Ray Stevens: CabaRay Piano Bar re-opens July 9th...

I came across news of the re-opening of the piano bar inside the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom yesterday but didn't make mention of it because I wasn't sure when Ray's social media was going to begin promoting it. Less than an hour ago the announcement was officially made that this coming Friday, July 9th, part of the CabaRay showroom will re-open to the public. The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium and Piano Bar, as it's officially called, will re-open to the public beginning at 7pm on July 9th. The piano bar is an intimate area within the CabaRay where customers can relax, dance, have limited drinks, and listen to the pianist, John Jonethis. The piano bar will be open every Friday and Saturday evening from 7pm until closing time from July 9th through August 28th. The piano bar has limited seating...though there wasn't a number released as to how many seats are in the piano bar...so I don't know what their plan will be should several hundred show up. When my brother and I were at the CabaRay in 2018 I was too afraid to go into the piano bar since I don't drink alcohol so I sat on a bench along the wall outside the piano bar and listened from there. There are circular tables sitting upstairs in a hallway along side a balcony where you can sit and look out over the piano bar. I don't know if this is a trial run to see if the public has finally gotten over their COVID hesitancy and finally feel safe enough to go out and attend public gatherings once again. Ray is scheduled to begin performing concerts once again at the CabaRay on September 4th...several days after the piano bar exclusives come to an end. Now, keep in mind, the piano bar will remain part of the CabaRay experience once it fully re-opens on September 4th. Once the showroom fully re-opens the public will not only have access to the piano bar but also the gift shop. The doors to the performance area open an hour before the concert begins. This is the point in time where, if you purchased a dinner, it'll be served prior to the concert. You can read about the CabaRay piano bar re-opening by clicking HERE.  

Ray Stevens: Snap Shot of a Georgia Teen...

Ray Stevens, 1956

Hello all...this photo of teenage Ray Stevens was posted on his social media sites last Thursday. The information surrounding the photo states that it's from the mid 1950s when Ray was still a resident of Albany, Georgia before his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1956. I label the photo as having been taken in 1956 but it could have been 1955...the social media posts state he was 16 and so that would have been some point between January 24, 1955 and January 23, 1956. So, yes, it's more than likely the photo originated in 1955. Whatever the specific month and year the point is that it's a snap shot of a Georgia teenager that became a legendary figure in the music industry and ultimately found himself elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. In the formative years he was known by his birth name, Harold Ragsdale. His middle name being Ray he would use the name 'Ray Ragsdale'. As a teenager in Albany, Georgia he formed a Rhythm and Blues band called The Barons and they would perform at various events throughout the region. In addition to this he would find himself on local radio station, WGPC, hosting a Saturday afternoon show called The Record Hop with co-host Mary Dale Vansant. This radio program, according to an interview Mary Dale Vansant gave, aired from 1pm to 4pm beginning in the summer of 1954 and that she and Ray often worked on the show for three to four hours ahead of air-time. In the radio industry it's called show preparation. The interview is great and it offers insight and recollection of Ray's early years prior to his national breakthrough in the early 1960s. The webpage features several pages about Ray's career including snippets from newspaper articles. Ray, as many of you should know, was born in Clarkdale, Georgia on January 24, 1939. He and his family (father Willis, mother Frances, and brother John) moved from Clarkdale to Albany in 1949.

Ray Stevens, 1954

The seeds of Ray's career were planted in Albany and by the time he had found local popularity/fame through The Barons and on local radio he had to give it up in 1956 after the company his father worked for caused a mandatory relocation from Albany to Atlanta. Ray began his senior year in 1956 at Druid Hills High School...and graduated from there in 1957. Ray continued his music pursuits after the move to Atlanta and it's here that he began his lengthy association with music publisher Bill Lowery...eventually leading to Ray's first professional recording, "Silver Bracelet", on the Prep label in 1957. Prep was a subsidiary of Capitol Records. The pictorial time-line along the right hand side of my blog page shows an image of that single. The image off to the immediate right is a publicity photo of Ray during his disc jockey years in the mid 1950s. According to Mary's interview she decided to leave the show after a year and a half but remarked that Ray continued on with a new co-host named Diane Flowers. I have searched all over the internet down through the years and haven't been able to find anything regarding her connection to Ray's career. When I perform internet searches for her I most often type 'Ray Stevens + Diane Flowers + Georgia' or 'Ray Ragsdale + WGPC + Diane Flowers' but nothing ever comes up in the search results pertaining to Ray's months on the air with the new co-host. I refer to it as months on the air because when Mary stepped away from The Record Hop it would've been late 1955, she mentions in her interview about being Ray's co-host for a year and a half, and with Ray's move to Atlanta taking place at some point prior to the 1956-1957 school year that means Ray and new co-host, Diane, would've been on the air for less than half a year or maybe shorter than even that. Perhaps that's why there's no information on-line? Oh well...if just to settle my curiosity I'd love to have precise information surrounding Ray's years on WGPC radio.

