Ray Stevens: "The Dooright Family" nearing 300,000 unique views

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! I've been reading some of my stats and noticed that a number of older blog entries that I'd written more than 10 years ago (or longer) have gotten some discovery. One thing to keep in mind whenever you come across this blog page...it's written from a fan's perspective and there's no official connection to Ray. In other words it's a fan created blog page, as the bio off on the right hand side of the screen makes clear, and my opinions/commentary shouldn't be misinterpreted as official statements from anyone associated with the legendary Ray Stevens. I also want to point out that when you come across this blog page keep a look out for the date and year that I wrote a particular entry. The date/year is found directly underneath the blog entry title. I bring that up because in my stats it shown that a birthday blog entry I wrote about Ray had gotten some visits...ironically, though, it wasn't the birthday blog entry I wrote last month...it was one I'd written a number of years ago. I write a Happy Birthday blog entry every January 24th...it's something of a tradition. Something else that's a tradition here on this blog page is my pointing out anniversaries of Ray Stevens recordings or alerting the fans of upcoming milestones when it comes to his various online video uploads...

This brings me to "The Dooright Family". It's a hysterical song written by Ray Stevens from his 1980 comedy album, Shriner's Convention. The official music video arrived 15 years later on his VHS movie, Get Serious!. This same VHS movie also contained the official music video debut of the 1980 title track, "Shriner's Convention". One thing to know is "The Dooright Family" was never officially released as a single. If you're a long time fan of Ray then you're probably well aware that quite a few of the recordings that have become synonymous with him were never released on vinyl or digitally as a 'single'. Ray's songs seem to have lives of their own...some songs by Ray are discovered many years after he recorded them and go on to become 'hits' with his audience. The internet has given so many established recording artists all new fan bases and an immediacy that wasn't possible 'in the old days'. Today a recording artist can put out a video of a new song on any number of video hosting sites and within hours it'll become a 'hit' whereas 'in the old days' you'd be at the mercy of a radio programmer, a radio consultant, or a disc jockey's judgement of whether to play a song or not. In the internet age the audience can access/listen to whatever they want. 

RCA Records placed "The Dooright Family" on several compilation albums that they issued on Ray...including a 1983 Greatest Hits album. Inarguably the inclusion of the song on Best Of and Greatest Hits compilation albums enabled the recording to become elevated a little more than had it remained solely on a studio album...only to be enjoyed by the most dedicated of fans. The music video, as mentioned, arrived in 1995. The part of Brother Virgil Dooright is played by Larry Black of RFD-TV fame. The rest of the family, with the exception of Daddy Dooright, is portrayed by actors and actresses seen throughout Get Serious! in other roles. Ray, of course, plays Daddy. The family members in the music video, of course, are miming to Ray's vocals. Daddy Dooright, Mama Dooright, Brother Therman Dooright, Brother Virgil Dooright, and the harmony singing of Sister Doris and Sister Dewdrop Dooright. Ray's long-time friend, Buddy Kalb, is seen as highway cop Dudley Dorite. Tim Hubbard is seen as Deputy Coy. Connie Freeman portrays the female lead, Charlene MacKenzie, from the Get Serious! VHS movie. You'll see her in the yellow dune buggy and sitting next to Ray inside the revival tent. 

Now, one thing remains a mystery...it's never been revealed as to whether Ray was poking gentle fun at The Goodman Family or The Gaither Family...or, as I've assumed, it's probably a combination of various southern gospel family groups rolled into one but those two sets of families are by far the most prominent and influential. The 1995 music video was uploaded onto Ray's YouTube channel on May 18, 2013. As of this writing the unique view count is 297,492...and I'm hoping the spotlight being put back on the music video by way of this blog entry will in some way help push the video over the 300,000 plateau in the coming days/weeks. Enjoy the comedy video craziness of Ray Stevens... 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay concerts return in 2 weeks

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Well, we're getting more and more close to the CabaRay showroom opening for the 2023 concert season. A couple of days ago Ray uploaded a video tour of the showroom. The video was filmed in the early days of the CabaRay when he used a white piano on stage (he's long since returned to the red piano he popularized in Branson, Missouri in the 1990s) but the video works so well as a publicity piece that it was uploaded onto his Facebook page a few days ago. The Facebook upload is titled 'Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom Explanation' whereas the other video is titled 'Ray Stevens CabaRay tour'. In each video clip Ray shows the interior of the showroom and speaks of it's inspiration and the reasons it was built.  

