinyl, cassette, and an image of myself and my copy of the cassette. As mentioned I have Don't Laugh Now on vinyl, too, but reaching for the cassette is a lot simpler than having to sift through my stack of vinyl. Ray has a sensitivity or a softness in his vocal performance...there were several displays of this throughout the 1982 album and in several album's prior...but it reached it's peak on this 1982 album. It may have had to do with the overall production that drew out that kind of vocalization from Ray. It's anyone's guess.
When you take a look at the collage below you'll notice that there's more graphics/art work on the vinyl release. The neon '50s style rock and roll look with the splashy Don't Laugh Now written in that manner was something of a tie-in with the song's opening track...the bouncy rock and roll flavored "Such a Night". There are several rock and roll inspired performances on here...musically speaking of course...Ray remains calm and pleasant vocally. In addition to "Such a Night" there's "Always There" and "Take That Girl Away". The love ballads are "Written Down In My Heart", "Don't Laugh Now", "This Old Piano", "Oh, Leo Lady", and "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love". There is one mid-tempo song on here, "Country Boy, Country Club Girl", and then there's the album's second single, "Where The Sun Don't Shine", done in a hand clapping sing-a-long southern gospel arrangement which belies the fact it's a humorous song about a romantic break-up. The cassette tape, if you notice, lacks the '50s style neon look and places the album's title and song publicity underneath Ray's photo. I've got a cassette copy of his 1980 album, too...I've always been on the look out for a cassette version of his 1981 album to complete the RCA studio albums in cassette format. Bob Montgomery co-produced this album with Ray. Also, the album's keyboard player, Ron Oates, arranged "This Old Piano", "Written Down In My Heart", and "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love". Ray arranged the other seven songs on the album.
If you all have been familiar with the career of Ray Stevens for as long as I have then you'll be aware that Ray used to appear on recording sessions in Nashville, Tennessee on a fairly frequent basis throughout the '60s and into the early '70s. Ray has often, when asked, spoken about his years as a session musician. He often cites specific things that took place in recording sessions or who he worked along side and as well as any information about the producer of those sessions. Sometimes, due to the passage of time, everything seems like a blur to him. He was declared a Nashville Cat a number of years ago for the sheer amount of recording sessions he appeared on. In addition being a musician he, at times, produced a lot of recording sessions for small labels. He also was a music arranger for a lot of recording artists on top of being a musician and record producer. Ray could more or less do it all, technically speaking, and he eventually became his own music arranger, producer, and leader of the studio band on his albums.
If everything I made mention of isn't already impressive enough he is also a songwriter. He wrote a majority of the songs he recorded throughout the first half of his career. Well, I should say, he wrote the majority of his recordings between the years 1961 and 1983. He did several covers albums in the 1960s and 1970s which features a lot of songs that he didn't write...but if we're to focus primarily on the albums featuring original songs, well, most of those that were released in that time period were self-written. His songwriting helped him get elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980. The same year he was elected to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. It's also important to point out that a majority of the albums that Ray released during 1962-1983 were mostly all serious...filled with all kinds of ballads of various category. He sang love ballads that fit both the pop and country music formats; he sang rhythm and blues style songs; he sang up-tempo and mid-tempo songs that crossed most all music forms...including gospel music. He recorded social commentary with a heavy topical overtone and then there were the comedy/novelty songs. As I've touched on many times a lot of people would be surprised to learn that Ray really never released that many comedy albums in the 1960s or the 1970s. You'd think he would've had dozens of zany, novelty albums racked up in his discography from that time period but it just isn't the case. In those days the single record was heavily favored over the long-playing album (LP). So back then, if a single became a big hit, then a record company would build an album around it.