When Ray was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019 it sent shock waves throughout the country music community but it was mixture of shock waves. Some people shared the sentiment that "It's about time!! He's such a legendary entertainer!! It's long overdue!" and others shared the sentiment of "What??? How could they elect him?? It's such a joke!!". Those who carry the latter sentiment are a victim of their own perceptions of Ray Stevens. They don't see Ray as a legitimate performer, musician, record producer, music arranger, music publisher, or songwriter and they never will, I guess. To those people they see Ray as a grinning, Joker-like novelty singer unworthy of high praise, critical acclaim, or let alone being a recipient of the highest honor in country music.

I don't gamble or place bets but if I were a betting man I'd have to say that Ray's election to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019 was the longest gap between the start of a professional career (1957) and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (2019). That's a time span of 62 years. I can't think of any act, without having to do some lengthy research, that had a longer time span between professional debut to induction. If you count his years as a regional act 2019 marked his 65th year as a performer/musician. The snap shot of a Georgia teen named Ray Ragsdale ultimately took his place in the Country Music Hall of Fame...and his career remains in high gear.

Ray Stevens and Bill Anderson...

A couple of days ago Ray Stevens uploaded a video clip from his CabaRay Nashville television series. The clip featured an interview and performance from Bill Anderson...one of country music's legendary songwriters/performers and an early participant in syndicated television. It happened to be Bill's birthday (November 1st) and so to celebrate this footage of Bill's appearance on Ray's television series was uploaded.

Ray and Bill have some things in common: they're both well established songwriters, they each have a history of television and video endeavors, they embrace the power of on-line marketing, they're businessmen and each have had successful careers in the music business world, they're both in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Country Music Hall of Fame, and both are tied to the state of Georgia...Ray was born there whereas Bill was raised there (officially he was born in Columbia, South Carolina). The two also have membership in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame as well as the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame. Also, the two share experiences in the hospitality business. One of Bill's hit songs, "Po' Folks", became the name of a restaurant chain throughout the South...and from 1975 until 1988 Bill was it's spokesman. The television series Bill hosted on The Nashville Network during the 1980s, Fandango, featured commercials for Po' Folks. Ray, on the other hand, owned, operated, and performed at a theater in Branson, Missouri (1991-1993, 2005-2006) and since January 2018 he's owned, operated, and performed in Nashville, Tennessee at the CabaRay.

Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame: Bill Anderson (1974 induction), Ray Stevens (1980 induction).

Georgia Music Hall of Fame: Ray Stevens (1980 induction), Bill Anderson (1985 induction).

Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame: Bill Anderson (1987 induction), Ray Stevens (2001 induction).

Country Music Hall of Fame: Bill Anderson (2001 induction), Ray Stevens (2019 induction).

When Ray's CabaRay showroom had it's grand opening in January of 2018 there were several media outlets there and one of the television stations captured an interview of Bill Anderson during his visit to the CabaRay and it serves as a testimonial in a lot of ways to Ray's creative genius and work ethic...



The two obviously have their professional/career differences, as well...Bill is a member of the National Songwriter's Hall of Fame whereas, as of this writing, Ray Stevens isn't. Bill has also been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1961 whereas Ray is not a member but sporadically makes guest appearances. The two looked back, comically, on their early years in the music business; Bill brings up Ray's "Silver Bracelet" single in 1957 and remarks on the impact it had in the Atlanta, Georgia area in the interview. Bill brings up Ray's memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, and said he spent three weeks reading it...to which Ray comically asked why it took him that long...and the two of them discuss music publisher Bill Lowery...anyway, here's the clip of the two legends...

Ray Stevens: Vintage Visuals late '50s...

