Ray Stevens audio track: "Sweet Dreams"...

Hello all...we're going back half a year to February 2021 when Ray Stevens released Great Country Ballads as a digital download on Curb Records. The digital album hit the internet on February 26th. If you search the archives here, for the month of February 2021, you'll find my review of the album. You can also find my review over on Amazon. Great Country Ballads was the first of four digital albums from Ray Stevens released this year. Those four digital download releases were released last month, in CD format, in a box set titled Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. I've uploaded audio tracks from Great Country Ballads before and this blog entry focuses on another audio track, "Sweet Dreams", that can now be found on both Great Country Ballads and Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. The song is a country music classic...but it also crossed over and reached the pop music audience. Here's a small summary of the song's history... 

The song's writer, Don Gibson, reached the Country singles chart twice with the song...and each time it finished in the Country Top-10. There's a 1956 Top-10 recording and then there's a 1960 Top-10 recording...but in between the two Top-10 renditions from Don Gibson there was a massively popular rendition in 1956 by Faron Young. In fact, the Top-10 recording by Faron Young, was the bigger hit...eclipsing the peak position of Don Gibson within the same year. Although the song had become an established country hit in the late 1950s a recording by Patsy Cline became a big hit in 1963. She died in an airplane crash in March 1963...and her recording hit the chart in April. It reached the Country Top-10 and crossed over to the pop chart...reaching the Top-50 nationally which enabled her recording to become the definitive one with audiences outside of country music. It would be her rendition, in years and decades to follow, that overshadowed the earlier recordings from Don Gibson as well as Faron Young.

Now, a little more than a decade later, Emmylou Harris would reach number one with her recording...and Reba McEntire had a Top-20 country hit with it. The song, as mentioned, became a country music classic and versions of the song were recorded by dozens of recording artists. On Great Country Ballads Ray Stevens gets his chance at "Sweet Dreams" and it's got a nice, easy-going delivery. Ray overdubs his own vocals in different harmonies to create background accompaniment for this recording. Glen Duncan is the fiddle player as well as the mandolin player on the recording. Ray plays keyboards and is credited with synthesizer generated instrumentation (such as trombones, harps, etc.) and he is also credited on this album as a drummer. I don't know if the drum is also created with a synthesizer or if Ray is actually playing a set of drums. Denis Solee plays the saxophone while Jerry Kimbrough plays guitar. In fact, every track on the album features instrumentation from Ray, Denis, and Jerry. You're going to love the Ray Stevens recording of "Sweet Dreams".