Ray Stevens: Have you gotten "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century" yet?

Hello all...have you gotten Iconic Songs of the 20th Century yet? I ask that because it's the only way you can get the four digital albums that Ray Stevens released earlier this year in CD format. The compact discs in the 4-CD box set are not sold separately. So, if you prefer music on compact discs, the 4-CD box set is what you've been asking for. I was looking over at the archives here on this blog page and do you know that this particular blog entry is my 50th for the month of July!?! When I published my previous blog entry I looked over there above the pictorial timeline at the blog total for the month of July and seen that the previous blog entry was the 49th I've written this month! I don't think I've ever written 50 blog entries in one month before...but I'd have to check and see...but I wondered what the 50th blog entry in July would be about. After thinking about it for a couple of minutes I decided to have the blog entry focus on the 4-CD box set. I see that it's only fitting...my 50th blog entry of the month being about Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. A sort of numbers game if you will...50th and 20th...that's what led me to decide on the 4-CD box set taking the spotlight. It's also fitting because it's the current release from Ray Stevens...it became available on July 23rd...so it's been available for purchase for more than a week. 

Something that I noticed but didn't report on in previous blog entries is that Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, somehow, made an appearance on Amazon's New Releases Top-100 list. In the CD and Vinyl department for Country music New Releases the 4-CD box set appeared for several days...floating around the bottom half of the Top-100...in spite of it not being available for purchase on Amazon. It's not been in stock on Amazon since release day...so imagine my surprise when I seen Iconic Songs of the 20th Century show up among the Top-100 New Releases a couple of days ago. It's not listed there now...so I don't know if it was a glitch in their system or if it's common for product that's unavailable for purchase to show up on a New Releases list. The box set shown up on Amazon's Top-100 on July 28th and it remained there until July 30th...rising no higher than #94. In the hours leading up to it's release date Amazon had the box set available for Pre-order...but ever since the calendar changed from July 22nd to July 23rd Amazon has listed Iconic Songs of the 20th Century as out of stock and unavailable for purchase. So it's baffling how the box set managed to appear on the Top-100 New Releases so many days after it became unavailable for purchase. If the appearance was based on any Pre-order data the box set would've appeared on the Top-100 New Releases on July 22nd but it didn't...it shown up five days later on July 28th. So it'll perhaps always remain a mystery. You can purchase the box set on Ray's website by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens: "Gas" at 10.1K...

In all of the discussion on this blog centering around Ray's 4-CD box set and the music contained on it let us not forget about "Gas". I hadn't forgotten about it...a blog entry I posted back on July 26th focused on the audio track reaching 10,000 plays. "Gas", as you could probably imagine in case you hadn't heard it yet, is a novelty song. The comedy album it's scheduled to appear on isn't going to be released until October, according to an e-mail newsletter I'm signed up to receive, and so to release "Gas" four months ahead of the album has me thinking that maybe there will be an additional comedy song that'll surface within the next month or so just prior to the October release. However, they may just let "Gas" remain the only single-release until the comedy album comes along in October. 

In the last 5 days "Gas" has received 141 organic unique views to raise it's YouTube play from 10,002 to 10,143. Now, keep in mind, these unique views for "Gas" have been received with no heavy publicity for the song's availability. Now, outside of a few mentions of the song on Ray's social media last month and it's presence on several online music stores, it's racked up more than 10,000 YouTube plays based on organic discovery (a process described as a person intentionally searching for and watching video content on their own). I've been chronicling the YouTube plays of "Gas" since it made it's debut on June 3rd...and I'll continue to keep you all updated on it's YouTube performance from time to time. As long as it continues to rack up play in a notable manner I'll continue with the updates. As always feel free to share the audio with your online friends/family.

Ray Stevens: Nouveau Retro promo...

Here we are on a Saturday afternoon...earlier in the day a promo video from Ray Stevens appeared online. This time around it was a video promo for Nouveau Retro. This is the album that contains his renditions of "Mountain of Love", "Earth Angel", "Lay Me Down Roll Me Out to Sea", "You Don't Know Me", "April in Paris", and others. Ray had uploaded three previous promo videos within close proximity to each other but one for Nouveau Retro hadn't made it's way to the internet until today. The video promo for Great Country Ballads hit the internet on June 26th whereas on July 7th a video promo appeared online for Melancholy Fescue. The video promo for Slow Dance soon followed on July 10th. Several thousand unique views have the first three video promo's individually collected so far. The just released Nouveau Retro video promo is sitting at 351 unique views as of this writing. I composed a blog entry about this very album the other day and I included a couple of photos of myself with the CD copy of Nouveau Retro...one photo has me with a beard and another without. This video promo is for the digital copy of Nouveau Retro...which is why you'll hear Ray make mention of the various online platforms where you can listen to/purchase the music. The CD copies of all four of those digital albums are exclusive to the 4-CD box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. Here's the video promo for Nouveau Retro...

Ray Stevens: Kayden Gordon Interview...

It's me again!! Ray Stevens participated in an interview on an internet radio program hosted by Kayden Gordon. The host/interviewer is 16 going on 17 years old according to a post he left on Ray's social media. I'm hoping the link that I've included takes you to the page where you can hear the interview. It lasts a little more than 9 minutes and Ray's asked all kinds of questions. Some of the subject matter touched on is the CabaRay showroom as well as the CabaRay Nashville television series. Ray speaks about the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century and reminds us that there will be a sequel with four additional releases. The title of that box set, as of this writing, is Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, Volume Two. I don't know if that will end being the official title of the sequel but that's the title, as of now, straight from Ray himself in the interview. It's so far down the road that I'll blog more about it next year...which I'm sure is when it'll be released. You can listen to Kayden Gordon's interview by clicking HERE. 

I was taking photos of myself with Ray's box set...as most of you could have imagined if you're familiar with this blog page. One of the photos is of me displaying the Nouveau Retro CD from the box set...in one photo I'm with a beard and in the second photo I'm clean shaven. Now, I didn't shave off my facial hair just for the photo. What had happened is I shaved my face...which is something I often do...and while I was sitting at the computer I was looking at the earlier photo I had took of me with the facial hair. I decided to take another photo clean shaven. Then I decided to tie it in with Nouveau Retro and how, on the CD cover, Ray appears as Father Time with the long white beard looking over at the baby photo of Ray (who obviously at that age has no facial hair). So, here's the two panel collage of me with facial hair and one clean shaven...with Nouveau Retro as the focus...

My web-camera is good on some days and not so good on some days. Those images come from a day when the web-camera wasn't as clear as it could have been. I did some editing of them to make them look half-way presentable. The official image of the CD looks way better than how they appear on my web-camera images...

The image over there on the right is what the CD actually looks like...which I'm sure most of you are familiar with by now. I got my Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set a couple of days ago and if you ordered your copy from Ray's webstore around the same time as I did (last Friday) then you should have your box set on the way or it's already arrived. Nouveau Retro, one of the 4 compact discs in the box set, contains 12 songs that on the surface come across as they were chosen at random. The first 3 compact discs follow a distinctive theme or concept. Nouveau Retro also follows a concept...a creative concept of reviving/refreshing songs that have aged. Nouveau is a word that means 'new' while Retro is a word that means 'old', or, of the past. So, the combination of both words in addition to the subtitle state exactly what this particular album is all about. What's Old is New Again...or Nouveau Retro...presents 12 songs from the past that Ray brings back with modern day sound. This is the album that features his renditions of "Mountain of Love", my favorite of the entire album, and it also contains "Lay Me Down (Roll Me Out to Sea)", "Blue Moon", "Cry Me a River", and "April in Paris". You can get the Nouveau Retro digital album on Amazon by clicking HERE. 