This is an updated photo of myself and an obscure CD titled Ray Stevens: The NRC Years 1958-1960. I posted a photo of myself and this CD in a blog entry last year and in that photo I'm as clean-shaven as Ray happens to be on the CD's picture sleeve. This time around, though, I've got some facial hair (I hadn't shaved in a couple of days) and obviously Ray Stevens remains clean-shaven in the photo. I decided to create this blog entry because of it's dramatic step back from the previous two I'd written. I thought it would be fun to return to the earliest of years in the career of Ray Stevens and return to 1959...oh yes...that's 60 years ago...and give some focus on this group of NRC recordings once more. It's something of a numerical pattern game I like playing...if I've written a blog entry focusing on Ray's career in 2001, for example, the next blog entry may jump ahead 10 years to 2011 or go back 10 years to 1991. I also have another reason for focusing on this time period in Ray's career...but more on that a little later. This CD features 11 recordings on the NRC label...a company originated in Atlanta, Georgia in 1958 by disc jockey/producer/publisher, Bill Lowery, and Boots Woodall. The acronym, NRC, stands for National Recording Corporation. Ray's early career is tied inexorably to Bill Lowery and you can't factually write articles, essays or blog entries on the early career of Ray Stevens and not incorporate the impact, importance, and influence of Bill Lowery. Even though NRC was co-founded by Bill Lowery in 1958 the business relationship with Ray goes back even earlier. As a song publisher and promoter Lowery often visited local radio stations and would promote artists and often the radio disc jockey would engage the artist with an interview. Ray signed his first recording contract in 1957 for a label known as Prep Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records. Although the Prep and Capitol sessions were produced by Ken Nelson it was Bill Lowery who happened to be responsible for the publishing end. "Silver Bracelet", released in 1957 on Prep, was written by Ray and published by Lowery Music.

One of the recordings that Ray did at the NRC label happened to be "High School Yearbook" based upon "The Deck of Cards". If you know your music history then you'll recognize the latter as a spoken word classic...I am much more familiar with the versions by country music artists but the pop music hit is identified with game show host Wink Martindale. The songwriters of "High School Yearbook" a/k/a "The Deck of Cards" are credited on the NRC recording as W. York, R. Baxley, and S. Singleton which I'm assuming stands for Shelby Singleton!? The song is based upon "Deck of Cards" but rather than it being a cover version about how cards are used by a soldier as a substitute for a bible Ray's recording tells of a high school student that uses a deck of cards to remind him of his less than stellar academic life and that the deck of cards is a substitute for a yearbook...closing the performance stating that as a result of his sloppy performance during Senior year in high school he won't be graduating with the rest of the class.

1959

The concept of a soldier comparing a deck of cards to a bible is credited with being created in the late 1800s but it was never set to music until the late 1940s. Ray's recitation from 1959 doesn't credit T. Texas Tyler as a songwriter...for he's the one that wrote "Deck of Cards" in 1948. The B-side of 1959's "High School Yearbook" is a song Ray wrote titled "Truly True" with Lowery Music as the publisher. In my way of thinking Lowery's desire of making Atlanta an important outlet for music represents the concept of Independent-thinking...that is, rather than working in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Nashville he felt Atlanta could produce just as many quality recordings as those places. This independent style of thinking, I'd say, influenced the people that worked for him...and Ray Stevens is no exception. When you think about it Ray has long been his own producer, arranger, song publisher, and session musician who rarely, if ever, releases records as a result of marketing research (often referred to as 'radio-friendly' songs) and he never deliberately chased trends although, being a shrewd businessman, he embraced a lot of styles over the decades and his career has had a lot of twists and turns as a result. His independence, he remarked in his 2014 MEMOIR, has a lot to do with his lack of collaborators as far as album production is concerned. He works with a crew of people on whatever it is that he's working on but he ultimately has the final say on his career decisions and song choices. There have only been a few times in his career where he recruited a co-producer and although his earliest recordings do not credit him as a record producer I'd say he was the creative force behind those recordings as far as their execution given his music arranging prowess.