His first two Mercury Records albums feature novelty songs and ballads: 1,837 Seconds of Humor (1962) and This is Ray Stevens (1963). Ray's first album to feature all comedy songs is Gitarzan (1969). In the recording sessions for Ray's earlier albums he played piano/keyboard...since that is his main musical instrument. He wasn't his own record producer in those days...it was Shelby Singleton. In the years prior to Shelby's involvement the main guidance of Ray's career happened to be Bill Lowery. Ken Nelson, Jerry Kennedy, Chet Atkins, Fred Foster, and Ralph Emery were also important figures in Ray's early career. Ray worked with the likes of Tommy Roe, Joe South, Jerry Reed, and Billy Joe Royal in and around Atlanta, Georgia. All of them at one time or another appeared on a local radio series called The Georgia Jubilee. Ray posted a photo from the early 1960s at the ABC/Paramount Recording Studio owned by record producer Sam Phillips. Ray was often on the recording sessions of various vocal groups and recording artists on small labels and larger labels. I can spot Ray from a mile away. There wasn't any background given as to why there's so many women in the photo. Some of us Ray Stevens fans spoke online about it might be some sort of field trip to a recording studio by a local high school music class or something. Ray identified some of the other people in the photo: Billy Sherrill, Tommy Roe, Allen Breed, and Hugh Jarrett.
As far as Ray's recording sessions go a soul group known as The Tams, for example, some of their recordings were published by Bill Lowery (credited as Lowery Music, Inc.). On some of the single releases by The Tams the performances are credited as Ahab Productions, signaling that Ray Stevens was the record producer. This is no doubt a reference to Ray's 1962 novelty, "Ahab the Arab". Some of the recordings by The Tams were on ABC/Paramount and it's possible this photo is from when Ray was producing and working on sessions with The Tams. He produced their recordings of "Untie Me" and "Disillusioned" and the audio clips are on YouTube. When you listen to "Untie Me" you can hear Ray's 'sound' from that time period all over it. Joe South wrote "Untie Me". When Ray began his music publishing company he called it Ahab Music. He changed the name in 1977 to Ray Stevens Music. He's created several music publishing companies that are in the official umbrella of Ray Stevens Music but almost everything he's recorded since 1977 is credited to Ray Stevens Music.
Ray's involvement in so many recording sessions have almost gone by with little notice over the decades. I've been a fan for years and years and even I'm still discovering information about recording sessions that he participated in over the course of his career. Some of this has to do with the lack of proper credit...musician credits were rarely shown on albums from the '60s...unless the musician publicly disclosed everything they played on it was likely a general audience wouldn't have any idea who played on what.
As the title of this blog entry states, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the new Ray Stevens album, Great Country Ballads, this coming Friday!! As mentioned in a previous blog entry this upcoming release will contain Ray's versions of 12 country music classics. Some of the songs had previously been covered by one of his idols, the late Ray Charles, and so I don't know if he will use the arrangements heard on the Ray Charles recordings, use the arrangements heard on the original country recordings, or come up with his own arrangements. In a Facebook post a couple of days ago they played a snippet of one of the songs on this upcoming release...and the rendition of "Til I Get it Right" was re-arranged from the original by Tammy Wynette.
1. Please Help Me I'm Falling
2. Crazy
3. City Lights
4. I Can't Stop Loving You
5. Bouquet of Roses
6. Room Full of Roses
7. Your Cheatin' Heart
8. Cryin' Time
9. I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You
10. Making Believe
11. Sweet Dreams
12. 'Til I Get It Right
If you know your classic country music, as I do, then you should be very familiar with the original recordings. "Room Full of Roses" was a huge hit for Mickey Gilley. "Bouquet of Roses" was a massive hit for Eddy Arnold. Buck Owens had a monster hit with "Cryin' Time", one of the several songs Ray Charles did a version of. Hank Williams is covered with two of his big hits, "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "I Can't Help It"; and he tackles another iconic hit, "Please Help Me I'm Falling", made famous by Hank Locklin. The new digital albums, as mentioned in previous blog entries, are being released on Curb Records. Ray signed with Curb Records in the latter half of 2020. He and Jeannie Seely recorded a duet together, "Dance Tonight", which appeared on her album of duets. Now, not too long after this, news surfaced that Ray had joined Curb Records once again. He was signed to the label several times in the past (1990-1996; 2001-2005) and in the next decade the label got distribution rights to several of the albums he recorded for his own label, Clyde Records. Earlier this month Curb got the digital download distribution for Ray's 2015 comedy album, Here We Go Again!. The album had previously been issued on Ray's own record label but earlier this month Curb Records became the official distributor.
