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: Great Country Ballads YouTube Playlist...

When Ray Stevens began releasing digital albums earlier this year the first one to become available was Great Country Ballads. The album contains 12 country music classics with different music arrangements, different vocal phrasing from Ray Stevens, and new life. The album was released in February...and for the next three months Ray issued one digital album per month culminating in July with the release of the 4-CD box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. That box set features the four previously released digital downloads in compact disc format. Ray issued Great Country Ballads first...followed in March with Melancholy Fescue. In the month of April he issued Slow Dance and in May came Nouveau Retro. Curb Records is the label upon which Ray recorded these albums and they have made them available in a variety of music platforms and formats. The most convenient format is the digital download...simply click and download the music to your listening device or your computer's music library. If you want to have something much more convenient than that simply visit YouTube and search for Ray Stevens and whichever album you're wanting to look up. Once you submit your search a playlist of the album will become available...and from there you can listen to all of the audio tracks from an album. It's that simple! Also, you can purchase the digital downloads through Curb Records website or from Amazon and other online music stores. Each release is available in digital download format but the box set collection is only available in compact disc. So, if you're wanting compact discs and such things as cover art, liner notes, musician credit information, etc. etc. then you should purchase the 4-CD box set. It's available on Amazon and at the Ray Stevens webstore. 

This blog entry, though, is about the playlist. I'm going to embed the playlist for Great Country Ballads within this paragraph. On this album, in case you don't have it, Ray does his versions of "Crying Time", "Please Help Me, I'm Falling", "City Lights", "Room Full of Roses", and "Till I Get It Right" just to name several. There are 12 songs on each of the four compact discs. The YouTube playlist for Great Country Ballads can be found HERE. 

Ray Stevens audio track: "Room Full of Roses"...

Hello to all of the Ray Stevens fans on this very early Friday morning!! In this blog entry I'm embedding the audio track of "Room Full of Roses" from Great Country Ballads. This will be the 9th audio track from that particular album that I've shared. There are 12 songs on that album...the three that I haven't embedded in any blog entry are "Crazy", "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You", and "Crying Time". Ray's rendition of "Room Full of Roses" is completely different, both in instrumentation and phrasing, than the one made famous by Mickey Gilley. Ray sings as a country crooner and there's a bluesy background accompanying him. The fascinating thing about this album and the other three that make up the 4-CD box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, is that most of the music heard on the album is from Ray Stevens himself. 

He's always played piano/keyboards on his recording sessions...but on these particular albums he played synthesizer-created trombones, harps, drums, and bass guitar. The musician credits for "Room Full of Roses", specifically, are: Ray Stevens (Piano/keyboards; Bass; Drums; Trombones). Jerry Kimbrough is the Acoustic Guitarist while Denis Solee is the one playing Saxophone. Ray is also the background/harmony singers on this track. On some of the other albums in the box set Ray is also credited as playing a Celeste. Now, not possessing the knowledge of a wide variety of musical instruments, I looked up what a Celeste happens to be and if you saw one you'd probably mistake it, as I'm sure I have, for a small upright Piano. I watched a YouTube video of a Celeste demonstration and once I heard it played I immediately thought about a song Ray recorded with a calliope sound effect...and I thought to myself that Ray must have gotten that effect not from a synthesizer but from a Celeste. 

Anyway...Ray, as you could tell from my brief paragraph, was heavily involved in the production of Great Country Ballads and he put in a lot of work building the music. Some of his contemporaries and those relatively new to the business probably lay down a rough vocal track for the producers and musicians to go by and then a producer does all of the technical work and then, perhaps, the singer returns for the final master recordings (the ones that'll be on the album)...and then the producers dub in the musicians later...and the singer either goes back out on tour or goes home. You always get the feeling that Ray does things just a little bit differently given his talents in a recording studio. He's involved with a recording from start to finish. On all of his albums he's the record producer, the music arranger, the singer, and he's one of the musicians. Have a listen to Ray Stevens and his rendition of "Room Full of Roses"...

