Ray Stevens: 1 Day Until Musicians Hall of Fame Induction...

Hello once again and welcome to Part Two...now we're only 1 day away until Ray Stevens is inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame. If you read my Part One blog entry you may have come away with the impression that I was very broad (not detailed) in my overview of Ray's career time-line from 1955 through 1979. I have a detailed career time-line of Ray that runs along the side of the blog. It begins in 1955 and every so often I'll add an image to the time-line which represents a specific year. When Ray releases a new album or single I'll add the publicity image to the time-line. Anyway, I didn't want to be too detailed in my Part One blog since that's the function of the pictorial time-line. Toward the end of the last blog entry I brought up Ray's push into the country music mainstream as the mid 1970's rolled around. His friendship with Chet Atkins lasted decades. The two were often spotted together at music industry functions and gala's...and unless you're well detailed in the career/life of Ray Stevens then you may not know that the two were business partners in a string of real estate properties all over Nashville. In music industry publications some of the writers half-jokingly nicknamed Ray the Landlord of Music Row. Nashville is an album Ray released on Barnaby Records in 1973. I consider it his first major step into the country music format. The album's overall feel is in line with what Nashville was promoting as country music at the time. Ray was the producer and arranger on the album as he had been on his last several studio albums. "Nashville" was the main single release and it's become a mainstay in his concerts...but it had gone under the radar for several decades before Ray brought it back to the forefront of his career several years ago. It was a country music hit...it didn't appear on the pop chart. Ray was in the process of recording studio ownership around this time. He opened up a studio called The Ray Stevens Sound Laboratory. 

Some of his pop music releases crossed over to the country audience and I feel the friendship he had with Ralph Emery was a factor. Ralph was a very influential country music disc jockey and country music television host...and typically if a song was heard on Ralph's broadcasts chances were other disc jockeys around the country picked up on it. 

"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", as mentioned in Part One, was the first single of Ray's to appear on a country music chart. The single charted pop in America and in Canada as well as country in America and Canada. The Canadian RPM publication had Ray's single ranked higher on their pop and country chart's indicating that it either had more sales or more airplay in Canada than here in the United States. If you search weekly chart publications you'll find all kinds of interesting tidbits revolving around single and album releases in Ray's career. Since his career bounced all over the music spectrum you'll find that an album or single might do well in one format but not even appear in another...but then, by the next release, the format that didn't embrace the previous single may embrace the following single and vice versa. Ray's next country appearance came with "Have a Little Talk With Myself"...and though it's appearance on the weekly country chart was brief the fact that his singles were breaking into country music as early as 1969 suggested his wide appeal. 

1970's "Everything is Beautiful" was a multi-week number one pop hit, a multi-week Adult-Contemporary number one, and it reached the music charts internationally...and it, too, crossed over to the country chart and reached the Top-40 in that format. A series of gospel singles in 1971 hit pop and adult-contemporary...with one, "Turn Your Radio On", pulling a triple-prize by charting pop, adult-contemporary, and country. In the country market the single hit the Top-20. Two preceding singles "All My Trials" and "A Mama and a Papa" both reached the Top-10 on the Adult-Contemporary charts both here in the United States and in Canada. His rock and roll arrangement of "Love Lifted Me" was also a hit...but in Bangkok of all places. Billboard magazine's Hits of the World shows the single listed on Bangkok's music chart for multiple weeks. Ray's international publicity took him all over the globe in the early to mid 1970s. As you see here it's a March 1971 issue of a Sydney, Australia tourist guide with Ray Stevens on the cover. Later on Ray wrote the song, "Nashville", a song I mentioned earlier, during one of his lengthy overseas tours. Ray is quoted as saying he wrote the song because he was homesick for Nashville. Ray plays the piano, keyboard, and synthesizer and is credited as one of the musicians in almost all of his albums. He is also credited with being the record producer and music arranger. His first producer credit, as far as his own recordings are concerned, come along in 1968. Specifically it was a co-producer credit with Fred Foster on the Even Stevens album. That is the album that introduced a general public that never bothered to play the B-side of singles a chance to hear a serious side of Ray Stevens. Serious songs often appeared as the B-side of his novelty songs throughout his years at Mercury and during the earliest years of his recording career on Monument (which began in 1965) but Even Stevens was an entire album of non-comedy and it's main single was the pop hit, "Mr. Businessman". Fred Foster, Ray Stevens, and Jim Malloy were the record producers on the Gitarzan comedy album. Ray's final studio album for Monument, Have a Little Talk With Myself, was produced by Ray with co-production by Jim Malloy. Ray's first studio album where he was the sole record producer happened to be Everything is Beautiful, released in the summer of 1970. The Mercury singles and two studio albums (1961-1965) were produced by Shelby Singleton...with some single releases featuring co-production by Jerry Kennedy. 

