Ray Stevens audio clip: "Making Believe"...

In this Ray Stevens rendition of the country music classic, "Making Believe", Ray puts his music arranging skills front and center. When I first heard Ray's version of the song when I downloaded Great Country Ballads last month I thought to myself that it may be one of the songs he'll perform at his CabaRay once it re-opens. It has that extra something, to my ears anyway, that has me thinking it might be an audio clip he'll promote on social media at some point this year. If record companies were still issuing singles "Making Believe" sounds like a future single release. If you want to purchase the digital download of the entire album you can click HERE. I've been featuring audio clips from the album that Curb Records uploaded onto YouTube. 

In years past I'd promote the purchasing of music but with the recording industry pushing digital downloading and streaming on a wide variety of social media platforms, more or less dissuading the practice of purchasing the music in favor of their getting revenue based on the amount of downloads, clicks, or unique views a song has accumulated...with all of that becoming the standard practice in the music industry I've loosened up my attitude, a little, and won't preach about why consumers should still purchase music rather than listening to audio clips that record companies place on the internet. Now, having said that, I still plan on purchasing the CD-format box set this summer and I'm doing so because I still prefer music on a physical CD and I'm also purchasing it for the Box Set's artwork and musician, songwriter, and publisher credits. Some of Ray's fans probably are going to wait until June and purchase the box set...some fans are probably going to only purchase the individual digital albums and not the box set...whereas some fans, like myself, are purchasing the individual digital download albums AND will be purchasing the CD box set.   

"Making Believe" goes back to 1955 when it's writer, Jimmy Work, released it as a single. His version became a hit but, in those days, well established recording artists also liked to do their version of the latest hit single, too. Kitty Wells recorded "Making Believe" the same year, 1955, and her recording spent 15 weeks in the runner-up position on the Billboard country chart. It couldn't dislodge "In the Jailhouse Now" from the top spot...a song that would spend 21 weeks at number one. The father/daughter duo, The Kendalls, released a version of the song in 1977 as did Emmylou Harris. Her recording hit the Top-10 on the country chart. In 1987 legendary country music artists Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn recorded a version together for a collection sold on television on Heartland Records. A year later their recording became the title track of what would be their final duet album together during his lifetime.

Those are just some of the recording artists that put the song on the country charts over the years. It's been recorded by dozens of other recording artists over the decades. Ray Stevens took his turn at recording "Making Believe" for Great Country Ballads and he puts his own feel to it...