I'm sure a lot of Ray's fans that had, for years, wondered if he'd put on concerts again have long since become aware of the CabaRay. It's west of Nashville in an area called Bellevue. It had it's grand opening in 2018 and so it's been part of that region for 5 years. If you're familiar with the region then you'll probably know exactly where the showroom is. When you're on the highway near the showroom's location you're going to be able to see it from your vehicle...as it sits on top of a hill...and if you're driving in the area, especially after sunset, the big red letters of the CabaRay are lit up so bright that it's impossible not to see it. Once you get onto the road where the showroom is you'll see more detail such as the marquee sign that shows the time of the concerts each Saturday. 

The showroom doors open at 5:30pm and the concert begins at 7:30pm. There's a piano bar which is where a lot of the fans gather prior to the concert. There is also a gift shop and there are all kinds of paintings and illustrations hanging on the walls that fans can look at as they await the main floor to open. The main floor is where fans who purchased floor level seats sit at, of course, but at the CabaRay it doubles as the area where the pre-ordered dinner is served. Yes, in case this showroom is brand new to you and you're reading about it for the first time, the CabaRay serves an optional dinner, now, a policy that began a couple of seasons ago. The dinner is no longer automatically included with the price of floor level seating as it had been in the first couple of seasons (2018, 2019). 

If you're wanting a fine dining-type of dinner prior to the concert you can elect to add the dinner price to your concert ticket. Some fans, I strongly assume, wanted the opportunity to sit on the main floor without having to include a dinner and so a couple of seasons ago Ray came up with the idea to have the dinner optional. There are balcony seats...and in the history of the CabaRay no dinner has never been served up there, for obvious reasons, but the staff do provide beverages for fans who like to sit up in the balcony. It's theater style seating in the balcony...there's no room for plates, utensils, food, and all that comes with a dinner when you're sitting in a seat up in a balcony. The 2023 concert season at the CabaRay begins on March 11th...just 2 weeks from today! All the information can be found when you click HERE. 

Here's a video tour of the showroom. Ray explains the red leather booths and discusses the record producers who are immortalized on the walls. 

Ray Stevens: Slow Dance YouTube Playlist

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! In this blog entry, as you can tell, it's focusing on one of the 4 albums released in the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set. This time around it's Slow Dance. Now, compared to the other three albums, this one is much more somber and slower paced as you could probably guess. The concept of the album is to recapture the feel of the slow ballad songs that people would slow dance to in a bygone era. If you have this album then you already know not every song is slow...there are a couple that are mid-tempo...but the overall feel of the music remains slow love ballads. I'd say the only song on the album that pushes the tempo a little bit, as far as the music accompaniment goes, is his rendition of "The Great Pretender" but definitely "Answer Me", a song he'd previously recorded several decades earlier as "Answer Me, My Love". There are 12 songs on the album and the playlist is on YouTube...and anybody can listen to the album or any other Ray Stevens album that's been uploaded to the site. Your favorite performances may not be mine. Do you want to know what my favorites are from this album? I won't mention them all but a couple are "Slow Dancing", "Stardust", "Answer Me", and the album closer, "What a Wonderful World". All of the songs have been re-arranged in a Ray Stevens style and so, if you're thinking that these songs will be carbon copies of previously recorded versions by other recording artists, you'll be in for a major surprise. Ray opens the album with his soulful rendition of "Only You and You Alone". 

I'll probably come across like a broken record, on repeat, when I say that this album and the other three that make-up the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set are must-have for any Ray Stevens fan. I especially feel that those out there who say they prefer the more serious side of Ray Stevens should take a listen to this album and the other three: Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, and Nouveau Retro. Those three, along with Slow Dance, represent some of the most recent serious recordings from Ray Stevens. Those of you that have been waiting for some non-comical recordings from Ray, well, those albums should be an answer to your wishes.

