Ray Stevens: New Orleans Moon...15 Years Later...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! One of the albums that Ray Stevens released in the decade known as the Aughts (January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2009) was New Orleans Moon in 2007. The album come along in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina. Ray performed several charitable concerts in 2005 and 2006 when he was performing concerts at his Branson, Missouri theater. He had returned to the theater in 2005 following a 12 year absence. According to Ray's 2014 memoir, he had rented/leased out the theater to an organization that put on a production called Country Tonite. This show, beginning in 1994, occupied Ray's theater under the name 'Country Tonite Theater' until 2003. The executives that ran the Country Tonite show wanted to move on to other things and so Ray took back the theater and returned to performing concerts there on a regular basis in 2005 following a year and a half renovation, remodeling, and other cosmetic changes. It was during this time period in Ray's career that he had significantly scaled back on his recordings. In his memoir, when it reaches this era in his career, he reveals that for a few months he felt like retiring. He said that the thoughts of retirement were centered around the fact that he'd recently turned 65 and "isn't that the age you're suppose to retire?" he asked himself. He didn't retire, of course, he returned to Branson for two seasons (2005 and 2006) and in 2007 he emerged with this New Orleans Moon album. If you know your Ray Stevens history then you'll know that while Ray was not born in Louisiana he definitely comes from the Southern culture...born and raised in Georgia. He was born in Clarkdale, Georgia but the family eventually moved to Albany, Georgia and then he ventured into Atlanta, Georgia by the late 1950s. The album kicks off with a brief instrumental performance called "Prelude to Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (composed by Ray) which leads into "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans". 

The album's title track, "New Orleans Moon", comes from the pens of Ray Stevens and Chuck Redden. Chuck, being a resident/native of the area, become associated with Ray in 2005 when Ray and Buddy Kalb partially re-wrote Chuck's song, "The New Battle of New Orleans". When the song was released as a CD single by Curb Records in 2005 Chuck, Ray, and Buddy were the credited songwriters. That song was a topical song aimed at the political figures in office at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Ray and Buddy changed some of the lyrics and added additional lyrics so it would fit Ray's style. Ray does a brief vocal impression of Louis Armstrong in "New Orleans Moon"...it'll sneak up on you so anticipate it. The song closes with a Dixieland Jazz instrumental solo. The trumpet player on the album is George Tidwell. Ray plays the piano/keyboards and Bass. Songwriter Chuck Redden has since provided Ray with several other songs over the years. In case you're wondering...no, 2005's "The New Battle of New Orleans" isn't featured on 2007's New Orleans Moon.

Since the CD is a salute/tribute to New Orleans and Louisiana, in general, there are a lot of cover songs on here that are iconic to that region. "Louisiana Man", from the pen of Doug Kershaw, is a classic romp first popularized by The Kershaw Brothers and then recorded by Connie Smith...George Jones and Gene Pitney recorded a duet version of the song...other recording artists of the time period took their turn at recording the Cajun-flavored swamp romp. Ray gives us his renditions of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya", a cover of the up-tempo pop song, "New Orleans", Jimmy Driftwood's "The Battle of New Orleans", popularized by Johnny Horton, Ray gives "When The Saints Go Marching In" a new arrangement, Ray covers Randy Newman's "Louisiana", and there's also "Basin Street Blues"... 

The album was originally released on Ray's Clyde Records label in 2007. Curb Records took over distribution of the album not long afterward. The audio tracks were uploaded onto YouTube a number of years ago but Curb Records uploaded the audio tracks on YouTube yesterday. I don't know if Curb had previously uploaded the existing audio tracks or not...but I do know they uploaded the audio tracks yesterday and I'm embedding a couple of them in this blog entry. Here's his take on "The Battle of New Orleans"...he did the song his way...it's not a carbon copy of Johnny Horton's rendition...

I'm closing the blog entry with Ray's rendition of "Louisiana". Now, this song comes from the 1970s and it's from the pen of Randy Newman. The song was originally written about the Louisiana flood of 1927. The song's official title was "Louisiana 1927". However, the song was more or less re-introduced to the public in 2005 in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Ray's rendition is stellar in my opinion. The entire New Orleans Moon 2007 album is fabulous, by the way. Visit YouTube and listen to it for yourselves.