It's me once again!! We're getting closer to release date of the first of four brand new albums from Ray Stevens! Great Country Ballads is scheduled to become available as a digital download this coming Friday February 26th! I don't know if the music will become available as soon as it turns Midnight or if it'll be released during traditional business hours on Friday (anywhere between 9am to 5pm). I know the last time Ray had a digital download released, "The Quarantine Song", back in December 2020, on-line sites didn't have it available for several hours into it's release day. I recall being frustrated at the time because the music was suppose to be available on release day and yet it wasn't...it didn't become available for purchase until mid-morning/early afternoon on release day. So, with that in mind, I'm going to assume when Great Country Ballads is released, it won't immediately become available on-line.
In my previous blog entry I provided a track list of what's going to be on this first release. Some of the songs include "City Lights", "Please Help Me I'm Falling", and "Till I Get It Right". Curb Records, if you remember, will release one digital album per month on Ray through the next couple of months. After the release of this album, there will be some publicity for it, and then in March the follow-up album will get released, Melancholy Fescue. In April comes the Slow Dance digital album and then in May, Nouveau Retro, comes along. In June all four albums will be released in one CD box set collection. Some may ask why will there be a Box Set release in June? Some may ask why not release all four of them now rather than issue one per month? I prefer what they're doing as if that's a surprise to anyone reading. The four albums are being issued digitally because, let's face it, most consumers purchase music over the internet and so having the music available digitally on release day is the right thing to do. Now then...once all four albums have been issued individually, there will be a box set issued in June. This is when the CD copies of those digital download albums become available. As I pointed out in a previous blog entry I prefer CD copies over digital downloads...but I'm not going to wait until June for CD's to become available. Have you seen Ray's Facebook post where he offered a small snippet of one of the songs from this download? It was posted back on the 19th (this past Friday). In this post he also provided commentary about the upcoming Great Country Ballads project: "Being from the South I got a heavy dose of country music and that's the reason for this collection I call Great Country Ballads. These songs are truly iconic songs of the 20th century, back when radio was the primary way people got their music. The big sellers were songs like "Please Help Me I'm Falling" by Hank Locklin, "Big Bouquet of Roses" by Eddie Arnold, and "Your Cheating Heart" by Hank Williams. These songs and the original recordings touched people. They sure made an impression on me and I hope my renditions of them will touch something in you too. It's not my attempt to try to improve them by any means, it's just me paying tribute in my unique way to the gift of truly ballads that I received 'over the air ways' as I was growing up. These songs are in many ways..."the soundtrack" of my life".
Since I'm on a computer I'll be downloading the digital albums and then, later on, I'll be purchasing the CD box set. I've seen several people on his social media sites asking why there's even going to be digital downloads...they ask: why not just release them as CD's? Well, to go back to what I was just saying, a majority of people purchase music on-line and so it simply makes more sense to release music through the preferred method, first, and then issue the music in other formats later for collectors. When I purchase digital music on Amazon it goes to my Amazon music library. In case I failed to say it... Great Country Ballads is almost here!! February 26th!! I'll be reviewing it as soon as I'm finished listening to it. Is it the 26th yet??