Ray Stevens: "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century" musician credits...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens...and to those that have come across this blog site for the first time. I always get traffic on this fan created blog page but over the last couple of days it's been higher than typical and I'm guessing it has to do with Ray's latest release on compact disc: Iconic Songs of the 20th Century and so my guess is some people are coming here for information about it, too, in addition to his official webpage and social media outlets. It's a 4-CD collection and it's basically his four digital albums from earlier in the year released on CD. In a promo video for the box set he mentions that you now have the choice of purchasing each of the releases in digital album format, just as before, or you can order the music in CD format and it'll be shipped out to you. 

One of the things I did when the box set arrived was look for the technical information. When reading the musician credits I discovered that the bulk of the instrumentation was supplied by the one and only Ray Stevens!! On these various projects he's credited with playing all kinds of instruments beyond the piano/keyboard. I'll be listing the musicians for each of the CD's and what instrument they played. The album with the least number of musicians is Slow Dance followed closely by Nouveau Retro and then Great Country Ballads while the album with the most musicians, by far, is Melancholy Fescue. Now, given that he's a piano wizard, and he stays on top of the music innovations, and is astute in music theory and all of the intricate details of composing music it's no surprise that he's using a lot of synthesizer technology to replicate the sounds of most of those instruments that he ordinarily wouldn't be credited on his albums as playing. In Nouveau Retro some of the sounds are credited to Ray are 'synthesizer French Horn' or 'synthesizer Trombone'. To us it comes off highly complicated but to Ray Stevens one has to assume that converting a sheet of music from piano to guitar, for example, and vice versa, is a piece of cake to him. Ray's detailed musical knowledge doesn't get near as much attention as it should...in my opinion.   

Slow Dance musicians:

Ray Stevens: Piano, Keyboard, Synthesizers, Harp, Drums, Celeste.

Jerry Kimbrough: Guitars (acoustic or electric).

Denis Solee: Saxophone.

Larry Hall: String Arranger for "Answer Me, My Love".

Bergen White: String Arranger.

Nouveau Retro musicians:

Ray Stevens: Piano, Keyboards, Tympani, Harp, Bass, Celeste, Vibraphone.

Ray Stevens: String Arranger- Tracks 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 12.

Jerry Kimbrough: Guitars.

Denis Solee: Saxophone.

Glen Duncan: Fiddle- "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows / Over the Rainbow".

Mike Johnson: Steel Guitar- "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows / Over the Rainbow".

Bergen White: String Arranger- Tracks 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11.

Great Country Ballads musicians:

Ray Stevens: Piano, Keyboard, Drums, Bass, Harp, Trombone, Celeste. 

Ray Stevens: String Arranger- "Please Help Me, I'm Falling".

Jerry Kimbrough: Guitars.

Denis Solee: Saxophone.

Glen Duncan: Fiddle- "Making Believe" and "Sweet Dreams".

Rob Ickes: Resophonic Guitar- a/k/a The Dobro "Making Believe".

Jon Hamrick: Keyboard- "Please Help Me, I'm Falling".

Bergen White: String Arranger- Tracks 2 through 12.

Melancholy Fescue musicians:

Ray Stevens: Piano, Keyboard, Conga Drums, Tympani, Harp, Flute, Bass

Ray Stevens: String Arranger- Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12.

Jerry Kimbrough: Guitars; (Mandolin on Tracks 2, 4, 6, and 9).

Denis Solee: Saxophone.

Glen Duncan: Fiddle- Tracks 5, 8, 9, 11, and 12; (Mandolin on Tracks 8 and 12).

Shad Cobb: Fiddle- Tracks 2, 6, and 10.

Robby Turner: Steel Guitar- Tracks 1, 4, 5, 9, and 11.

Rob Ickes: Resophonic Guitar a/k/a The Dobro- Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10.

Brian Sterling: Banjo- "People".

Ned Luberecki: Banjo- Tracks 1 through 8, Tracks 10, 11, and 12.

Bergen White: String Arranger- Tracks 2, 5, and 9.

Ray Stevens: My Review of "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century"...

I've been a fan of Ray Stevens for more than 30+ years. I make no apologies for my excessive fandom and so when he released four digital albums earlier this year you can bet I was right in line to make my purchase. Those 4 digital albums have now become available in CD format: Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, and Nouveau Retro. You can check out my reviews of each of those titles here on my blog page by looking in the archive posts off to the right or you can search for the digital albums over on Amazon and read my reviews there. This review is about the overall box set and so I'm not going to re-review the four albums. As mentioned I think this 4-CD box set is lovely without it being aggressively splashy. There's the cover art on the front of the box and then on the back the songs from each CD are listed. Each disc is in it's separate jewel case...and each contains a fold-out cover. The fold-out features the technical information such as musician credits, songwriter and publisher credits, and on the back of each fold-out are personal notes/commentary from Ray. I really, really love the inclusion of those musician credits specifically because it lets us know who played on which song. The studio band usually plays on every recording...but when you look at the musician credits on each of these CD's you'll notice that Ray is credited with a lot of additional instruments!! He's often credited as the piano/keyboard player and synthesizer player on his albums...but for these particular albums he's also credited with playing drums, French horn, trombones, harp, bass, and celeste...and those are just the additional instruments credited to Ray on Great Country Ballads!! 

The additional credits for Ray beyond piano/keyboard/synthesizer continue on the other three CD's as well. Denis Solee is the saxophone player and Jerry Kimbrough is the acoustic guitarist on all 12 of the songs on that particular CD. The musicians are mostly the same on 9 of the 12 tracks. "Making Believe" and "Sweet Dreams" include a couple of additional musicians: Glen Duncan playing fiddle and Rob Ickes playing the resophonic guitar. Jerry Kimbrough, in addition to acoustic guitar, is also the one playing the mandolin and electric guitar...so when you hear either of those two instruments on any of the recordings throughout the 4-CD box set it's him. "Please Help Me I'm Falling" features Jon Hamrick credited as an additional keyboard player while Ray, in addition to his musician credits on the song, is also credited as the string arranger. Bergen White did the bulk of the string arrangements. The harmony vocalists, in addition to Ray, are Lisa Silver, Kyra Small, and Cindy Walker.  

As far as the notes are concerned...those of you that frequent Ray's social media will probably be familiar with some of the commentary...he's posted some of it on his social media pages...but there's a lot more commentary from him that hadn't been posted online and for now the only way to read the additional notes/comments is to purchase the 4-CD box set. Here I am glancing over the fold-out cover of Great Country Ballads...

