Ray Stevens: YouTube Christmas Playlist...

Hello all Ray Stevens fans!! We're a few days from Christmas 2022 and for a lot of us we're going to be under a sub-arctic deep freeze for several days beginning early Friday morning. Wind chill readings will reach something like -30 and so it's not sure what's to come in the days ahead. Some people are getting blizzard/white-out conditions while others will get light snow (by comparison) aided by the sub-zero wind chills. Earlier this evening Ray Stevens shared his YouTube playlist of Christmas songs. The playlist contains 46 publicly available songs and Christmas-themed performances but there are 14 videos not available. My guess is those particular videos were once part of the playlist but weren't watched/shared as much and therefore become private/hidden. The playlist is a combination of music video productions and live performances from his CabaRay Nashville television series. There are various renditions of "Santa Claus is Watching You" in the playlist...including an audio of the 1962 recording, a live performance from the 1980's on Nashville Now, the 1985 music video, and a performance on CabaRay Nashville. Although Ray recorded an album of comical, funny Christmas songs he also recorded an album of traditional, serious Christmas songs plus an album of both funny and serious Christmas songs. The album titles are Ray Stevens Christmas Through a Different Window; Ray Stevens Christmas; and the third is titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. To view the YouTube playlist click HERE.

This particular Christmas album features 10 recordings. The entire album is great but some of the songs I'm highlighting will be among your best of the best I'm sure. First off there's the title track, "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me". Ray made this into a playful music video...complete with stuffed animals...and it's one of the few original Christmas songs to come out of Nashville in decades. Jeff Bates and a disc jockey by the name of John Ritter (not to be confused with the late actor) wrote the song. Ray performed it on his CabaRay Nashville television series, actually, before the song was released on CD. Ray follows this serious recording... yes, in spite of the amusing looking video, it's still a serious recording... Ray follows it with 6 consecutive Christmas songs that range from whimsical to hilarious: first off there's the back-to-back recordings of traditional Christmas songs - "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman". We then have "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" a recording which had previously appeared on Ray's 2012 9-CD box set, Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. We next have Ray and his marvelous cover of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" which also comes from the 2012 9-CD box set. Track 6 is the original, "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)". It's from the pen of Taylor Craven and Tommy Moore. Track 7 is Ray's outstanding rendition of "All I Want For Christmas is You"... the same song written and popularized by pop singer Mariah Carey. If you're wanting to hear a different rendition of the song... done completely serious but in the Ray Stevens type of style... look for the embed of the audio track at the end of this blog entry!

The final three songs on the 2016 CD are all originals, too. "Merry Christmas" is a statement on political correctness and how it's perfectly fine to publicly say "Merry Christmas" in addition to, or instead of, the generic Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings. The song had become a hit on Ray's YouTube channel prior to it being released on CD. "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day" is a song from the 1960s that Brenda Lee had previously recorded. She released her recording of it in 1964. Ray's music arrangement compliments the lyrical sorrow. The album's closer is a song Ray had written in the early 1960s and Perry Como, of all people, ended up recording it... the spiritually themed "Christmas Bells in the Steeple". Now, then, are you all ready for Ray's fabulous rendition of "All I Want for Christmas is You"??? Here it is...

Ray Stevens: Christmas Standards and Originals...

Off the top of my head I can only think of five original Christmas songs that come from the pen of Ray Stevens: "Santa Claus is Watching You", "Christmas Bells in the Steeple", "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz", "The Little Drummer Boy Next Door", and "Deck the Halls with Teardrops". Ray is credited as the co-writer, with Paul Alter and Buddy Kalb, of "The Little Drummer Boy Next Door". The other four songs Ray wrote himself. 

When you purchase a recording artist's Christmas album do you prefer standards or do you prefer all original recordings? I don't know of any recording artist that writes or finds nothing but original songs for a Christmas album. Usually there's a certain amount of familiarity that comes into play when a recording artist decides they want to do a Christmas album. What I mean by that is there's often some level of expectation from a consumer that there's going to be a heavy dose of standards either faithfully recorded to mirror the original or there's going to be re-arranged interpretations of standards. Christmas standards, for those unaware, are songs you hear every year at Christmas time by a wide variety of artists. Songs like: "Jingle Bells", "White Christmas", "Blue Christmas", "Holly Jolly Christmas", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", "Oh, Holy Night", "Jingle Bell Rock", "Silent Night", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", "Frosty the Snowman", and many, many more. A Christmas original is a song that, to date, had never been recorded by anyone else. It doesn't mean the song is brand new...it just means that it's never been recorded for any commercial release before. Almost all of the Christmas standards at one time, obviously, were original...but decades upon decades have passed by and singers down through those decades took it upon themselves to spotlight many of those particular songs on their Christmas albums. 

