Ray Stevens CabaRay performance: "Detroit City"

Hello fans of Ray Stevens! Earlier today, given that it's the birthday of Bobby Bare, Ray uploaded his own performance of "Detroit City". This particular song, from the pen of Mel Tillis and Danny Dill, had been recorded by Billy Grammer less than a year before Bobby's recording was released. In fact, the song was titled "I Wanna Go Home" when released by Billy Grammer. The song became a Top-20 country hit and peaked early in 1963. Bobby recorded the song in the spring of 1963 as "Detroit City" and by the end of the summer it hit the Top-10 on the country chart and crossed over to the Pop and Adult-Contemporary formats. The single crossed over internationally and reportedly hit number one in Sweden, Norway, and the Top-10 in Denmark. Bobby's recording was released on RCA and was produced by Chet Atkins. A few years later, in 1966, Ray did the arrangement for Bobby's recording of "Streets of Baltimore". If you have the vinyl album of Streets of Baltimore you'll see Ray credited with the arrangement of that recording. The liner notes for the album were written by Eddy Arnold. Chet Atkins was the producer. 

Ray speaks, briefly, about the recording session for the song. Something that one has to remember is that Ray witnessed a lot of recording sessions in his career. Now, of course, he played on a lot of recording sessions but what some may not realize is that Ray often was in recording studios during sessions and rehearsals that he, personally, didn't participate in but witnessed. He was often showing up at the recording studios of Mercury, Monument, Columbia, and RCA given his jack-of-all-trades skill set or he simply shown up due to his friendships with producers such as Shelby Singleton, Fred Foster, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Kennedy. 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville on YouTube, E-3, S-1...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! I watched episode 3 of Season 1 of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville on YouTube Friday night. On this episode the special guest is Bobby Bare. In these YouTube episodes there are a couple of commercial breaks...and in those commercials you'll see advertisements about the CabaRay showroom in Nashville. On tonight's episode Ray opened the show singing a classic Rhythm and Blues song, "High Heel Sneekers". The intro song in each episode, usually, indicates the kind of episode that you'll be viewing or the style of music a guest star might be known for. Bobby Bare is a bonafide country music artist but if you see him in concert or if you've seen him on television appearances you'll notice that he's got a laid back attitude, a matter-of-fact speaking style, but often times he gives off a cool, hep cat vibe. A master of informality. Bobby once recorded a novelty song under a different name, Bill Parsons. The song was "All American Boy". It's easy to make the case for Bobby Bare being a country music hep cat...or Nashville Cat. He has this unique ability to be very contemporary and in the know yet he doesn't allow that to interfere with what he wants to do with his own music. Bobby speaks about some of his experiences in the music industry...makes mention of Ray being the music arranger of "Streets of Baltimore". This episode was taped a few years prior to the death of Mel Tillis, who, during the appearance, Bobby mentions is still living. Bobby tells a fishing story involving Waylon Jennings, too, that you'll love hearing. Ray performs an always lively "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" near the end of the episode.

Ray Stevens: Bobby Bare performances...

Hello one and all...yesterday happened to be the 85th birthday of country music legend, Bobby Bare. To mark that event the social media sites of Ray Stevens posted a video clip of Bobby, from 2009, performing "Detroit City" on an episode of a short-lived sitcom Ray starred in called We Ain't Dead Yet. If you'd seen episodes of the clip-filled Rayality TV series, which recently ended it's run on RFD-TV, it contained bits and pieces from that 2009 series. In the video clip you'll see several people that have since passed away...



Bobby recorded the majority of his songs for RCA Records and in the producer's booth was Chet Atkins. The style of country music coming out of Nashville in the late 1950s and well into the early 1970s was nicknamed The Nashville Sound. Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley, and Bob Ferguson are typically given equal credit for creating The Nashville Sound. It could be described as pop music arrangements placed on top of, lyrically country, songs. In the umbrella of The Nashville Sound there was a style referred to as Countrypolitan and that sound, historically, is connected to the records produced by Billy Sherrill. This style expanded on the Nashville Sound and it incorporated even more strings, soaring music arrangements, more background harmonies, and there was an overall glossy/beautiful production of the traditional country song. Those who prefer minimal production with sparse instrumentation consider The Nashville Sound, and especially Countrypolitan, to be "overly-produced, overblown, over-the-top, overbearing, and obnoxious". Those are just some of the more polite descriptions from country music purists! Anyway...

Nearly a decade after Bobby Bare sang "Detroit City" on We Ain't Dead Yet in 2009 he was a guest star on an episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville a couple of years ago. In this episode one of the songs performed was "Streets of Baltimore". Bobby made reference to Ray's music arranging skills in this episode. Ray wasn't credited as an arranger on the recording. I'd previously searched for images of the single release and the LP, last year, and the music arrangers aren't credited.