Ray Stevens audio track: "Sweet Dreams"...

Hello all...we're going back half a year to February 2021 when Ray Stevens released Great Country Ballads as a digital download on Curb Records. The digital album hit the internet on February 26th. If you search the archives here, for the month of February 2021, you'll find my review of the album. You can also find my review over on Amazon. Great Country Ballads was the first of four digital albums from Ray Stevens released this year. Those four digital download releases were released last month, in CD format, in a box set titled Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. I've uploaded audio tracks from Great Country Ballads before and this blog entry focuses on another audio track, "Sweet Dreams", that can now be found on both Great Country Ballads and Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. The song is a country music classic...but it also crossed over and reached the pop music audience. Here's a small summary of the song's history... 

The song's writer, Don Gibson, reached the Country singles chart twice with the song...and each time it finished in the Country Top-10. There's a 1956 Top-10 recording and then there's a 1960 Top-10 recording...but in between the two Top-10 renditions from Don Gibson there was a massively popular rendition in 1956 by Faron Young. In fact, the Top-10 recording by Faron Young, was the bigger hit...eclipsing the peak position of Don Gibson within the same year. Although the song had become an established country hit in the late 1950s a recording by Patsy Cline became a big hit in 1963. She died in an airplane crash in March 1963...and her recording hit the chart in April. It reached the Country Top-10 and crossed over to the pop chart...reaching the Top-50 nationally which enabled her recording to become the definitive one with audiences outside of country music. It would be her rendition, in years and decades to follow, that overshadowed the earlier recordings from Don Gibson as well as Faron Young.

Now, a little more than a decade later, Emmylou Harris would reach number one with her recording...and Reba McEntire had a Top-20 country hit with it. The song, as mentioned, became a country music classic and versions of the song were recorded by dozens of recording artists. On Great Country Ballads Ray Stevens gets his chance at "Sweet Dreams" and it's got a nice, easy-going delivery. Ray overdubs his own vocals in different harmonies to create background accompaniment for this recording. Glen Duncan is the fiddle player as well as the mandolin player on the recording. Ray plays keyboards and is credited with synthesizer generated instrumentation (such as trombones, harps, etc.) and he is also credited on this album as a drummer. I don't know if the drum is also created with a synthesizer or if Ray is actually playing a set of drums. Denis Solee plays the saxophone while Jerry Kimbrough plays guitar. In fact, every track on the album features instrumentation from Ray, Denis, and Jerry. You're going to love the Ray Stevens recording of "Sweet Dreams".      

Ray Stevens: The Great Country Ballads unique Play Totals...

As mentioned in my previous blog entry I've decided to document the audio track play totals from YouTube of Ray's four digital albums released this year. I've previously written a blog entry for Nouveau Retro and Melancholy Fescue...now it's time for Great Country Ballads. 

This digital album was the first of four releases from Ray Stevens earlier this year. It also makes sense that the first digital album would have the most audio tracks with more than a thousand unique YouTube plays. Why? Because the audio tracks have been available on YouTube the longest and therefore those songs have had the opportunity for online discovery the longest. These YouTube audio plays are only a snapshot in time. The numbers will inevitably rise as time goes by...but I thought it something fun to do as a way to showcase the exposure Ray's songs from his digital albums are getting with no mainstream or widespread publicity to speak of. At the close of this blog entry I've embedded his rendition of "Sweet Dreams". He harmonizes with himself in the recording...overdubbing his own voice to create a harmony singer. A prominent instrument in the recording is the Dobro. It's unlike any version you've previously heard. 

As I've stated numerous times people find the songs of Ray Stevens on YouTube and they take a listen to them...an unofficial estimated guess on my part would be something like 60 percent of people discover Ray Stevens on their own while another 40 percent have probably been aware of him for decades. 