You can listen to the Slow Dance album when you click HERE. While at YouTube, and after you listen to Slow Dance, visit the other YouTube playlists of the three albums mentioned above. 

Ray Stevens: The RCA Single Releases

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Whenever I'd go and look through some of my statistics for this blog I'm always seeing several visits to a blog entry I wrote quite awhile ago focusing on the Barnaby Records single releases on Ray Stevens. It got me thinking...and I've written so many blog entries over the last 10 or so years...that perhaps it's time to re-visit that type of blog entry and focus on the Ray's RCA Records single releases. Ray was officially on the RCA roster for four years (1979-1983). In that time period the record company issued three studio albums, a Greatest Hits album, and six single releases from Ray Stevens. His greatest commercial hit happened to be his debut for the label, "Shriner's Convention", which hit early in 1980. This is a song that had been tested out beforehand in concert and in a couple of television appearances in the latter half of 1979. The single would become a Top-10 Country hit as would the album of the same name. The album peaked within the Top-5 on the Country Albums chart. Ray's tenure at RCA was short but the music he recorded while at the label was fabulous in my opinion. Ray's RCA catalog has never been properly kept readily available in the online digital age beyond a few recordings. Non-fans would say it's because there's a lack of 'hit songs' during that time period (an untrue statement, by the way) but Ray Stevens fans, like myself, will argue and say it's because the record company has no interest in releasing his studio albums to the digital market...and, IF that's really true, it's a shame. If it's NOT true then I'd like to hear an official explanation as to why his RCA recordings aren't widely available in a digital format.

1980: Shriner's Convention / You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me

1980: Hey There / You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me (released in Canada and overseas)

1980: Night Games / Let's Do It Right This Time

1981: One More Last Chance / I Believe You Love Me

1982: Written Down In My Heart / Country Boy, Country Club Girl

1982: Where The Sun Don't Shine / Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Love

The three studio albums Ray recorded for RCA are titled: Shriner's Convention (1980), One More Last Chance (1981), and Don't Laugh Now (1982). When RCA released a Greatest Hits album on Ray in 1983 they only included two RCA tracks. They should have featured five or all six of the A-side single releases and a few older tracks. However, a few years later, RCA issued several albums called Collector's Series. The series focused on past and present RCA recording artists. Ray's collection arrived in 1985 and then it got re-released in 1987. It was an album of 8 songs and they were all from his RCA years. Yes, a skimpy collection, but nevertheless it was an introduction to his RCA years for a lot of his younger fans who discovered Ray in the mid to late 1980s. Believe it or not Collector's Series remains the only official overview of Ray's RCA years. Unless you have the studio albums in vinyl or cassette format the Collector's Series remains the most widely released overview of his early 1980's music.  

Ray Stevens: Moe Bandy CabaRay Nashville Performance...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens...and hello fans of Moe Bandy if you're reading this due to his name also being in the blog entry title. Moe recently celebrated a birthday and it's become something of a tradition on Ray's social media pages to spotlight birthdays/birthdates of those who appeared on his CabaRay Nashville television series with a performance video. This time around Ray shared the performance from Moe Bandy of "Someday Soon". When I was a teenager I was more familiar with this song from Suzy Boggus...it wasn't until I come across a classic country radio station in the mid 1990s that I heard Moe Bandy's recording of the song. Moe recorded his version of the song in 1981 and was on his album that year, Rodeo Romeo. The title track of that album reached the Top-10. "Someday Soon" hit late in 1981 and reached it's peak position in the early part of 1982. Moe's recording wasn't a big radio recurrent...which is music industry jargon for a song that's reached it's peak but is still getting airplay months afterward. It was in this time period that he was being thought of more as a duet partner of Joe Stampley...their success as a duo was through the roof...and as is almost always the case whatever is attracting the most sales (whether it be album, single, or concert tickets) then that's where the publicity department will be found...and the promotional department loved to promote the Moe and Joe duo anytime they could. Well, here's Moe Bandy solo...with an introduction by Ray Stevens...and the performance of "Someday Soon"... 