Hello all!! If you caught my earlier blog entry then you'll know that there will be 4 brand new albums hitting the market from Ray Stevens over the next four months. In my previous blog entry I did a general overview of the albums but since each one is being released monthly I decided to zero in on the first of the 4 albums. Great Country Ballads is set to make it's debut next Friday (February 26th) as a digital download album. I'm sure there's no explanation needed as to what a digital download album is...but in case you're wondering it'll be only available on-line. You'll visit an on-line music store, search for Ray's Great Country Ballads album in the digital music section, and then you'll see the product page open up detailing the price, record label, etc. The music will be uploaded to your listening device. Whenever I purchase digital downloads they're uploaded onto my built-in music program on my computer and I'm sure that's the same for anyone else who purchases Mp3 digital downloads. I was thinking about the publicity photo of Ray on Great Country Ballads and it was 33 years ago (I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like; 1988) when Ray previously appeared on a studio album in a cowboy hat. It was the second and, until now, the last time that he appeared in a cowboy hat on a studio album. The first time was 40 years ago (One More Last Chance; 1981). Take a look at that belt buckle and thumbs up gesture! The image harkens back to classic country music and that's what this album will be comprised of.
I don't exactly know, as of this writing, if Ray will sing these songs in their traditional way or if he's re-arranged any or all of them. I don't make bets...but if I did I'd say most of the songs he chose to record for this album were re-arranged and sang differently than what most people will be familiar with. I'll be writing about this album the day it's released - that's when I'll be writing a review and posting it here and elsewhere - and so my commentary/review will obviously be even more specific as I relate how the songs sound, how they're performed, and if they've been re-arranged or not. I'll also include links to the music stores selling the digital download. I'm eagerly anticipating this first release...and I'll be just as eager to hear the next three albums, too!! Great Country Ballads lives up to it's name! Take a look at the songs Ray recorded for this album...
I can hardly contain the excitement!! I just visited the social media sites of Ray Stevens and learned that he'll be releasing all new recordings beginning in a few weeks!! Ray, who signed with Curb Records in the latter half of 2020, is embarking on a mammoth project. It's not going to be as big as 2012's Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music but it's definitely of the same magnitude as far as brand new recordings being released. According to the press release Ray will issue 4 albums worth of new recordings beginning later this month and running through May. These albums will be released digitally and given that they're going to be released through Curb Records expect to find them in the digital download section of Amazon. The report further goes on and says that all 4 albums will be issued in CD format, too, as a box set in June. Yes, before you can ask, I'll be purchasing the digital downloads and then I'll be getting the CD release of those 4 albums in June!
On Ray's Facebook page he revealed the images that appear on each of the 4 albums. If you're a longtime fan of Ray's or are familiar with some of his older interviews this past decade (2010-present) you'll know he's talked of a Bluegrass album with the title, Melancholy Fescue. If you're familiar with his music video of "Unchained Melody" this is one of the songs that will be on that particular CD. That music video hit YouTube back in October of 2013! Yes, that's how long this Bluegrass project's been on the backburner in Ray's career. That upcoming album is subtitled High Class Bluegrass...in other words the recordings will be of songs you wouldn't expect to hear arranged in a Bluegrass fashion, like "Unchained Melody". The video's gotten over 850,000 unique views since it's premiere in October 2013.
Just in case you're new to the music/career of Ray Stevens here's the 2013 music video of "Unchained Melody", one of the songs that will be on 2021's Melancholy Fescue...
The names of the upcoming albums are: Great Country Ballads (February 26th); Melancholy Fescue/High Class Bluegrass (March 26th); Slow Dance (April 23rd); and Nouveau Retro/What's Old is New Again (May 21st). As previously mentioned all four of these upcoming digital albums will then be released on CD on June 18th in one box set called Iconic Songs of the 20th Century (The Soundtrack of Our Lives). Ray made mention of these projects in his interview last year at the Musicians Hall of Fame. I wrote a blog entry and included an embed of the interview. The interview can be seen on YouTube in case you don't want to search the archives section for the exact blog entry where I shared the video. There will be 12 songs on each of the albums according to a press release found on Music Row's webpage.
Great Country Ballads: "Please Help Me I'm Falling", "Crazy", "City Lights", "I Can't Stop Loving You", "Bouquet of Roses", "Room Full of Roses", "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Cryin' Time", "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You", "Making Believe", "Sweet Dreams", and "Til I Get it Right".
