Ray Stevens: "Nashville" is Golden

Hello Ray Stevens fans! Earlier this year I wrote a blog entry spotlighting the 50th anniversary of the 1973 album, Losin' Streak. Those of you familiar with Ray's career probably know that he released two albums in 1973. Losin' Streak arrived in the second half of the year whereas in the first half he gave us, Nashville. The Nashville album wasn't as big of a surprise if you happened to have been a long time fan of Ray when the album was released or had seen him in concert. Ray had been living in Nashville since 1962 and was well known up and down Music Row. He was an active session musician throughout the bulk of the 1960s and had formed long lasting friendships with record producers and musicians throughout Nashville as well as in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. His most publicized friendship was with RCA's Chet Atkins but Ray was also a friend to several other record producers/music executives including Ken Nelson (Prep/Capitol Records), Shelby Singleton (Mercury Records), Fred Foster (Monument Records), Jerry Kennedy (Mercury Records), and of course Bill Lowery, the man largely responsible for Ray getting into the recording industry in Georgia back in the late 1950s. Those people along with Andy Williams, Ralph Emery, Mike Sheppard, and scores of people behind the scenes that most of us may never know about were vital to the career of Ray Stevens. Ray, given his position in the music industry, also personally knew a whole host of other record producers and executives that had little to do with his own career but nevertheless the music industry back then guaranteed that singer-songwriter-musicians-publishers, such as Ray Stevens, would run into all types of movers and shakers in Music City. 

Ray's session musician workload began to diminish by 1970 and in several interviews Ray makes it clear that it was his own decision to decrease both the session work and his music arranging for other recording artists because his own career demanded more of his time and attention. 

In 1973 Ray opened up his first recording studio...and Nashville holds the distinction of being the first Ray Stevens studio album to be recorded at a studio he owned. It was called The Ray Stevens Sound Laboratory. Now, just so you won't be confused, that was a name that he used, professionally, for his first recording studio and then when he opened up his second studio the following year he kept that name. He used that studio title on up into the late 1970s. His 1977 studio album, Feel the Music, was the last one that credited the recording studio as The Ray Stevens Sound Laboratory. The albums released beginning in 1978 onward credited it as The Ray Stevens Studio. 

The Nashville album came at a time when country music and pop music, to some people's ears, couldn't be distinguished from one another. Now, if you go back and listen to 1973 country and 1973 pop you can clearly tell the difference...but not in the ears of some. The pop influence in country eventually led to the creation of a syndicated TV series, Pop! Goes the Country. Ray had been charting pop and Adult-Contemporary, on and off, since 1961...but in 1969 one of his singles, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", crossed over to the country chart and this was followed by another appearance on the country chart with "Have a Little Talk With Myself". Then, later in 1970, his mega number one hit, "Everything is Beautiful", reached the country Top-40...and then in 1971 he hit the country charts with his gospel single, "Turn Your Radio On". He made his debut as a guest on the country music show, Hee Haw, in 1972...appearing on the show twice that year. I meticulously make mention of all of these things to reinforce my earlier comment that 'pop singer' Ray Stevens releasing Nashville in 1973 wasn't as big of a surprise as it may have seemed. 

He had been selling music/albums to country audiences and had wide appeal within the umbrella of country music even though, as far as country radio was concerned, his appeal with country audiences fell on deaf ears to them most of the time. No one will convince me that Ray Stevens wasn't attracting country fans during the hey-day of his 'pop' stardom in the early and mid 1970s...his appearances on numerous country music television programs of that era attest to his familiarity with the country audience. As far as chart statistics are concerned I blame country radio for not supporting his music as much as they could have or should have. They supported "Nashville", the single, and it made it's way into the country Top-40. What a recording artist needed was the sales support of the public combined with the airplay support of radio disc jockeys and, later on, radio consultants and radio programmers. Ray almost always had the public support...if you gauge the chart activity on numerous singles he released they'd rise up almost near the Top-50 or Top-40 but with the lack of airplay support the single releases would just die mid-level and not reach the airplay-driven Top-40 portion of the singles chart. 

The music on Nashville is not traditional country music nor is it 'pop music'...it is Ray Stevens music. There are 11 tracks on the album and because the overall album is meant to be influenced by country music you're going to hear some steel guitar on a couple of the songs...

1. Nashville

2. Love Me Longer

3. Float (instrumental)

4. Golden Age

5. Never Ending Song of Love

6. Nobody's Fool

7. Undivided Attention

8. You've Got the Music Inside

9. Fish Eat Sleep

10. Piece By Piece

11. Destroyed

The album is available to listen to on YouTube. The playlist can be accessed when you click this LINK. I'm embedding one of the audio tracks below because I want it to get a bit more spotlight here and that track is his rendition of "Never Ending Song of Love". His take on the song is quite a take!