Ray Stevens: The Great Country Ballads YouTube Playlist

Hello fans of Ray Stevens! This is my third installment of YouTube playlists...previously I featured a couple of blog entries focusing on the Melancholy Fescue playlist as well as the Nouveau Retro playlist. This time around I'm focusing on Great Country Ballads. This album came along in 2021 and was part of the 4-CD box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. Ray released each album as a digital download separately...one release per month...and then he released a 4-CD box set for those that also wanted to have CD copies (for collector's and for those that prefer listening to CD's). This particular release was the first to arrive early in 2021 and the audio track being promoted at that time was "Your Cheatin' Heart". When you look at the YouTube playlist you'll see that particular audio track designated as 'official audio'. This designation simply means that it was the track promoted by Ray on his social media pages. All of the audio tracks are official and were released through Curb Records. Ray returned to Curb Records in 2020 and he's still on their artist roster as of February 2023. Since his return to the label he's released 4 stand alone singles ("Everything is Beautiful: 50th Anniversary", "Everything is Beautiful / United We Stand (medley)"; "The Quarantine Song", and "Gas") and 5 albums (Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, Nouveau Retro, and Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore). As mentioned, four of those five albums make up the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set. One of Ray's many talents is that of music arranger. On Great Country Ballads he puts different music arrangements on 12 country music standards. I've often felt a reason why Ray likes to re-arrange standards is simply for artistic purposes and to present decades-old songs in a new way. A lot of recording artists that attempt albums like those that make up his 4-CD box set probably feel as if they have to remain faithful to the original music arrangements and basically turn out a carbon copy, musically speaking, for immediate acceptance. It's safe to assume that Ray doesn't see things like that and he'll put his personal stamp on everything he sings. Some of the songs Ray decided to tackle are: "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Bouquet of Roses", "Room Full of Roses", "Till I Get It Right", and "City Lights". You can listen to Great Country Ballads on YouTube, uploaded by Curb Records, by clicking this LINK.

Ray Stevens: CabaRay concerts 1 month away

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! The image I selected for today's blog entry is one that shows Ray completely immersed in the performance...just as if he feels the music, to quote a Ray Stevens song title that hit back in 1977; well, the actual song title is "Feel the Music". I'm sure you're all feeling the anticipatory music and comedy as we're now 1 month away from the 2023 concert season kicking off at the CabaRay showroom in west Nashville. The first concert of the season will be March 11th and tickets for the entire 2023 season have been on sale for a couple of weeks. I made mention of the concert season getting underway a couple of blog entries ago but I'll be periodically writing a blog entry about the upcoming concert season as we get even closer to March 11th. When you visit the CabaRay webpage, as of now, the main page contains an advertisement about March 11th and a link to the website's ticket page. You can visit the webpage by clicking HERE. If you come across this blog entry after March 11th chances are the main page over at the CabaRay website will look slightly different and have other information. In this case all you'd need to do is click the Events tab while over there and it'll take you right to the concert ticket page. 