Melancholy Fescue (High Class Bluegrass): "Ruby/Ruby Baby", "Pretty Woman", "In the Still of the Night", "At This Moment", "Twilight Time", "Unchained Melody", "Spring is Here", "Sophisticated Lady", "People", "Can't Take My Eyes off of You", "Goin' Out of My Head", and "MacArthur Park".
Slow Dance: "Only You and You Alone", "Unforgettable", "Make Believe/It's Only Make Believe", "Great Pretender", "I'll See You In My Dreams", "Slow Dancing", "Answer Me", "Stardust", "As Usual", "Dream", "This is All I Ask", and "What a Wonderful World".
Nouveau Retro (What's Old is New Again): "April in Paris", "Blue Moon", "Earth Angel", "Lay Me Down, Roll Me out to Sea", "Cry Me a River", "Mountain of Love", "Talk to Me", "Young Love", "Indian Love Call", "No, Not Much", "You Don't Know Me", and "Always Chasing Rainbows/Over the Rainbow".
As you read earlier in the blog entry I'll be purchasing the digital downloads and the CD...some may choose to purchase only the digital downloads whereas some may actually wait until June and purchase all of them in one box set. In this computer age I always prefer to have music on CD as a backup and so I still purchase CD copies of Ray's music (if available) in addition to the digital downloads. What do the album/promotional covers look like?? Well, take a look at this...
Well, well, well it's me once again!! I can't believe I hadn't written a blog entry in over a week's time but I noticed that some of my older blog entries had gotten a lot of activity during the hiatus. We've been having snow storms and ice events pass through the area within the last weeks and so my focus had been on the weather and hoping the electricity wouldn't go out...and if ever we're in a situation where it looks possible for a power outage it takes my mind off of being creative and off of writing blog entries about Country Music Hall of Fame member, Ray Stevens!
Earlier today an audio clip of "Dance Trilogy" was uploaded. Ray recorded this song for his 1978 album, There Is Something On Your Mind. That album is one of my all-time favorites...it features Ray's versions of classic rhythm and blues songs and early rock songs. Ray provided commentary about the album and the songs on both the front and back of the album cover. He noted that he was unhappy that a lot of the classic rhythm and blues and rock music of the '50s was being presented in a comical, almost caricatured way.
In the comments Ray specified that, with few exceptions, all anyone sees today are nothing but parodies of '50s music. He may have been thinking about the sitcom, Happy Days, the movie, Grease, or the syndicated music show, Sha Na Na. The year of release on the back of There Is Something On Your Mind shows 1977 and 1978...so depending on the month when Sha Na Na hit the airwaves Ray was probably aware of that show when recording the album. The fact that it has 1977 and 1978 written on the album causes some uncertainty over when the songs were recorded or which songs were recorded in 1977 and which ones were recorded in 1978. It also poses a question as to whether all the songs were recorded in 1977 but weren't released on an album until 1978.
It's a fabulous recording. The entire album enables the music arranging skills of Ray Stevens to once again shine. He does the music arranging on all of his albums and so those skills are always on display but whenever he does one of these covers albums where he does his versions of songs previously recorded by other recording artists that's when the arranging skills come front and center. This "Dance Trilogy" from Ray's 1977, 1978 album contains "Do You Wanna Dance/When You Dance/Save the Last Dance For Me". You're gonna love it if you've never heard it until now! You'll love hearing it again if you're already familiar with it.
Yes oh yes Ray Stevens is the GOAT!! We've been hearing that acronym for a number of years...it means Greatest of All-Time...and it's most often applied to athletes. The acronym had the lion's share of coverage in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl this year. The game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was played yesterday evening. Well, all over sports media the GOAT acronym was being bestowed upon the Tampa Bay quarterback who'd previously spent nearly 20 years with New England Patriots. In the realm of country comedy/southern humor Ray Stevens is the GOAT. Enshrinement into the Country Music Hall of Fame had been elusive for a number of years but he ultimately was elected as a member in 2019...after having sold millions of singles, albums, home videos, DVD, and after racking up millions of unique views of his on-line music videos. He not only is the GOAT but he can do vocal impressions of apes, pigs, cows, and chickens, too.