After reading the review and learning of all of the people who helped put the box set together that's why I purchase CD's, if available, because ordinarily they'll include musician, songwriter, and publisher credits and for me knowing those aspects of an album is just as important as listening to the songs. The box set is released on Curb Records in collaboration with Ray's CabaRay Records imprint. The two imprints are shown side by side on the back of the box set and on the bottom side of the box set. On the side of the jewel case where the album title and catalog number are located it has Curb Records off on the right side of the case. 

I purchased my copy of Iconic Songs of the 20th Century on the Ray Stevens webstore and you should, too. I'm going to be copying/pasting most of this review over on Amazon. Although that online store is "out of stock" I'm still going to submit a review. If Amazon is ever in stock with Iconic Songs of the 20th Century my review will already be there. Here's the link to the 4-CD collection over on Ray's WEBSTORE. Don't forget...you can also purchase the 4-CD box set at the Curb Records store by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens: Flurry of Online Activity Today...

Hello all!! I'm sure all of you have seen the various video uploads from Ray Stevens today. If you hadn't seen them well I'll be providing links to most of them in this blog entry and embedding one of the video uploads. A couple of the video uploads are advertisements for the CabaRay Piano Bar which has been open to the public on Friday and Saturday nights since early this month. Earlier this month or it may have been late last month I wrote a blog entry about the Piano Bar re-opening but what you'll be seeing are the official video advertisements that were uploaded today. You'll also see a couple of additional promo video's for the CabaRay Showroom re-opening on September 4th and a second video promo for the digital stores where you can find Ray's music. In total Ray uploaded 6 videos to YouTube today and below you'll find links to 5 of the 6 with a sixth video embedded. I don't want to have 6 video uploads embedded on top of each other which is why 5 of them will be in links. There's definitely been a flurry of online activity...as the title of this blog entry states.

PIANO BAR PROMO-1

PIANO BAR PROMO-2

PIANO BAR PROMO-3

CABARAY PROMO-2

CABARAY PROMO-3

I didn't include the first CabaRay promo video in the above list because I've already embedded it in a previous blog entry. Here's the 6th video upload of today from Ray Stevens...a second advertisement for the various online music stores where his music is available. The first advertisement got some reaction a month ago but now that his 4-CD box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, is available it doesn't hurt to remind potential consumers that even Ray's music is available online for purchase beyond it being available at his official website. 

Ray Stevens: "Gas" at 10K...

Hello again! Fresh off of my previous blog entry advertising Ray's 4-CD box set I now turn my attention to his novelty single, "Gas", which will be on a comedy album this fall titled Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore. I don't know what all will be on this comedy album...strangely enough I haven't asked around for any kind of hints...but based on the title I'm going to make the assumption that the content will largely focus on comedy songs with subject matter that is suppose to be taken seriously. His video hit from last year, "The Quarantine Song", fits this description...on the surface the pandemic isn't a laughing matter...but yet Ray's song is very funny and upbeat as it deals with a subject matter that's largely been shielded from humor. So, based on my way of thinking, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore will be something of an 'I dare you not to laugh at this...' type of release. It's scheduled to be released in October. I'd not be surprised if Curb Records doesn't push it's release up if demand is high...with "Gas" reaching more than 10,000 YouTube audio plays I'd say it's inevitable...but we'll see. Have a listen, though, to "Gas"...now boasting 10,002 plays...a pickup of 102 plays over the course of the last couple of days.

Ray Stevens: "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century" 4-CD collection...

Hello once again Ray Stevens fans!! It's been a few days since the July 23rd release of the 4-CD Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. If we're to be specific it's only the second business day but since most people purchase their music online it's 24/7 business. The 4-CD collection isn't in stock on Amazon. I've not been able to find out the reason why. It was shown to be available for pre-order in the hours before it was released but then as soon as release day arrived it changed from being available for pre-order to being temporarily out of stock...and it's remained out of stock ever since. It's a shame that it isn't available on the world's largest online store but never mind...it's readily available on Ray's official website plus it's available at the Curb Records store. The overall project's been a proven success just by judging at the amount of plays the audio tracks have gotten on YouTube since the release of Great Country Ballads back in February of this year. The audio tracks that were heavily promoted on Ray's social media, naturally, have benefitted the most and have pulled the largest YouTube plays. What shouldn't get overlooked, though, are the other audio tracks from these four albums that people have found on their own on YouTube. The audio tracks from each of the four releases consistently rack up plays. When you purchase the box set you're going to hear Ray perform songs that are arranged pop, country, bluegrass, and easy-listening/soft rock. You will also hear him tackle what were commonly called torch songs like "Cry Me a River", "April in Paris", and "Sweet Dreams".

It's lovely isn't it? The 4 compact discs come with their individual cover art, jewel case, and I'm assuming songwriter, musician, and publisher credits. Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, and Nouveau Retro make up the 4-CD release. The screen cap is from the promo video that Ray uploaded this past Friday. As of this writing the promo video's gotten a little over 1,000 unique views on YouTube and a little over 5,000 views on Facebook. Where can your purchase this 4-CD set?? I've provided two links...one is to Ray's official website and another is to the Curb Records store. If you visit the Curb Records store you'll see all of the songs listed from each compact disc. There's a universal purchase link on the Curb website. Stream/Purchase/Download. This link appears below any music product in the Curb Records store whether it's a digital album or a compact disc. You, as a Ray Stevens fan, make the choice between whether you want to purchase Iconic Songs of the 20th Century from Ray's webstore or if you want to purchase it from the Curb Records store. If you're reading this and you live in Tennessee chances are you might come across this 4-CD box set in your local Walmart store so if you haven't done so already take a look and see if it's there. In the video promo Ray mentions that it'll be in select retail stores...but didn't specify...so I'm assuming he's referring to regional/local shopping stores in the Nashville area. The collection contains 48 songs.  

RAY'S STORE   

CURB RECORDS STORE

Ray Stevens audio: "Have a Little Talk With Myself"...

One of the many fabulous albums from Ray Stevens over the years is 1969's Have a Little Talk With Myself. The album was an artistic showcase for Ray's music arranging skills. The album's co-producer, Jim Malloy, praised Ray on the back of album. Jim remarked that Ray not only arranged the music on every song but also sang all the background harmonies, played piano and organ, and played the trumpet solo in the recording of "Spinning Wheel". Jim Malloy's son, David, would become a hugely popular record producer and co-writer of many hit songs for Eddie Rabbitt. Ray Stevens and Jim Malloy produced this 1969 album and the two of them appear in a photo on the back of the album. Jim was also the co-engineer along with Tommy Strong. The album's first single release happened to be "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" from a brand new songwriter named Kris Kristofferson. Ray had a minor hit with the song...reaching the Pop charts both here in America and in Canada. Ray also crossed over and reached the Country chart with this song. It marked Ray's first appearance on the country chart. Ray recorded the album in the Monument Records studio. He had been signed to Monument Records since 1963...first as a session musician, music arranger, and jack-of-all-trades in the recording studio...and this relationship evolved into recordings beginning late in 1965. He was under contract with Mercury Records as a recording artist (since 1961) while simultaneously (beginning in 1963) working behind the scenes at Monument Records as a session musician and music arranger. Once his recording contract for Mercury ended he was then allowed to begin recording for Monument Records. 