The 11 recordings on this CD, to my way of thinking, is an almost complete representation of his NRC years. Now, for the most part, the songs on the CD are listed as A-side/B-side. NRC released four singles on Ray during 1958-1960 but he recorded a number of songs for the label that were not released until years later on obscure, low-budget albums. In addition to recording he was also a session musician, music arranger, and songwriter for other artists on the NRC roster. The lack of detailed information surrounding Ray's recordings for NRC as well as Capitol Records tend to add confusion and uncertainty when it comes to bloggers...and this CD goes a long way in adding to the confusion due to the final three recordings on the CD. There is an on-line source that credits the song "Cholly Wolly Chang" to Capitol Records whereas this CD it's credited as a recording on the NRC label. Track ten, "Part of the Time", and the final track, "That's What She Means to Me" must be unreleased recordings for the label. If you do on-line searches for Ray's late '50s recordings you'll also come across an 8-track from Cadet Records titled Lean Times. That 8-track, which doesn't feature a year of release, is one of those releases that adds to the murkiness by blending his Capitol and NRC recordings on one compilation. Lean Times, for example, features "High School Yearbook" but it also features a song he recorded for Capitol in 1958 titled "Cat Pants". Also, Lean Times refers to "Truly True" as 'Truly Truly' as does Crown Records in their 1965 compilation album titled Ray "Ahab the Arab" Stevens and Hal Winters. What exactly are the songs found on this NRC Years CD you may be asking yourselves? Here's the song list...

1. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon
2. Who Do You Love?
3. Happy Blue Year (instrumental)
4. High School Yearbook
5. Truly True
6. What Would I Do Without You?
7. White Christmas (instrumental)
8. My Heart Cries For You
9. Cholly Wolly Chang
10. Part of the Time
11. That's What She Means To Me

Earlier this year a book was released on the life and career of Bill Lowery and his impact on the music industry...with a bulk of that impact originating from Atlanta, Georgia. The book is titled Atlanta Pop in the '50s, '60's, and '70s: The Magic of Bill Lowery. You can purchase the book from Amazon by clicking HERE. The book's been available since April of this year. There's a limited preview section and there's a lot of mentions of Ray...in the index it shows that Ray's name appears several other times in areas of the book without the free preview. The back cover of the book has a nice photo of Joe South, Tommy Roe, and Billy Joe Royal. When you visit Ray's CabaRay showroom in Nashville you'll obviously make a stop inside the piano bar. On the wall overlooking the bar is a large portrait of Bill Lowery, with a drink in his hand, and a banner above that reads: The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium.

Ray Stevens: The abc's of NRC...

Several blog entries ago I wrote about the music of Ray Stevens during his brief stay with RCA Records (1980-1983). The tenure resulted in three studio albums during the years 1980, 1981, and 1982 and one compilation release in 1983 during the four years he was signed to the label. Ray had actually joined RCA late in 1979 but no recordings from him emerged until early in 1980. In this blog entry I'm going further back and re-visit his brief stay on a label known as NRC (1959-1960). The acronym stood for National Recording Corporation and it was owned by and operated by Bill Lowery, a guiding force in the early stages of Ray's career (and other recording acts as well). The label and the recordings originated in Atlanta, Georgia which itself was a major departure from the industry norms of the era which pretty much dictated that Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Nashville were the music recording centers of America. A disc jockey, originally, as well as a local television figure in the Atlanta, Georgia market Bill Lowery formed his own music publishing company, Lowery Music, and concentrated on publishing songs of all genres. Several of the songs he published ended up being recorded by country and pop music artists and two songs, in particular, were "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent (1956) and "Young Love", which saw four releases in quick succession: One of the song's writers, Ric Cartey, issued a version of the song in 1956 that didn't chart but then Sonny James released a version that become a gigantic country music hit and it crossed over and landed in the Top-10 of the pop charts in 1957. Then the actor, Tab Hunter, recorded the song and it overshadowed Sonny's version on pop music radio by hitting the top of the charts. A Canadian group, The Crew-Cuts, issued their version early in 1957 as well to eventual Top-20 success. As the publisher of "Young Love" it became one of Bill Lowery's biggest hit songs. He formed NRC in 1958 while Ray Stevens was still under contract at Capitol Records. Ray had been recording for Capitol, a contract resulting from Bill Lowery's influential recommendation/suggestion, for almost two years before making the move to Lowery's NRC label in 1959. Ray's first-ever commercially released recording happened to be on a subsidiary label of Capitol called Prep Records in 1957. The producer of Ray's recordings at the time was Ken Nelson.