In keeping with the overall theme of the GOAT and Tampa Bay I'm going to do something rare and embed an audio clip of a Ray Stevens song that doesn't come from Ray's official YouTube channel. This audio clip is of a song Ray recorded in 1980, "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me". The song isn't necessarily about Tampa Bay, Florida but within the song's lyrics several Florida cities are mentioned and the story takes place in Florida...but once you hear it you'll understand that it isn't a song that's all about Tampa Bay. It's a cleverly written song.
"You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me", as you can tell from the screen cap in the video, comes from Ray's 1980 comedy album, Shriner's Convention. In addition to my believing Ray Stevens to be the GOAT of country comedy, and, in addition to this song having lyrical mentions of Florida, there was a stoppage of play in the Super Bowl yesterday when a partial streaker ran on the field! By partial I mean the guy was wearing what looked like a pink bathing suit with black shorts. As he ran down the field he began removing the shorts and I believe, if he hadn't been tackled near the end zone, he'd have slipped off the pink suit. The CBS television broadcasters didn't give him much notice...as they didn't want to legitimize the moment...but the national radio broadcaster, Kevin Harlan, did a play-by-play of the streaker running down the field describing how he was evading and dodging security guards from the left and the right side of the field until finally being tackled a few inches shy of the end zone. What will perhaps be a memorable play-by-play is his hollering at the streaker from the broadcast booth to pull up his pants and be a man. Kevin's broadcast is on YouTube.
Almost immediately after this incident happened at the Super Bowl the various social media sites were linking it to Ray's 1974 hit, "The Streak", and sharing the 1992 music video Ray put together. It was surreal was it was happening. I was watching the game and all of the sudden I hear a roar and cheer from the limited audience and the television broadcaster said someone had gotten onto the field. The camera was taping what was going on, but only briefly, and then the camera began panning over the football players as the off-camera activity was going on. As mentioned in my previous paragraph the television broadcast didn't make much of it but Kevin Harlan's radio broadcast gave the listeners a play-by-play of how the partial streaker almost scored a touchdown.
Now, then, Ray Stevens is in my opinion the GOAT when it comes to country/southern comedy. So, of course, I'm closing out this blog entry with Ray's 1992 music video of "The Streak" since it uniquely fits into the overall conversation of the Super Bowl, Tampa Bay, and streaking...
Hello all...if I recall correctly I was spotlighting a song from Ray Stevens back in 2015 from his Here We Go Again! comedy album...a song called "There Must Be a Pill For This". One day I might look back into the 2015 archives of this fan created blog page and see if I can pin point the exact blog entry. I'm sure it's in the blog entry where I wrote a review of the album or in one of the blog entries where I was tracking the unique views of "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me", the main song from that 2015 album. Anyway, at the time of the album's 2015 release, I was wondering if Ray would issue "There Must Be a Pill For This" as a music video since the hilarity in the lyrics and the subject matter itself would've been perfect, I thought, for a music video depiction. In the song Ray zeroes in on a social quandary, of sorts, as it relates to pill taking.
No, this isn't a song that's heavy with a lot of morality overtones or anything like that, it's a song that pokes fun at the ever-increasing presence of pills being advertised to the public at large. Pills of all descriptions and purposes...from losing weight, to gaining weight, to battling hair loss, to those certain types of pills people take for all kinds of hormonal, sexual, mental, and physical stimulation. Ray sings about an assortment of ails and ills so he naturally draws the conclusion "There Must Be a Pill For This" since there's seemingly a pill for everything! The overall point of the song is to poke fun at those various sexual enhancement pill commercials that air on radio and television. Advertised as 'male enhancement', the commercials are blunt and inappropriate, I think, but nevertheless they were all over television and radio enticing insecure men and those with actual medical issues to take a pill to improve sexual performance. Ray, within the song, sings about the variety of other pills out there for all kinds of issues.