Ray Stevens: Re-Visiting the Accolades

The Grammy Awards were aired tonight (representing 2022) and so I felt it was time to revisit the accolades and honors racked up by legendary Ray Stevens over the decades. As most of you know, if you've read some of my blog entries, I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to lists and a pet peeve of mine is inaccuracy. In my blog introduction I mention that one of the main inspirations of mine for creating this blog page was my frustration with the lack of accurate information circling around on the internet about Ray Stevens. So, one of my goals is to have accuracy. There are several online sites that omit a large number of accolades and awards received by Ray throughout his career and in my blunt opinion it's laziness on the part of website operators to focus only on a select few organizations and then call the award list complete and accurate. The list that I provide always includes a disclaimer that the list is accurate to the best of my knowledge. There are many, many music publisher awards that Ray Stevens has been the recipient of...I've seen them hanging on his walls in photographs...but I've not seen every one of them to accurately state which recording received a publisher award from the BMI organization. I know, from research, some of the recordings but I've never seen a complete list. I wish one day to find out all of the Ray Stevens songs that BMI has recognized with a publisher certificate. In addition to the publisher accolades, he's also received a lot of nominations for various awards...and let's not forget the Gold and Platinum songs, albums, home videos, and multi-million social media videos. The latter of which has never been formally recognized with any award but for pure aesthetics I wish a series of plaques would emerge with the YouTube logo, a thumbnail image from the video, and a commemoration of a video's unique views. The threshold to receive such an award would be 100,000 unique views or more. If such an award existed Ray Stevens could line another wall at his CabaRay showroom with those awards. There wasn't such a thing as a Platinum sales certification prior to 1976. Anything that sold one million copies or more was certified as a Gold Record. When the Platinum award was created the sales thresholds were more defined. A Gold Record would indicate a song or album that sold between 500,000 copies and just under 1,000,000. The Platinum would be awarded to music selling 1,000,000 copies or more. Also, keep in mind, the RIAA certification year isn't when the sales reached their requirement. Record companies and, or, the artist themselves have to put in an audit request to formally begin the sales certification process. The RIAA doesn't automatically certify music sales. When you see Ray's 1985 comedy album receiving a Gold certification in 1989 that's merely the year the audit was conducted...not necessarily the year it achieved half a million in sales. It's  long been my suspicion that several more of his comedy albums from the 1980's are Gold or Platinum in sales but there's not been any audit done. 

The list will also include nominations in additions to wins. 

1969: Gold Record: "Gitarzan" (1,000,000 copies sold)

1970: Grammy nomination "Gitarzan"; Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male

1970: Gold Record: "Everything is Beautiful" (3,000,000 RIAA certified sales)

1971: Grammy nomination: "Everything is Beautiful"; Best Contemporary Song

1971: Grammy nomination: "Everything is Beautiful"; Best Arrangement

1971: Grammy nomination: "Everything is Beautiful"; Song of the Year

1971: Grammy nomination: "Everything is Beautiful"; Record of the Year

1971: Grammy win: "Everything is Beautiful"; Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male

1973: Grammy nomination: "Love Lifted Me"; Best Inspirational Performance

1974: Gold Record: "The Streak" (5,000,000 RIAA certified sales)

1974: CMA Award nomination: "The Streak"; Single of the Year

1974: CMA Award nomination: "The Streak"; Song of the Year

1976: Grammy nomination: "Misty"; Best Country Vocal Performance, Male

1976: Grammy win: "Misty"; Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist

1977: Gold Record (as Publisher): "Way Down" recorded by Elvis Presley

1980: Grammy nomination: "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow"; Best Comedy Recording

1980: Georgia Music Hall of Fame election

1980: Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame election

1986: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1987: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1987: Gold Album: He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (1984 release; 500,000 copies sold)

1988: Grammy nomination: "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?"; Best Comedy Recording

1988: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1989: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1989: Gold Album: I Have Returned (1985 release; 500,000 copies sold)

1990: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1991: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1992: Gold Album: Greatest Hits (1987 release; 500,000 copies sold)

1993: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1993: Platinum Album: Greatest Hits (1987 release; 1,000,000 copies sold)

1993: Gold VHS Video: Comedy Video Classics (1992 release; 500,000 copies sold)

1993: Multi-Platinum VHS Video: Comedy Video Classics (1992 release; 3,000,000 copies sold)

1994: Platinum VHS Video: Ray Stevens Live! (1993 release; 100,000 copies sold/mail order)

1994: Music City News Comedian of the Year

1994: Platinum Album: He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (1984 release; 1,000,000 copies sold)

1995: Country Weekly Golden Pick Award- Best Comedian

1997: Double-Platinum VHS Video: Get Serious! (1995 release; 200,000 copies sold/mail order)

1997: Gold Album: Greatest Hits, Volume Two (1987 release; 500,000 copies sold)

1998: Gold Album: His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits (1990 release; 500,000 copies sold)

2005: Multi-Platinum VHS Video: Comedy Video Classics (1992 release; 4,000,000 copies sold)