Ray Stevens has recorded three Christmas albums...and on each one of them there's at least one original song. 

His first Christmas album in 1997 was actually filled with original songs...2 of the songs were newly recorded renditions of a couple of Christmas songs he'd previously recorded in 1985: "Santa Claus is Watching You" and "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz". The 1997 recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You" was the third time Ray had recorded the song. There's the original in 1962...then there's the lyrically updated version in 1985 which was turned into his first music video...and then there's the 1997 re-recording of the 1985 version of the song. I don't really have an opinion on whether I prefer Christmas standards or Christmas originals. I like that Ray has included several original songs on his Christmas albums...but I'd still like them if all they featured were his renditions of Christmas standards. Some Christmas originals from Ray Stevens that were written by others include: "The King of Christmas", "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day", "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".   

Ray Stevens and his CabaRay Festivities...

Oh how long has it been since I've written a fan-created blog entry about Ray Stevens!?!? The previous one dealt with the charity golf event at the Temple Hills Country Club. A couple of days ago Ray uploaded a video clip promoting an upcoming New Year's Eve concert at the CabaRay and so I'm going to be posting that video clip momentarily but first I'm posting a reminder that Christmas season started early at the CabaRay. This past Friday (November 2) was the start of the series of concerts being promoted as Christmas at the CabaRay.

That is the publicity photo for the Christmas concert series. As you can see from the advertisement the concert series will last until the end of this year. I don't know if Ray will be performing Christmas songs heavily in the concerts taking place this month. In some of the commentary that appeared on-line late in October there was the possibility of slipping in some Christmas songs in his concerts, gradually, beginning November 2 and then by early December having a more or less entire concert play-list made up of Christmas music. I don't know how heavily the Christmas music will feature in the concerts that take place after December 25th or if he'll perform spiritual type music during those last two Christmas concert performances that month. Anyway...as of this writing the Christmas at the CabaRay concert series will take place on the following dates...keep in mind that concerts are performed on Friday and Saturday nights and so it isn't a 5 or 6 night a week schedule.

The remaining Christmas concerts scheduled for November will take place on the following dates: 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, and 30.

The Christmas concerts scheduled for December will take place on the following dates: 1, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 28, and 29.

If you'll notice there isn't any concert scheduled during the week before Christmas. As of this writing that week is empty. The next Christmas concert will take place on December 28th. The concert on December 6th is a Thursday and so that will be the heaviest activity with three concert dates in a row at the CabaRay.

If you're familiar with Ray's Christmas concerts of the past (several were staged at Opryland in the late 1990s) then you should already know how much detail he puts into the Christmas-themed concerts and how much fun they happen to be for those that attend. Since these are taking place at his own venue you can be sure there will be even more detail and atmosphere added to put you in a Christmas mood. After the Christmas concert series wraps up on December 29th then there will be a New Year's Eve concert on December 31st. This will, of course, close out the calendar year. Ray's planning an extravagant event to close out 2018 and bring in 2019. In addition to the concert performance there will be a secondary event featuring the band/orchestra as it approaches midnight. Champagne will of course be on hand and once 2019 gets underway at 12:00am January 1st the festivities will move into the Piano Bar (also known as The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium). All of the information concerning the New Year's Eve concert in addition to the Christmas at the CabaRay concert series can be found by watching the video clip below. By that I mean a phone number will appear in the video that you can call for ticket information for any concert taking place at the CabaRay.

Ray Stevens: Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)...

Hello one and all!!! It's been a couple weeks since my previous blog post. A lot of the time happened to be spent at my job. I work in an industry that ships packages/freight all over the globe and so during December, especially, the volume of packages increases a thousand percent and so I've been having to work 6 days a week...leaving me little time for on-line activity. As a result the time I do have at home is spent sleeping...with only half an hour or less available for the internet and so I visit Facebook and other social media sites and seek out anything about Ray Stevens that happens to be new. Peak season at my job should be over by the end of this week...but we shall see...in the meantime...

I came across an article about one of the songs on Ray's current Christmas CD, Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. The song's called "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)" and I've mentioned it in some of my previous blog posts. The article I came across focuses on it's writers, Tommy Crawford and Taylor Craven, and the story behind the song. It also features comments from Ray, too. You can read the article by clicking this LINK. I echo the thoughts expressed in the article...I, too, hope the song becomes something of a Christmas standard in the same vein as other Christmas novelty songs. There isn't any YouTube music video of this song from Ray but I certainly hope he releases a video for it...the month of December isn't over...but, of course, you can purchase the Mp3 of "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)" from Amazon by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens: Upcoming Christmas CD...

Hello one and all...this is going to be super short notice but an upcoming Christmas CD from Ray Stevens is expected to be released tomorrow (November 14th). It's a 10 song collection...7 of the recordings are exclusive to the CD while 3 of the recordings have previously been released. The previously released recordings are "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (both recordings from the 2012 Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music) and "Merry Christmas" (originally released as a music video in 2012...first appearance on a CD collection).