Have a Little Talk With Myself was Ray's third and final studio album for Monument Records.  Monument released the title track as the second single release from the album. "Have a Little Talk With Myself" became the second single of his career to appear on the Country chart and it happened in the final month of 1969...more specifically the final week of 1969. The single didn't appear on the Pop Hot 100 but it did make an appearance on Bubbling Under the Hot 100...a chart extension of the main Hot 100 which kept track of single releases that hadn't sold enough to break into the main Hot 100 but were big regional sellers. The third single release arrived early in 1970, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight", from the pen of Bob Dylan. This song has also been uploaded onto Ray's YouTube channel. One of the interesting aspects of the recording is Ray's over-dubbed vocals. He verbally mimics a harmonica in various harmonies and has the effect playing alongside actual instruments. The album features the largest collection of studio musicians of any Ray Stevens album before or since. The "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" single never appeared on the Hot 100 or the Country chart...selling regionally enabling it to make an appearance on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 list. Ironically, it charted higher on the Bubbling Under chart than "Have a Little Talk With Myself" did. Now then...here's the audio track of 1969's "Have a Little Talk With Myself"...

Ray Stevens: 2021 Online Publicity Collection...as of Now...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! This is going to be more of a statistics-heavy blog entry where I write about calendar dates, days of the week, and the technical side of a recording career. I know I can get too technical in most of my blog entries but this one will be really, really technical and filled with links. I've decided to provide links to several articles that publicized the music Ray Stevens released this year. Ray's management is Absolute Publicity. They've provided publicity for Ray for a number of years...and in 2021, as in years past, they did their job and sent out notices to the country music media, the country media, and the media in general about Ray's current releases. In the form of links I'll be pasting their publicity releases of the four digital albums Ray released this year. 

The first link from February 18th promotes the novel concept of releasing four digital albums per month. You can read that article by clicking HERE. On March 9th a publicity notice surrounding the availability of Great Country Ballads can be seen HERE. On April 7th a publicity notice surrounding the availability of Melancholy Fescue can be seen HERE. On April 23rd a publicity notice surrounding the release of Slow Dance can be seen HERE. On June 14th a publicity notice surrounding the release of Nouveau Retro can be seen HERE. Do you notice some of the patterns surrounding the publicity releases? Since Ray released his digital albums all on a Friday and late in the month the publicity notice was sent out early the following month...except for Slow Dance which had a notice sent out on release day and Nouveau Retro which didn't get a publicity notice until 3 weeks after it's May 21st release date...a notice shown up online on June 14th. The reason for that can possibly be explained by the rush release of a novelty song from Ray called "Gas" on June 4th. 

There wasn't any mention of the "Gas" release on the Absolute Publicity webpage during the month of June and there hasn't been any mention of it on their webpage during the month of July, either. As of this writing there also isn't any mention of Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, released just yesterday, but I'm sure there will be publicity for the 4-CD box set in the days to come. Elsewhere...looking at other online publicity...on February 18th the Music Row website published an article HERE. On March 9th Broadway World published a story about Great Country Ballads and included reference to another website, The Boot, having premiered an audio track from the digital album, "Your Cheatin' Heart". You can read the Broadway World article HERE. On April 16th a podcast of The Music Universe appeared online. It's noted as Episode 82 with special guest Ray Stevens. On this podcast Ray's interviewed about his career and ultimately the four digital albums that, at the time, were still in the process of being released. When the interview took place the first two digital albums were online. Also, when you read the early interviews and publicity notices, you'll see several statements stating that the 4-CD box set was to be released on June 18th...but, as we know, it was pushed back to July 23rd. The podcast/interview can be heard HERE. 

Online site, Wide Open Country, premiered Ray's rendition of "Goin' Out of My Head" in their story published March 25th which you can read HERE. Online site, The Boot, premiered Ray's rendition of "Your Cheatin' Heart" in their story published February 25th and you can read it HERE. On May 25th The Tennessean online newspaper published a story about Ray that they titled "'I Do Everything for Fun: Ray Stevens shares stories from his new covers collection". You can read it HERE. The most recent online publicity was published on June 28th...a very brief question and answer on America's 1st Freedom webpage. You can read the questions that were asked by clicking HERE. I'm not going to be doing a sequel or a part-two...my inspiration for composing this kind of blog entry was to collect the various publicity releases and articles that have appeared online about Ray Stevens since the start of the new year.  

Ray Stevens: "Gas" at 9.9K...

Here I am several hours removed from my previous blog entry and now I'm writing this blog entry focusing on the Ray Stevens novelty song, "Gas". A flurry of Ray Stevens activity already...and let's see what takes place in the coming week in the world of Ray Stevens! "Gas" was released as a novelty single on June 4th on all of the social media. I purchased my copy of the song on Amazon. If you're familiar with this blog then you'll know I often keep track of Ray's audio play totals on YouTube. I like to compare it to radio airplays. "Gas", at the moment, has 9,900 unique YouTube plays!! On July 21st I wrote a blog entry spotlighting "Gas" at 9.8K (9,817). I highlighted the fact that between July 17th and July 21st "Gas" had accumulated 96 unique YouTube plays...increasing the play total from 9,721 to 9,817. A similar event has occurred today...in the last three days, July 21st to July 24th, "Gas" has gained 83 unique YouTube plays to bring it to it's current play total of 9,900! I have a feeling that it won't be too long before I'm writing a blog entry highlighting "Gas" reaching a milestone of 10,000 audio plays!! 

"Gas" is going to be on Ray's comedy album, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore, scheduled to be released in October. Share the song with all of your friends if you haven't already done so.

    

Ray Stevens: I ordered my copy of "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century"...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! Well, we're here the day after the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century 4-CD box set was released. I was looking on the Curb Records webpage yesterday and while they have a product page for the box set and the link to stream/purchase/download the collection I was surprised to see that they don't have the song titles listed for three of the four compact discs. As of this writing if you visit the Curb Records store at their webpage and search for Ray Stevens you'll see the products that they're selling...and the most recent product will be the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. If you click for more details the product page opens and you'll see the song titles listed for the first compact disc in the 4-CD box set, Great Country Ballads, but the other three compact discs in the collection don't have their song titles listed on the product page. I have no idea if they're even aware of the error on their product page or not. So, I sent a message to them but given it's a record company which probably gets thousands of messages daily I'll be surprised if my message gets responded to. I'll periodically check the Curb Records site and see if they've corrected the box set's product page. In the meantime...

As most of you that stop by here know I've placed my order for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century already. I ordered it on Ray's webstore early yesterday morning. You can order the 4-CD box set when you click HERE.

Traditionally, record companies release new music on a Tuesday but with Ray they released his four digital albums and now this 4-CD box set on a day at the end of the week...the albums released on Ray this year have all been on a Friday: Great Country Ballads hit online stores on 2/26/21. Melancholy Fescue hit online stores on 3/24/21. Slow Dance hit online stores on 4/23/21. Nouveau Retro hit online stores on 5/21/21 and Iconic Songs of the 20th Century was released online on 7/23/21. In between Nouveau Retro and Iconic Songs of the 20th Century there was the release of the online novelty single, "Gas", on 6/4/21 and you guessed it...June 4th happened to be a Friday! I don't know if the Friday release days is a decision by Curb Records or by Ray. The Friday release days are something I found interesting. 

