Ray Stevens: Bobby Braddock CabaRay Nashville performance...

On this August 5th Ray Stevens shared a video clip of a brief interview he conducted with songwriter Bobby Braddock from an episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. It's the 81st birthday of Bobby Braddock. In addition to the interview Bobby performs a keyboard accompanied rendition of "He Stopped Loving Her Today". Bobby wrote the song with Curly Putman. The song had an eventful history long before George Jones began recording it in 1978. It had been previously recorded by Johnny Russell in the original draft of the song. It wasn't until it became associated with George Jones that the narration and the verse about the woman coming back was added on by the songwriters. George is credited as the one that suggested the song was incomplete and that it needed some sort of closure. George began recording it at some point in 1978 but it wasn't completed until early 1980. Some historians say if you listen carefully you'll be able to detect a slight change in George's vocals at the beginning of the song compared to how he sounds in the second half of the song...both during and following the tenor solo by Millie Kirkham. I've never attempted to analyze the vocalization with that kind of detail but I'm sure there's a slight vocal change given it took more than a year and a half to get it fully recorded. 

One of Ray's harmony singers, Sherri Copeland, was part of the George Jones road show for many years. Ray mentions 6 and a half years. In the video performance she'll do the tenor solo that Millie Kirkham famously did on the 1980 George Jones recording. 

One of the recurring themes in songs that Bobby has written is quirkiness and subdued humor. Ray recorded one of Bobby's songs, "I Wanna Talk About Me", which had originally been recorded by Toby Keith. In the video you'll hear Bobby call it country music's first rap song. Ray recorded it in 2012. Some other Bobby Braddock songs with subtle humor are "Her Name Is...", "We're Not The Jet Set", "Something To Brag About", and then there's all out humor with "You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith, Too" and "Nothing Ever Hurt Me Half as Bad as Losing You". Bobby and Harlan Howard wrote "I Don't Remember Loving You". A much recorded song that Bobby wrote but has never been a hit is "I'd Rather Have What We Had". The song appeared on numerous country music albums in the early to mid 1980s but to this day it's never been released as an A-side single. John Conlee recorded it in 1981 and it appeared as the B-side of his 1982 single, "Busted". I guess "I'd Rather Have What We Had" is one of those type of songs that's considered good as an album track but not commercial enough as a single release. Here's Ray Stevens talking with songwriter Bobby Braddock and the performance of "He Stopped Loving Her Today".