The upcoming release is titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. Ray's on-line store has it for sale already and it'll go on sale all over the internet on November 14th. Several days ago I did a music search for Ray Stevens and discovered this upcoming release but I never made mention of it on this blog because I knew very little about it. Ray hadn't even publicized it's upcoming release, either, and so I decided I'd better keep my discovery to myself just in case the release appeared on-line prematurely (such things are known to happen). Amazon's Mp3 store is the place I discovered the project, by the way. The CD's title track comes from the pen of country music artist Jeff Bates. I didn't know this until another Ray Stevens fan pointed it out. There is audio/video of Jeff performing the song but I've deliberately kept myself from viewing it. I want to discover the song through the Ray Stevens recording and then later I'll take a listen to the recording by it's writer.

So, then, just what exactly are the 10 songs on this CD? I've already listed 4 of them (the 3 from 2012 and the previously unreleased title track). The remaining 6 recordings are: "Frosty the Snowman", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "All I Want for Christmas Is You", "Christmas Bells (In the Steeple)", "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", and "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day". Isn't that cover photo lovely? It's a scene perfect for a Christmas card, and speaking of which, if you order the CD from Ray's on-line music store you'll receive a Christmas card as a free gift. The card spotlights the cover of the CD. I did some research on some of the recordings and I found out that track 9 had been published by Ray's company and previously recorded in the early '60s by Brenda Lee. Much in the way you can seek out the Jeff Bates recording of "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", also known as The Donkey Song, you can also find the Brenda Lee recording of "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day". The awesome thing about this is the fact that Ray published the song but had never recorded it until now. If you happen to have the Brenda Lee recording then you've already been aware for years that Ray's Ahab Music Company published it. It's something I happened to just find out during my research several days ago. For clarification: Ray's main publishing company (he has several) hasn't been called Ahab Music Company since the late '70s. He changed it to Ray Stevens Music, the name it continues to operate under, but songs that originated prior to the change in name have to remain under their original publishing credits. If you see any song credited to Ahab Music Company then those publishing credits occurred prior to 1978. In addition Ray has several record labels. Clyde Records is the main one but lately he's been using the CabaRay Entertainment imprint.

The songs, in order, are: "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", "Frosty the Snowman", "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", "All I Want for Christmas is You", "Merry Christmas", "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day", and "Christmas Bells (In the Steeple)".

You can purchase your copy of Ray's latest CD by clicking HERE.

Give the Christmas gift of Ray Stevens...

Here we are...a week before Christmas Eve 2012. This image is probably familiar as I believe I used this one a few blogs ago when I wrote about the non-comical Ray Stevens Christmas CD from 2009. Over the course of the last few days I submitted some long-awaited orders at the Ray Stevens web-store and so any day this week the items should arrive in the mail. Hopefully nobody goes into shock after reading this but I'm thrilled to announce that I finally purchased the physical CD of Spirit of '76!! I had purchased the digital download way back when it became available in the spring of 2011 but I never got around to actually purchasing the physical CD until now. I can't wait to have the CD in my hands instead of just having the songs on my on-line music program. Another of the items I ordered was a DVD of Ray's Patriots and Politics. This DVD contains a concert taped in Branson, Missouri. It's described as the second half of the concert whereas the first half is featured on the DVD titled Such a Night: 50 Years of Hits and Hilarity. Why didn't I purchase both DVD's? Well, I wanted to see Ray perform several songs that, to date, I hadn't seen him perform in a concert setting. His concert performance of "We the People", for example, was uploaded to You Tube several months ago and I've also seen him perform the song on a couple of TV programs and so I'm familiar with the way he performs that particular song in a live setting but there are several other songs that I can't wait to see him perform and so that's what caused me to purchase the second half of the concert first and then later on I'll get the first half of the show. I also sent away for the Blue Christmas EP that I wrote about in the previous blog entry and I also purchased this songbook from the early '90s that Ray used to offer to fan club members. The fan club is no longer in existence, having ended in 2002, but in this era of social media artists don't really need to have a fan club in the traditional sense of the word. The general public can follow an artist's Twitter or Facebook pages and be kept up to date in addition to interacting with other fans. A mailing list is probably the only thing that serves the purpose of a fan club nowadays. This songbook's cover doesn't indicate if it contains lyrics just that it features piano notes and guitar chords to a list of songs from Ray's catalog. I'm no musician but the reason I purchased it is simply because it's an item that I think is rare, obscure, and probably of interest only to the most devoted of fans and so I felt it necessary to purchase it once it had become available for sale again. I also like the picture of Ray that was used on the cover...the same one used on the low-budget compilation, At His Best, that MCA issued in 1992.