*** I interrupt the awards and honors list to include the following: Ray Stevens has enjoyed a lengthy string of highly visible music videos throughout social media beginning around 2009/2010. There are currently 30 music video uploads by Ray Stevens that have been seen by at least 1,000,000 people (this number doesn't reflect the amount of repeat viewings). There is a video upload on Ray's channel of Bobby Goldsboro on an episode of Ray's CabaRay Nashville show singing "Honey" and that video's gotten more than 1,000,000 unique views, too, bringing the total on Ray's YouTube channel to 31 video uploads of 1,000,000 unique views or more. Overall, more than 168 million have accessed Ray's channel/watched his video uploads since 2009. Now, back to the awards and honors list. ***

2018: Music City Walk of Fame

2019: Country Music Hall of Fame election

2019: Midsouth Regional Emmy nomination: "Ray Stevens Special"

2022: Musicians Hall of Fame election

2022: Cecil Scaife Visionary Award (co-recipient with Brenda Lee)

Throughout various points in time I have come across information stating that Ray is also a member of an Atlanta Music Hall of Fame (election year, 2001) and a Christian Music Hall of Fame (election year, 2012) but I can't find any verification online of either of those Halls of Fame but I remember reading about them online and I remember Ray Stevens mentioned as a member of each. In a goal to be accurate that's why I left out those two organizations in awards and honors list. I also didn't include any of the publisher awards he has received...because it would be an incomplete list if I only listed a few that I know about. The 2019 Midsouth Regional Emmy nomination I'm quite sure was for the PBS television special that aired during pledge breaks in 2018. If you sent in a donation to the local PBS channel airing the show you'd receive, as a gift, a DVD copy of the exclusive Ray Stevens Special. I have a copy of that special in my collection. I made a donation to a local PBS station airing CabaRay Nashville at the time. They've since removed the series from their line-up but I'm glad I made the donation because that special has never, ever become available anywhere. It's an obscurity. Well, I hope you enjoyed taking a look at the various awards and honors that have come Ray Stevens way over the decades and enjoyed my commentary/composition...and that you continue enjoying the music of Ray Stevens!  

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville on YouTube Episode Bundle

It's me once more...and in this blog entry, as you could probably tell by it's title, I'm going to be sharing a bundle of episodes of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television show that have made their debut on YouTube over the last month. If you're familiar with this blog you'll notice that I hadn't written an overview/review of any of the episodes that followed Episode 3, Season 3. The reason why I took a hiatus is because the blog was becoming dominated by my reviews of the TV show and I wanted to break up the pattern for awhile. I also, if you remember, have written a review of the episodes back when they originally aired on a local PBS station in my area. Those reviews are still available in the archives here. I didn't want to continue re-reviewing what I already reviewed, if that makes any sense, and so I decided to halt writing about the program. Anyway, though, in that self-imposed hiatus 7 episodes made their YouTube debut. I'll be providing links to each episode. I'll be titling the links after the special guest star. That means if you see a link for B.J. Thomas or Mark Wills, for example, the link you click will take you to the episode featuring that guest star.

B.J. Thomas: S-3, E-4

Rhonda Vincent: S-3, E-5

Restless Heart: S-3, E-6

John Michael Montgomery: S-3, E-7

Baille and the Boys: S-3, E-8

Tommy Roe: S-3, E-9

Mark Wills: S-3, E-10

Each CabaRay Nashville season is 13 episodes and so we're nearing the end of Season Three. Episode 11 guest stars Duane Eddy and it'll make it's YouTube debut on February 10th. There are Six seasons altogether of Ray's program. When you do the math 13 episodes multiplied by 6 seasons equals 78 episodes. If this series is all new to you then you should know going in that it's a music talk-show...with music as the main emphasis. There is an interview segment...the special guest sits next to Ray's red piano during this part of the show. Sometimes the special guest will sing a duet with Ray...almost always the duet will be the guest doing the majority of the singing as Ray plays the piano and sings harmony. Ray opens and closes the main part of the show with a song. The special guest sings two songs. There are taped comedy sketches and additional video content inserted into the episodes, too. 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay concerts return in 5 weeks

Yes...you read the title of this blog entry correctly. In just 5 short weeks the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom will kick off the 2023 concert season. As in past seasons the concerts will heavily favor Saturday evenings and then expand to an occasional Thursday. The first concert of the 2023 season will take place on March 11th and when you visit the CabaRay website, for now, there's a large announcement across the screen advertising that the tickets are on sale. They went on sale less than a month ago back on January 11th...I wrote a blog about it...but now we're 5 weeks from that first concert of the year. 