From 1970 onward Ray has been the main producer of all of his albums and the music arranger on all of his recordings...with the exception of two back to back albums in 1982 and 1983. Don't Laugh Now, from 1982 on RCA Records, featured co-production work from Bob Montgomery. Me, from 1983 on Mercury Records, featured co-production work from Jerry Kennedy. The 1982 album was Ray's third for RCA. A few years earlier, in 1980, Ray was the recipient of two career recognition awards. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame as well as the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ray's exquisite Don't Laugh Now is so good...there's a mix of all kinds of styles on the album. The opening track is his catchy take on "Such a Night". The album features a novelty song in "Where The Sun Don't Shine" and a series of love ballads including the hit single, "Written Down in My Heart". 

Ray's deep dive into country music comedy began in the latter half of 1984 when he joined MCA Records. It was on this record label where Ray's albums took center stage as each of his releases on the label entered the Country Albums chart...with two of the albums reaching Top-10 status and almost all of them having long chart runs. It is also on MCA Records that the sales of his albums were so large that several of them eventually achieved Gold and Platinum certification. As unbelievable as it may sound Ray's 1981, 1982, and 1983 studio albums didn't appear on the weekly album charts. So, when 1984's He Thinks He's Ray Stevens debuted on Billboard's Country Albums chart it marked his first appearance on the chart with a studio album since Shriner's Convention in 1980. A 1983 Greatest Hits album, on RCA, became a hit. 

Ray's career branched out into different avenues in the 1990s. The decade of the 1980s was dominated, mostly, with his comedy albums for MCA and his consecutive wins as Comedian of the Year by the readers of Music City News magazine and viewers of The Nashville Network. In the 1990s he signed with Curb Records and he revealed his plans for building a theater in Branson, Missouri. The theater opened to the public in the summer of 1991. This led Ray into the realm of VHS tape. He produced and starred in a collection of music videos and sold them on VHS under the title Comedy Video Classics in 1992. VHS reporters for the music industry cited Ray's VHS as being revolutionary. Television commercials played on hundreds of television stations and at all hours of the day and night. It became a multi-million seller through direct marketing and when it was released to retail stores in 1993 it repeated the same success. Billboard named the VHS it's Video of the Year in 1993. Ray Stevens Live!, part of a concert at his former theater in Branson, Missouri, was sold on VHS and was certified Double-Platinum through direct marketing. In audio that decade Ray recorded three studio albums for Curb Records. He performed at his Branson theater for three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993). Here's video of Ray at the piano performing "Yakety Sax/Yakety Axe" along side Chet Atkins and Boots Randolph. It's from an episode of Nashville Now...you'll see the show's host, Ralph Emery, at the beginning of the video.

Ray returned to MCA Records late in 1996 and recorded two albums for them and released more comedy music videos. He had marked his return to MCA with the retail release of his VHS tape, Get Serious!, which was sold through direct marketing in 1995. It was certified Double-Platinum. 

When Ray goes into the Musicians Hall of Fame tomorrow we'll all be excited but we also know that Ray's career will continue to move along. He'll continue performing concerts at his CabaRay showroom in West Nashville and his songs will continue to be discovered by thousands of people who search the internet for 'comedy songs', 'comedy music', 'funny songs', etc. I deliberately cut off my overview of Ray's career in the mid 1990s because I feel I've written a detailed overview without it turning into an entire career retrospective. I'm hoping the Musicians Hall of Fame will give Ray's career an in-depth going over tomorrow...but even if they don't it's still going to be exciting to know that Ray's being recognized for his career by such a prestigious organization.