The song begins with Ray singing about two people who meet one another in the woods...the man and the woman, we're told, are sitting across from one another in a bathtub in the woods. You can tell how hilarious and absurd the novelty song is when it starts out with the couple meeting in a bathtub in the woods. The song's chorus is more detailed as Ray says there must a pill for those times when the moment arrives. I don't know why the song wasn't made into some sort of music video in 2015 or 2016 but a performance of the song from Ray is better than nothing...and here's Ray singing "There Must Be a Pill For This" on an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television show.
In this blog entry we're going to take a listen to "Can't Stop Dancing", a song written by Ray Stevens and John Pritchard, Jr. If you have Ray's 1976 album, Just for the Record, you're familiar with "Can't Stop Dancing". If you're not familiar with Ray Stevens at all you're probably going to be familiar with pop music duo, Captain and Tennille. If so then you're probably familiar with their recording of "Can't Stop Dancing". Their rendition of the song became a big pop hit in 1977...nearly breaking into the Top-10 of the Hot 100 pop chart. I don't think the pop music media highlighted the fact that it was a song co-written by Ray Stevens...they might have...but I hadn't come across any vintage music reviews or press releases that make mention of that connection.
The Captain and Tennille's recording has a very different arrangement than what Ray Stevens fans might be used to hearing. Their recording is very fast with a disco sound in the background and different instrumentation...their rendition has a passage in the song where Toni Tennille repeats the phrase "can't stop" over and over in a frenetic, fast delivery. Ray's recording is not very fast but it isn't a ballad, either. It's mid-tempo and up-tempo, in parts, with different instrumentation and a straight forward vocal delivery without a lot of acrobatics. The music is wonderful and it captures the time period without it being full-blown, authentic disco. The message of the song is wonderful, too, if you keep your focus on the lyrics...which might be hard to do with the electric, high energy music arrangement Ray created for the song. Again, Ray's performance isn't as fast and frenetic as Captain and Tennille, but it's still highly energetic...
Oh yes, that's a rather odd title for this blog entry but I decided I'd put some emphasis on the pictorial timeline that runs along the right hand side of the blog page. If you're familiar with my blog entries or if you've read some of the captions underneath those images off to the right you'll know I have a copy of all studio albums that Ray Stevens has recorded. As you can see I don't have an image of every studio album posted on the right hand side of the blog page. I randomly chose images of his albums and singles to post on the blog page. I didn't want to post a visual discography because I felt that the fans of Ray Stevens can easily find out for themselves what the imagery on his albums look like by doing an on-line image search. That is why I'm not going to have a visual discography of his albums...only randomly chosen releases...but I notice there's been a lengthy gap in the pictorial timeline for a number of months/years.
There's a gap between 1995 and 2012 on the pictorial timeline. It had me thinking that some people who visit the blog entry may assume that Ray didn't put out any music during that time period...so I'll be adding some imagery from those missing years so that there won't be such a gap. I'm sure by the time some people come across this blog entry I will already have images posted from the years between 1995 and 2012 and you'll probably think they've always been part of the blog. If that's the case this particular blog entry will tell you otherwise.
Ray dramatically decreased his audio output in the 1990s and focused instead on VHS/music video productions. In the 2000s DVDs became the preferred choice of home entertainment and so along come a number of DVD releases from Ray...most of those being limited animation music videos. Then, in July 2009, his YouTube video channel came on-line...and in the years since 2009 most of his activity has been geared toward on-line music video content. He's uploaded almost all of the music video content from his VHS and DVD releases onto his YouTube channel in addition to uploading content only available on-line. As of this writing his video uploads have collectively received more than 130,000,000 unique views. 134,226,440 to be specific! In the photo below, which I believe is from 1994, Ray displays the Music City News trophy for Comedian of the Year. If this photo is indeed from that year it was his final win in that category. He'd won Comedian of the Year from the readers of Music City News magazine every year since 1986...and 1994 was his 9th consecutive win.