In the meantime, how do you like that particular image of the 4-CD box set?? It's one of the images appearing in Ray's webstore on the product page for the box set. It shows how the box set will look if it's sitting upright...with the 4 compact discs slid inside. There are a couple of other images of the box set at Ray's webstore including what the actual discs look like. Something I noticed is Ray is credited on each of the discs as the record producer but it doesn't feature the familiar credit of Produced and Arranged by Ray Stevens. It's been common knowledge among us Ray Stevens fans that Ray is his own music arranger so whenever I don't see the familiar Produced and Arranged by Ray Stevens credit I take notice. I haven't seen the back of the box set and since I don't have the box set with me, yet, I haven't been able to analyze it. I'm pretty confident that Ray, even with an omitted music arranger credit on the discs, that he was indeed the music arranger on all 48 songs on the 4-CD box set. I can't wait to get Iconic Songs of the 20th Century in the mail!!! 

Ray Stevens: "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century" promo video...

Hello all once more!! A number of hours have passed since my previous blog entry celebrating release day for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century by Ray Stevens. A promo video for the box set was uploaded onto YouTube earlier today while I was away from the computer. It's a cute promo and you'll like it once you see it. 

In my previous blog I provided two links...one was for the official webstore at Ray's webpage and another was a link to Amazon. I'm in no way, shape, or form a conspiracy theorist but something's odd about a product, minutes after it's suppose to become available for purchase, being simultaneously unavailable on the world's largest online store. A few minutes past Midnight as the day went from July 22nd to July 23rd the product page on Amazon for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century went from being available for Pre-order to it becoming Temporarily Out of Stock. It seems to be a pattern...almost anything that Ray releases whether it be a digital album or a CD...it typically has delayed availability on Amazon. I have no idea if it's intentional to effect an album's impact data, which is a cynical point of view, or if online stores truly are out of stock only minutes after going on sale. 

Getting that off my chest let's return back to the fun of having a 4-CD box set from Ray Stevens being released today! I placed my order for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century earlier today on Ray's webstore and I'll be including a direct link to the store later in the blog entry...even though there will be a link advertised in the video promo as well. 

When my copy of Iconic Songs of the 20th Century arrives in the mail and I get in front of my web-camera I'll more than likely rival the grin that Ray Stevens is giving us in the screen cap. I'll be just as excited. In that video promo you'll see the individual discs as well as the jewel cases for each disc. Since I don't have the box set, yet, I don't know if there will be any musician and songwriter credits listed. Those credits should be listed...it's commonplace...but there actually have been CD's in the past that don't provide musician credits or publisher credits, etc. and those are things I like to be informed about. I like to know the names of all the personnel involved in the making of all of the albums I purchase. Basically, though, those kinds of things appear within a CD's packaging...usually within a fold-out cover or simply on the back of the CD's picture sleeve...so I'm pretty sure once I get the 4-CD box set that kind of information will be available. 

To purchase Iconic Songs of the 20th Century click HERE. It'll take you to Ray's online store at his official website. I've ordered many things from Ray's online store over the years. The last time I purchased something from his store was last year...the CD re-release and remastering of the 1990 Boots Randolph instrumental album that Ray produced. The re-release was in recognition of the album's 30th anniversary. I don't know how long it'll take for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century to arrive in the mail...hopefully it won't take weeks and weeks. This being a Friday, and based on the time of day I ordered it from their webstore, I think it may have gotten shipped at some point today or perhaps some point tomorrow morning...or held off until Monday. I'd be surprised if it isn't in my mailbox by next Friday...hopefully sooner than that.      

Ray Stevens: It's release day for "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century"...

Well, release day for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century has finally happened!!! The box set from Ray Stevens contains CD copies of his previously released digital albums. I checked Amazon and I looked at the webstore over on Ray's website and it's also available for order there, too. The Amazon product page for the box set, as of this writing, shows that it's available as a Pre-order. I'm assuming that Amazon's official time zone is Pacific...which means as of this writing it's a little past 10pm out West. Here where I am it's nearly 1am. I mention this each time Ray has released new projects. Amazon waits until it's release day in their time zone. As mentioned the box set is also available on Ray's webstore. If you visit the webstore you'll see photos of all four of the discs. Also, on Ray's webpage, you'll see a sideview of the box set. I was assuming the box set would have to be opened up to reveal the discs but the box design they went with features the discs stacked in jewel cases on top of one another and to remove a particular CD from the box set you slide the jewel case from the right hand side of the box. The thing that I'm thrilled with is the fact that the discs are inside individual jewel cases with cover art. I was thinking that the discs would just be sitting in paper sleeves on top of one another in a box but based on the image shown on Ray's webstore each disc has it's own jewel case and cover art. I bring that up because I had originally thought the images shown for each digital album were only for online promotional purposes but, as said, I'm thrilled to see that the discs will be in cases with cover art. I'm assuming musician credits will also be available for each release. As you see on the box set's cover art it's subtitled The Soundtrack of Our Lives. 

I'll be including links to both Amazon and to the official Ray Stevens webstore near the closing of this blog entry. 

This won't be my only blog entry today...as the Central and Eastern time zones begin their day 7 or 8 hours from now I look for some official publicity from Ray's social media to hit the internet surrounding the release of this box set. Once Ray starts to publicize the box set, as I'm thinking he will, I'll be on the lookout for any news articles, write-ups, video promos, or whatever it might be to pop up online. Once I come across any and all publicity for this release I'll blog about it. I won't be writing a traditional review of the box set because I have the music already through my purchases of the four digital albums and I've written individual reviews of each digital album. I'll be purchasing the box set because I want the music on CD and I'm buying it for the cover art and the musician credits and for any potential personal comments from Ray that might be found if there's a fold-out cover. Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, on Amazon, can be purchased by clicking HERE. If you prefer to purchase it directly from Ray's webstore you can do so HERE. The box set is also being sold on the Curb Records online store. The product page for the box set at the Curb Records website only shows the track list for Great Country Ballads rather than having the whole 48 song track list of the box set visible. The four CD's are: Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, and Nouveau Retro.  

I'll be looking at various Amazon New Releases and Best Seller Top-100 lists to see if the box set makes an appearance at some point and yes, if it happens, I'll blog about it. I'd also like to say that the box set is not as expensive as I thought it might be. The price, before taxes, is $24.98 on Amazon and three cents cheaper on Ray's website, $24.95. This is an incredible value for four compact discs with 12 songs each...at that price it means that each disc would sell for a little less than $6.00 each, before taxes, if they were being sold separately. The banner below is just a promotional banner...it isn't a link. The links to Amazon and to Ray's webstore I've previously posted above. When you click the promo banner you'll not be taken to any online store. I stress this because for some of Ray's albums I'd always post a promo picture banner, much in the design like what you see below, and I got feedback that it was being mistaken for a link to an online store. The promo banner for Iconic Songs of the 20th Century seen below is just a photo...it isn't a link. 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Promo Video...