As longtime fans of Ray Stevens should know but I'll make mention for newcomers...those earliest recordings for Capitol and NRC didn't chart nationally...well, one of them did, technically, but it was removed from radio playlists before it became "a hit". These non-charting singles represent Ray in his formative years on vinyl and long before his more familiar musical characteristics emerged. I don't need to tell longtime fans of Ray this but, as mentioned, the newcomers often are shocked to hear recordings by Ray from the late '50s to the mid '60s time frame. In those years, specifically the late '50s, Ray's recordings had a touch of teen-idol, romantic crooner atmosphere to them...but that shouldn't come as any surprise considering pop music of that time period was built around love ballads, teen angst, and sometimes tragic, emotionally heavy heartbreak in addition to the upbeat rock and roll sounds that are nostalgically tied to that era. In addition to being a vocalist at NRC he was also heavily involved as a writer, session musician, and music arranger of other artist's songs. If you search YouTube or do any kind of on-line image search for 'Ray Stevens + NRC Records' you'll find out a lot of information. The NRC recordings by an artist named Paul Peek has Ray credited as the Orchestra leader. Specifically it's referred to on the label as The Ray Stevens Orchestra. I do not know the names of any of the other musicians that were part of this orchestra but Ray's name headlines it so I assume he was the pianist and I'm guessing that Jerry Reed and Joe South were guitarists...but beyond those three I'd have no idea who the rest of the musicians happened to be. I know that Billy Joe Royal and Tommy Roe were part of the Georgia music scene, too, along side Ray and the others mentioned but I don't know if they were part of this 'orchestra' promoted on Paul Peek singles.

In the photo above I'm displaying a CD of 11 recordings by Ray Stevens as part of a series called The NRC Years. The series spotlighted the recording artists that recorded for the label in the late '50s and early '60s. There are some errors situated around this CD, however. On the cover it has his years at the label as 1958-1960 but in reality he wasn't on the NRC label until 1959. In addition to this there are a couple of songs in the collection that were recorded for Prep Records but were commercially unreleased in single format: "That's What She Means to Me" and "Cholly Wolly Chang". Those two recordings have appeared on a couple of compilation albums in the past but a single release was never available. Track ten, "Part of the Time", is another recording that never appeared on a commercially released single but it's available on this CD.

The recordings on this obscure CD collection are: "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", "Who Do You Love?", "Happy Blue Year", "High School Yearbook", "Truly True", "What Would I Do Without You?", "White Christmas", "My Heart Cries For You", "Cholly Wolly Chang", "Part of the Time", and "That's What She Means To Me". The first eight recordings were issued on NRC while the last three weren't. The Christmas recordings are instrumentals. NRC issued four singles on Ray and since a single consists of an A-side and a B-side that's eight recordings altogether. I have no information when "Part of the Time" was recorded. I don't know if he recorded it while at NRC but chances are it's a recording from his Capitol years, too, because both "Cholly Wolly Chang" and "That's What She Means to Me" are credited to Prep Records and noted as unreleased in the liner notes of another compilation CD on Ray that I have called Ahab, Jeremiah, Sgt. Preston and More...The Early Ray Stevens from 2014 and having not seen any conflicting information I take the liner note information to be credible. Those same three recordings that make up tracks 9, 10, and 11 of The NRC Years appear on a various artists LP from 1962 titled The Young Lovers. That project features 10 recordings (3 from Tommy Roe, 4 from Bobby Rydell, and 3 from Ray). As mentioned NRC released only four singles on Ray but he'd move on to Mercury Records in 1961 and literally move from Georgia to Nashville, Tennessee by 1962 but never fully leaving his Georgia-born roots behind.

To say Bill Lowery had an impact on the career of Ray Stevens is a gigantic understatement. Bill was responsible for getting Ray on records, first of all, and promoting the songs in addition to publishing practically everything Ray recorded for almost a decade (1957-1966). Ray, by 1966, had become more or less a seasoned veteran among session musicians in Nashville and other important and influential industry figures (Shelby Singleton, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Kennedy) had also seen all of the talents Ray had to offer during countless recording sessions for not only his own recordings but on the records of other artists. His move to Nashville spearheaded the path his career has taken ever since. Earlier this year when Ray opened his showroom, CabaRay, it specifically pays tribute to Music City, U.S.A. and several key figures that shaped Nashville into Music City. Photo's of record producers and musicians line the walls and the booth's are named for several record producers, too. When you think about it Bill Lowery received the biggest visual tribute at the CabaRay...informally called the piano bar it's officially known as The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium...and a large photo of Lowery, with a drink in his hand, decorates the wall above the bar.