Ray's continued to issue audio recordings onto CD and Mp3 but, if you were to compare music video releases to audio recordings, the music video releases would far outnumber the CD/Mp3 output. It's just a reflection of the times we find ourselves in. The public at large prefers to get their music and entertainment on-line through some sort of an app or from an on-line music store...and there's hardly any desire for physical copies of a CD anymore. Now, speaking for myself, I will still purchase a CD of music if it's available. I don't shun the CD in favor of a digital download...if there's CD availability of a Ray Stevens project I'll purchase the CD and more likely than not I'll also purchase the Mp3 copy. Some people won't buy a CD since they can instantly buy the music through their computer or cellphone. A generation of music consumers have grown up purchasing their music through an on-line music site.
A couple of blog entries ago I posted a Ray Stevens Discography of his studio albums and some of the compilation albums that have been issued. There have been dozens upon dozens of compilation albums over the decades...many of which were out of Ray's control. I actually came across a website more than 10 years ago where people on a message board thought Ray, himself, was flooding the market with Greatest Hits and The Very Best of Ray Stevens albums. The people at that message board had no idea that recording artists don't own their recordings...the master copy of a song belongs to whatever record label the singer recorded it for. The peak of compilation album releases of Ray Stevens from all kinds of music companies, both foreign and domestic, seemed to occur in the latter half of the 1990's. Varese Sarabande was one of the last record companies that issued several Ray Stevens compilations in the late '90s and into the early 2000's but since then the compilation releases of Ray's songs slowed down considerably. Jasmine Records issued an overview of Ray's Mercury Records recordings plus the single releases from Ray going back to 1957. That collection, released in 2014, is called Ahab, Jeremiah, Sgt. Preston and More...The Early Years of Ray Stevens. It's a great collection...and a lot of effort was put into it!
Well, here we are in February and I'm once again writing another fan created blog entry about Ray Stevens!! Earlier today there was a video clip posted on-line of Ray singing a song called "Hit Record" from his summer 1970 television series. The summer show was on the air while Andy Williams was on vacation. Ray had become a recurring guest on Andy's television show starting in 1969 and based upon viewer mail Ray was the one that received the most correspondence of all the guest stars. So, the producers of Andy's television show decided to ask Ray to fill-in for Andy during the summer months of 1970. Incredible timing and planning came together when Ray's single, "Everything is Beautiful", flew up the Hot 100 pop chart in 1970 with added exposure of the song coming from the summer 1970 television show...Ray was using it as the television show's theme song.
The summer show was taped in Canada and it aired, nationally, on NBC television each Saturday night for a month and a half. Ray sang a lot of songs on the summer show...some of them were songs that appeared on his albums while some songs he performed were his versions of other artist's songs. In addition to this he also sang songs that he'd written that weren't on any previous album and didn't appear on any future album. "Catchy Little Tune" happened to be one of those and I've embedded that performance in a previous blog entry. This "Hit Record" song I am guessing is from the pen of Ray Stevens because at various moments in the song he slips in lyrics from his previous hits: "Gitarzan", "Along Came Jones", "Mr. Businessman", and "Everything is Beautiful". The song explains, in simplest terms, all that it takes to have a "Hit Record". I decided to leave the video embed in it's original size. I usually shrink the video screen smaller so that it doesn't take up so much space in the body of the text but this time I'm going to leave the video's size right where it is...
As of this date episodes of the Ray Stevens summer show haven't been made available on DVD. They used to be available in a subscription service Ray operated several years ago but the company that was hosting the site, according to information I found, decided to do other things and so Ray's subscription site went off-line as a result. The site had video content of a large number of television appearances Ray had done in his career up to that point in time. All episodes of the summer 1970 show were available to watch. The same held true for the episodes of an on-line sitcom he produced and starred in, We Ain't Dead Yet; also, it was a place to go and watch episodes of Rayality TV and his current series, CabaRay Nashville, before that series began airing on local PBS stations. Throughout his career he's dabbled in video and television productions. I'm sure you're going to love his performance of "Hit Record"!!