Hello there...it's me once more!! When I finished an earlier blog entry today about concert tickets being available at the CabaRay little did I know that while I was writing the blog entry Ray Stevens had uploaded a promo video about the very thing! It was eerie...I had finished my blog entry and went over to the social media to paste a link and I saw the video promo about the CabaRay re-opening this coming September. Instead of writing a blog entry about the CabaRay promo video so soon after posting about concert tickets to the showroom I decided to write an entry about Ray's novelty song, "Gas". In the meantime some time has passed between the upload of the promo video and the writing of this blog entry...and so I'm going to embed the promo video. It is a minute in length and listen for what I'm calling a possible advertising catchphrase. You'll know it when you hear it, I hope. Well, there's two possible catchphrases...in case you don't pick the possible catchphrases out I'll mention them in a future blog entry anyway. Here's the promo video of the CabaRay re-opening September 4, 2021...

Ray Stevens: "Gas" at 9.8K...

Hello once again!! I decided to write a blog entry about the Ray Stevens novelty song, "Gas". I've been keeping track of it's play totals on YouTube since it was released last month. In my previous update on "Gas" I reported that the audio track had gotten 9,721 plays. I checked the statistics just a few minutes ago and it's in the 9.8 range. The specific YouTube play total, as of this writing, is now 9,817 plays. I'm making a prediction that this comedy song will reach 10,000 or more YouTube plays either by month's end or in the first couple of weeks in August. In between July 17th and today, if you do the math, "Gas" racked up 96 total plays in that 4 day span to bring it to it's current unique play total of 9,817.

The "Gas" song will be part of an upcoming Ray Stevens comedy album set to be released in October. The title of that album is Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore. I don't know if that album title is also a name of one of the songs on the collection or if it's just an album title reflecting Ray's ideas for the album overall. A title like that has me wondering if most of the songs will be ironic in nature...we know "Gas" is going to be on there and that's certainly not an ironic song...so it has me also wondering if it'll be a comedy album centered around subject matter that society says if off-limits to comedy? We have plenty of time to wonder what the upcoming comedy album will be about. I can't wait to see the cover art...even though I'm sure it'll be a digital album rather than CD.  

Ray Stevens: CabaRay concert tickets Now Available...

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans!! This blog entry is part of my recurring series promoting the re-opening of the CabaRay showroom. Technically the facility is re-opened...a couple of weeks ago on July 9th the Piano Bar re-opened and I wrote a blog entry about this at the time. Each Friday and Saturday the Piano Bar inside the CabaRay will be open for several hours...a pianist will be there...the one who's headlined the Piano Bar since the CabaRay opened in January 2018, John Jonethis. 

Ray Stevens returns to the CabaRay on September 4th and you can read about it and purchase concert tickets when you click HERE. The CabaRay is the culmination of a decades-long dream of Ray's. He famously headlined his own theater in Branson, Missouri for five seasons (1991, 1992, 1993, 2005, and 2006) and when you read his 2014 memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, you'll discover the reason why he decided to have a theater built in Branson rather than in Nashville. Ray never let go of the dream of having a music venue in or around the city of Nashville and ultimately construction on the CabaRay began in the fall of 2016 after a lengthy wait for a building permit approval. Once the permit was granted construction began but naturally, due to the on-coming winter weather, there was a lot of downtime. The showroom had an original grand opening scheduled for the mid-summer of 2017 but because of the waiting period for the building permit combined with the downtime associated with the weather a grand opening was pushed to a later date...finally opening to the public in the latter half of January 2018. In his memoir, which I made reference to earlier, Ray remarked that people within the music industry would look at him as if he'd lost his mind whenever he'd bring up the possibility of building a concert venue in Nashville. The lack of interest from Nashville's business community is what caused him to go to Branson and have a theater built down there in 1991...construction of that theater began at some point in 1990. If you don't have Ray's memoir you can order it on Ray's website store. 

The Branson theater is no longer in operation. Some people on social media continually ask if Ray's performing in Branson still or you'll get comments asking if he'll ever return to Branson...when questions like that are asked it shows they're completely unaware that Ray's had a concert showroom on the outskirts of Nashville since 2018 and so that's where he performs his concerts. Anyway, after Ray sold the Branson theater to the RFD-TV network in 2006 or 2007 they utilized the theater for nearly 10 years, I think, but ultimately it closed down. The CabaRay is one of those places you'll need to put on your itinerary when you visit Nashville. Tourists for many decades have always visited the Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium, and the other sights associated with country music...and the CabaRay should also be on that list of places to visit when you're in the Nashville area. 

Ray Stevens: 4-CD "Iconic Songs of the 20th Century" on the way...

Like a kid in a candy store I'm grinning from ear to ear as I write this opening sentence! The cover art for the upcoming Ray Stevens box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century: The Soundtrack of Our Lives, has officially been uploaded onto Ray's social media. I had received a newsletter last month and it included an image of the box set and so I've known what it's looked like since early June. The newsletter is free...all you have to is visit Ray's webpage and sign up...and the newsletters will periodically show up in your e-mail. Anyway, in the newsletter they included a photo of the box set. I provided the full title of the box set earlier in the paragraph but I'll continue to shorten the box set's title to simply, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. I know what some out there may be thinking. Why get excited over a box set of songs that have already been released as digital downloads? Well, I'm excited because it's a physical piece of music. I purchase digital downloads for one reason. It's because most of the time newly released music is only being released digitally through online streaming and download services. I don't want to wait around until a possible CD copy of an album becomes available, if one ever does, so I go ahead and purchase music as digital downloads. I purchased all four of the digital downloads once they were released and I'll be purchasing the CD box set of those four albums this coming Friday, July 23rd. 

The four digital downloads each contain 12 songs. In one of my previous blog entries I wondered if the box set will contain just the 48 songs from all four digital releases or if Ray will include any 'bonus' recordings to round out the total number of songs to 50 or 52. We'll find out once we receive the box set. I don't think they'd insert any bonus content but it's hard to tell. There's not been much detail given about the actual box set...it may just be a simple box set with 4 CD's and nothing more, nothing less...or it could be a box set with bonus extras and a booklet accompanying the discs. I don't know if the box set will feature jewel cases for each of the discs with the cover art or if it'll be 4 discs by themselves with the name of the album and the song titles and credits. There's a lot we don't know about the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set when it comes to packaging and that kind of thing. When Ray issued a collection in 2005 called Box Set it didn't feature any kind of liner notes or musician credits. It was just three compact discs. The back of the release listed the song titles on each disc. Ray released that box set on his own Clyde Records label and it was later picked up and distributed by Curb Records. I'm keeping myself from expecting a lot of bells and whistles with Iconic Songs of the 20th Century...I don't think it'll have the same sort of detail and information as his 9-CD box set had back in 2012, Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. I could be wrong, of course. I look for more detailed information about the contents of Iconic Songs of the 20th Century to show up the closer we get to July 23rd. If you're wondering about the color scheme in the image of the soon to be released box set I want to point out that the first image is from the newsletter from June. The second image of the box set is from Ray's social media posted earlier today. I don't know why the image in the newsletter shown up way more shinier and brighter than the image Ray posted today. As soon as I order the box set and it arrives I'll be writing an overview. Why? Because I'm a Ray Stevens fan of course!