I touched on the fact that this will be Ray's fourth full season of concerts at the CabaRay. 2018 and 2019 were full seasons whereas there wasn't much of a concert season at all in 2020 because of the pandemic and then there were a handful of concerts in the latter half of 2021. He returned to a full schedule of concerts in 2022 and now we're heading into the 2023 concert season. If you're doing the math right along with me this should've been his 6th consecutive concert season had the pandemic never happened. Purchase your tickets to the CabaRay by clicking HERE. 

Here's Ray performing "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" at the CabaRay. Now, keep in mind, this is just the performance area of the showroom. There's also a piano bar, gift shop, and numerous tables and chairs lining the hallway where fans can sit and talk. There's a balcony area, too, that overlooks the piano bar. Ray's trophy case is a sight to behold as are the dozens of photos and paintings that line the walls. Some of the paintings are by Bobby Goldsboro. 

Ray Stevens: The Nouveau Retro YouTube Playlist

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! A couple of blog entries ago I spotlighted the YouTube playlist of Ray's Melancholy Fescue album. Today I'm spotlighting the YouTube playlist of Nouveau Retro. In 2021 Ray released 5 albums. Four of those albums were sold together in a box set called Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. A fifth release, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore, was issued by itself, not part of the box set. Each album in the box set was also available separately and, because of this, each album became more easily accessible online. The various online music sites offered the box set where all four albums could be received in one download or you could get each one separately. YouTube, via Curb Records, has made each of the albums available, too. The Nouveau Retro album contains pop music standards and a couple of songs with strong ties to country music. Slang descriptions might bring to mind the phrase, torch songs, for this album features the Ray Stevens renditions of "April in Paris", "Cry Me a River", "Mountain of Love", "Earth Angel", and "You Don't Know Me", just to name five. The collection contains 12 songs. In case you're wondering that's a real baby photo of Ray Stevens on the album cover. Ray, of course, is in costume as Father Time. The subtitle of the album is What's Old is New Again. You can listen to the album on YouTube when you click HERE. You can watch Ray briefly discuss the 2021 album in this YouTube clip.

Ray Stevens: Musicians Hall of Fame Video

Hello fans of Ray Stevens and welcome to February! Well, we're 5 days into the new month but this is my first blog entry of February. We start the month off with a video clip from this past November. As many of you know from reading this fan created blog Ray Stevens was enshrined into the Musicians Hall of Fame in November of 2022. There were several photographs that emerged from the gala, well, the post-ceremony, but until the other day there wasn't anything from the actual presentation. A video clip was played during Ray's induction into the Musicians Hall of Fame and it's narrated by Buddy Kalb. If you're a casual fan of Ray Stevens then a lot of the information and the photos contained in the video clip will be brand new to you. It's a fun video clip featuring Ray at all time periods in his career but with a slight emphasis on the behind the scenes work (record production; music arranging; music publishing; songwriting; playing on sessions). There are numerous photos of Ray inside recording studios up and down Music Row throughout the 1960s. You'll see him in group photos with other session musicians and there are several photos of Ray with some of his closest friends (Chet Atkins and Ralph Emery spring to mind). Ray had previously posted some of the photos that show up in the video clip and there are some that appear in his 2014 memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville. So, as I said, if you're a casual fan then a lot of the information Buddy Kalb mentions and most of the photos are going to be brand new to you. Buddy remarks how versatile Ray's song catalog truly is. Ray has recorded pop, country, gospel, and comedy throughout his career. 

The main photo in the YouTube thumbnail is a picture of Ray when he was a kid. In his youth he was raised in several locales in Georgia: Clarkdale (where he was born); Albany (where the family moved to when he was a teen); and then into the outskirts of Atlanta. You're going to love the video clip...