Ray Stevens and T.G. Sheppard audio track: "This One Burger King Town"...

It's the birthday of T.G. Sheppard today...and on the Ray Stevens social media he uploaded their 2012 recording, "This One Burger King Town". I've written about this duet...mostly back in 2012 when it was brand new...and when T.G. was a guest on Ray's CabaRay Nashville television show I wondered why the two didn't perform it. He appeared on Ray's show in Season One, episode 10...it was one of a few episodes to have two guests...the other guest happened to be Tanya Tucker. If you're very familiar with the music and career of Ray Stevens, as I am, you'll know that he hasn't recorded many duets. He appeared on various awards shows back in the '70s and '80s and often sang with others in group sing-a-longs and often sang duets with hosts of television shows (such as Tom T. Hall in the early '80s when Tom T. was hosting Pop! Goes the Country). Ray sang with Louise Mandrell on the early '80s television variety show that her sister, Barbara Mandrell, headlined. In his two appearances he sang with Louise on "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" and "With a Little Help From My Friends". Ray also sang various duets in the early and mid '80s on telecasts of the Music City News Songwriter Awards. I'm attempting to establish that Ray isn't a stranger to duets on television programs.

He sang "We've Got the Music in Music City" with Tammy Wynette and on another awards show sang "Close Enough to Perfect" with Sylvia. On a television appearance honoring Minnie Pearl he sang a song with several other artists, "Howdee, Cousin Minnie". A television special honoring Ralph Emery in 1990 included a song Ray performed with other recording artists, "Ralph, You Have Embarrassed Us All". He sang harmony and was the producer, music arranger, and publisher of the Chet Atkins recording, "Frog Kissing". The two performed it on television at least twice that I'm aware of...once in 1977 on a television show hosted by Marty Robbins and once more in 1980 on a Chet Atkins tribute special. There have been several studio recordings from Ray that include guest vocalists/duet partners but he's never gained the sort of reputation of having recorded a wide variety of duets. "This One Burger King Town" happens to be one of those rare duet recordings from Ray Stevens. The song deals with small town gossip and the sort of things that often happen in just about any rural town across the country. Ray and T.G. come across as observers relating things that take place and what people are talking about in the small town. The song ends appropriately enough with Ray and T.G. gossiping with one another during the fade out. Have a listen...

Ray Stevens sings "Walkin' the Dog" on CabaRay Nashville...

Oh it's a sweltering hot Monday afternoon here...the temperature is going to reach 85 degrees with a heat index somewhere in the 90s. If you have plans on walking your dog, obviously, wait until the sun goes down...and speaking of that...about an hour ago Ray Stevens uploaded a performance from his CabaRay Nashville television series. The song Ray performed in this clip happened to be "Walkin' the Dog". The audio track of "Walkin' the Dog", from his 2015 album, Here We Go Again!, is also available to listen to on YouTube. Curb Records took over distribution of Here We Go Again! in March of this year. Ray originally released the album on one of his own record labels, Player, a subsidiary of his Clyde Records imprint. The song is about a combative married couple...Ray, in the song, sings that he's had enough of the fighting and screaming with the wife and so he's going to go walk the dog and get some fresh air...and who knows, he thinks out loud, he may meet some other woman while he's out walking. The music is midtempo and Ray delivers the lyrics in a bouncy, sing-a-long feel...and this whimsical, light-hearted delivery will most likely have you forgetting that the song's story revolves around a couple nearing a marital breakup. The song's writer happens to be Jim Ferguson and you'll see him in the band...he's playing upright bass. 

Ray Stevens: "Nouveau Retro" overall audio plays...

It's me once again!! Several days ago I was posting a series of blog entries where I spotlighted the YouTube audio plays of the four Ray Stevens digital albums released earlier in the year. Nouveau Retro, the fourth digital album released back in May, was the least publicized of the four. Three of the twelve tracks on the digital have amassed more than 1,000 plays on YouTube. There are five tracks with plays higher than 500...leaving four tracks, "No, Not Much", "Talk to Me", "You Don't Know Me", and "I'm Always Chasin' Rainbows / Over the Rainbow" with YouTube play under 500. The play totals for those four tracks as of this writing are 359, 400, 463, and 381 respectively. One of the five audio tracks on Nouveau Retro that have more than 500 plays but less than 1,000 is "Young Love". I single that one out because it's in the neighborhood of reaching 1,000. It currently sits with 936 YouTube audio plays. "Earth Angel" is next in line with 878 YouTube plays. The audio play total of all 12 tracks, as of this writing, is 13,091. In other words the audio tracks on Nouveau Retro have 13,901 unique plays...repeated play from the same device (computer/laptop; phone) aren't counted. In closing I'll be embedding one of the songs from that digital album...his rendition of "Earth Angel". Remarkably, like the other songs Ray decided to cover on his series of digital albums this year, they sound different due to his re-arrangements but they still evoke the spirit of the originals. "Earth Angel", a song straight out of 1955 rhythm and blues music, retains the same flavor without it being a carbon copy. You'll have to listen to it to understand what I mean. The Nouveau Retro subtitle is What's Old is New Again.

Ray Stevens audio: "Cry Me a River"...

Among the songs that Ray Stevens recorded for his Nouveau Retro digital album was "Cry Me a River". This song dates back to the mid 1950s. The song's writer, Arthur Hamilton, wrote it in 1953 and it was categorized as a pop music torch song. I don't know if the phrase, torch song, was ever adopted in country music. In country I believe those kinds of songs are simply referred to as sad songs, heartbreak songs, or tearjerker ballads. "Cry Me a River" was originally popularized by Julie London. It's been noted that the song has had more than 400 renditions from all kinds of recording artists over the decades. Julie London recorded the song in 1955 for her debut album. What caused the single to explode in sales was it's appearance in the Frank Tashlin movie released in December 1956, The Girl Can't Help It. Julie appeared in that movie and sang "Cry Me a River". The single release peaked in the Top-10 on the Billboard Hot 100 early in 1956. There have been numerous recording artists reach the charts with renditions of "Cry Me a River". Ray Stevens has recorded a crisp and lovely rendition of the song. It's gotten 630 YouTube plays, to date...

Ray Stevens: "Gas" at 9.7K...

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans!! "Gas" has received 120 additional YouTube plays since my previous blog entry and it's moved from 9,601 on July 13th to 9,721 YouTube plays today. On July 12th the YouTube play count for "Gas" was sitting at 9,565 and so within the last 5 days the audio track has gotten 156 plays on YouTube to bring it to 9,721. 

There hasn't been any news surrounding the upcoming box set release on July 23rd...so it looks as if they're going to wait until a day or two before it's to be released to begin promoting it. It's going to be in CD format...four CD's in a box set called The Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. I was hoping that it would've shown up on Amazon as a Pre-Order and maybe it will the closer we get to July 23rd (this coming Friday). However, I don't know if the box set is going to be sold at all online stores. It might be only available on Ray's webstore and on the Curb Records store...we'll find out as we get into next week!! Remember, though, that the novelty single, "Gas", isn't going to be part of the box set...that collection of four CD's is going to feature Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, and Nouveau Retro. "Gas", by the way, is going to be part of an upcoming comedy album in October.

Ray Stevens: Slow Dance unique Play Totals...

Well, well, it's me once again!! In my previous blog entry I included the YouTube play totals, as of today, of Ray's Great Country Ballads digital album. I embedded Ray's recording of "Sweet Dreams" because it was the lowest played audio track in the thousand play range. It was sitting with 1,146 plays. "City Lights", at 1,198 plays, as you can see only needs two unique plays to reach the nice, rounded number 1,200. I made the remark in my last blog entry that Great Country Ballads is the digital album with the most audio tracks (8) at 1,000 plays or more. I'm going to make a slight correction...this accomplishment is tied with Slow Dance, the digital album released back in April. In fact, Slow Dance has a chance of moving ahead and claiming the most audio tracks with 1,000 plays or more considering "Answer Me", as of this writing, is sitting with 980 YouTube plays. If it reaches 1,000 plays then, of course, Slow Dance will take the lead. 

Ray's updated rendition of "Answer Me" from Slow Dance has gotten 980 YouTube plays. Interestingly the 1967 recording from Ray, known as "Answer Me, My Love", sits just under 800 YouTube plays...with 799. Now, isn't that some sort of neat or what?? 😮   

It's worth pointing out that Slow Dance has made the most appearances on the Amazon Best Selling New Releases Top-100 list. If you search New Releases + Digital Music + Country and look over the Top-100 you'll find Slow Dance there, as of this writing, at number 55. Although the digital album's been out since April and no longer a "new release" I'm not complaining...it's fun seeing Ray Stevens among the Top-100. The letter, K, refers to plays in the thousands. An audio track at 1.4 means that the play count is somewhere between 1,400 and 1,499.

1. Only You and You Alone  (9.3K audio plays)

2. Unforgettable  (3.6K audio plays)

3. Make Believe / It's Only Make Believe  (3.4K audio plays)

4. Slow Dancing  (2.7K audio plays)

5. The Great Pretender  (1.8K audio plays)

6. Dream  (1.6K audio plays)

7. I'll See You in My Dreams  (1.4K audio plays)

8. What a Wonderful World  (1.2K audio plays)

9. Answer Me  (980 audio plays)

10. Stardust  (927 audio plays)

11. This is All I Ask  (695 audio plays)

12. As Usual  (642 audio plays)

Ray Stevens: The Great Country Ballads unique Play Totals...

As mentioned in my previous blog entry I've decided to document the audio track play totals from YouTube of Ray's four digital albums released this year. I've previously written a blog entry for Nouveau Retro and Melancholy Fescue...now it's time for Great Country Ballads. 

This digital album was the first of four releases from Ray Stevens earlier this year. It also makes sense that the first digital album would have the most audio tracks with more than a thousand unique YouTube plays. Why? Because the audio tracks have been available on YouTube the longest and therefore those songs have had the opportunity for online discovery the longest. These YouTube audio plays are only a snapshot in time. The numbers will inevitably rise as time goes by...but I thought it something fun to do as a way to showcase the exposure Ray's songs from his digital albums are getting with no mainstream or widespread publicity to speak of. At the close of this blog entry I've embedded his rendition of "Sweet Dreams". He harmonizes with himself in the recording...overdubbing his own voice to create a harmony singer. A prominent instrument in the recording is the Dobro. It's unlike any version you've previously heard. 

As I've stated numerous times people find the songs of Ray Stevens on YouTube and they take a listen to them...an unofficial estimated guess on my part would be something like 60 percent of people discover Ray Stevens on their own while another 40 percent have probably been aware of him for decades. 

The letter, K, in the play totals refers to thousands of plays. 9.8, for example, means that the audio track has received anywhere between 9,800 and 9,899 unique plays on YouTube.

1. Your Cheatin' Heart  (9.8K audio plays)

2. Please Help Me, I'm Falling  (5.4K audio plays)

3. Crazy  (2.2K audio plays)

4. Room Full of Roses  (1.8K audio plays)

5. Bouquet of Roses  (1.3K audio plays)

6. City Lights  (1,198 audio plays)

7. I Can't Stop Loving You  (1,151 audio plays)

8. Sweet Dreams  (1,146 audio plays)

9. I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You  (719 audio plays)

10. Making Believe  (692 audio plays)

11. Crying Time  (676 audio plays)

12. Till I Get It Right  (600 audio plays)

Ray Stevens: "In the Still of the Night" medley nearing 1,000 YouTube plays...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I had some fun gathering the YouTube play totals of Ray's Nouveau Retro digital album in my previous blog entry that I've decided to do the same with Melancholy Fescue. Prior to listing the audio tracks from most unique YouTube plays to the least let me create awareness for the medley, "In the Still of the Night / In the Still of the Night", from Melancholy Fescue. This medley is comprised of two different songs with the same title. The first song in the medley originated in 1937 and was performed by Nelson Eddy. There have been dozens of recording artists over the decades that have recorded the 1937 song. The second song in the medley originated in 1956 and was performed by the Rhythm and Blues group, The Five Satins. The 1956 "In the Still of the Night" is probably the most remembered for several reasons: It being closely associated with a national music style, Doo-Wop, and so the song is always going to garner mention whenever historians write about Doo-Wop. Also, the 1956 song emerged after the creation of rock and roll and during a time when Rhythm and Blues was crossing over to the Hot 100 and therefore more attention is made for the 1956 song. Also, Ronnie Milsap had a big Country hit with "Lost in the Fifties Tonight" in 1985 and that song sampled lyrics from 1956's "In the Still of the Night"...which increased the exposure and ultimate familiarity of the 1956 song to new generations of music listeners. On Melancholy Fescue Ray Stevens, as mentioned, does a medley of both songs of the same name and it's great.

Now, then, here is the list of audio tracks from the digital album and their unique YouTube play totals as of this writing. The letter, K, represents numbers in the thousands. 4.3K is an audio track, for example, that's received anywhere from 4,300 to 4,399 unique YouTube plays. The list is ranked from most audio plays to the least:

1. Ruby / Ruby Baby  (4.3K audio plays)

2. Goin' Out of My Head  (4.2K audio plays)

3. Oh, Pretty Woman  (2.6K audio plays)

4. At This Moment  (1.1K audio plays)

5. In the Still of the Night / In the Still of the Night  (999 audio plays)

6. MacArthur Park  (866 audio plays)

7. Twilight Time  (611 audio plays)

8. Can't Take My Eyes Off You  (578 audio plays)

9. Spring is Here  (484 audio plays)

10. Sophisticated Lady  (402 audio plays)

11. People  (369 audio plays)

The digital album has 12 songs...the song that isn't on that list is his recording of "Unchained Melody". The reason why it isn't listed is because Ray had previously released the song, as a music video, in 2013. Curb Records didn't put the audio track of "Unchained Melody" onto YouTube due to there already being an official music video available. The recording heard on the 2013 music video is the same one found on Melancholy Fescue. The music video, to date, has gotten more than 919,000 unique views. Since "Unchained Melody" is available only a music video rather than as an audio track, too, I didn't include it in the above list. I'll be composing blog entries of the other two digital albums of Ray Stevens from this year and providing the YouTube play totals of each audio track.