The letter, K, in the play totals refers to thousands of plays. 9.8, for example, means that the audio track has received anywhere between 9,800 and 9,899 unique plays on YouTube.

1. Your Cheatin' Heart  (9.8K audio plays)

2. Please Help Me, I'm Falling  (5.4K audio plays)

3. Crazy  (2.2K audio plays)

4. Room Full of Roses  (1.8K audio plays)

5. Bouquet of Roses  (1.3K audio plays)

6. City Lights  (1,198 audio plays)

7. I Can't Stop Loving You  (1,151 audio plays)

8. Sweet Dreams  (1,146 audio plays)

9. I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You  (719 audio plays)

10. Making Believe  (692 audio plays)

11. Crying Time  (676 audio plays)

12. Till I Get It Right  (600 audio plays)

Ray Stevens: Great Country Ballads promo...

Hello all...while I was away from the internet for several hours today I return and find that Ray Stevens uploaded a promo video on YouTube of Great Country Ballads. This digital album was released back in February and was the first in a series of four digital albums released by Ray on Curb Records. The promo features online streaming sites and online shopping stores being advertised on-screen as the album cover of Great Country Ballads appears next to Ray...he's seated at a piano inside his CabaRay showroom. As you watch the video you'll hear Ray's rendition of the Patsy Cline hit, "Crazy", playing in the background. Ray covers Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Tammy Wynette, Mickey Gilley, and others on Great Country Ballads. Although it's a video promo for the digital album, it's Ray Stevens, and he makes anything entertaining...take a look...

Ray Stevens: 3-Month Recap...

Hello once again all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I felt like doing a recap of the last 3 months since we're a couple of weeks away from Ray releasing his 4th digital album of 2021. Ray began releasing one digital album per month beginning this past February. The first release, Great Country Ballads, has seen a lot of activity on YouTube. The audio clips that Curb Records placed on YouTube have definitely attracted some attention. In the traditional sense a unique view is captured when a computer accesses a video clip for the first time. Multiple views from the same computer/device isn't counted. When it comes to audio I wonder if they call it a unique play or a unique listen since we're not viewing...we're listening to the music. I assume it's still referred to as a unique view even for audio clips. 

Whether it's a unique view or a unique listen the 12 audio clips from Great Country Ballads emerged in late February. Ray promoted one of the audio clips on his social media pages...the audio clip of "Your Cheatin' Heart". Since this audio clip was promoted on his social media pages it has the most unique listen's to date, 9.4K. The second most listened-to audio is "Please Help Me I'm Falling" with more than 5,000 unique views. Ray's rendition of "Crazy" has received 2.1K. "City Lights" and "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You" both have a little over 1,000 unique views. The remaining audio clips from the album have unique view totals that range between 500 and 900. The audio clip with the lowest unique views is "Till I Get It Right" at 520. I'm by no means a tech person...that is I don't know the intricate details of how unique views rack up or how to decipher between what's called a paid view and what's called an organic view. I'm guessing that an organic view, from what I've been able to find through online searching, is referred to as any webpage or video clip that gets clicked by an online user, on their own, without having any kind of paid advertising steering them into the direction of the webpage or the video link. I guess organic views are what make up the traffic on this blog considering I don't pay to have it promoted all over the internet but the stats, which are visible only to me, show that visitors from all over the country and the world visit this blog.  

Ray followed Great Country Ballads in late March with his much anticipated Bluegrass project, Melancholy Fescue. He subtitled the album High Class Bluegrass due to the music being a blend of Bluegrass and symphonic accompaniment. The audio clip promoted by Ray happened to be "Goin' Out of My Head" and that particular audio received, to date, 3.9K. A second audio clip matched this, the medley "Ruby / Ruby Baby"...to date racking up 3.9 thousand unique views. The third most played audio from the digital album is "Oh, Pretty Woman" at 2.3K. Ray had been planning this album for a number of years...actually, he'd been planning several of these albums for almost a decade...and he made a music video of "Unchained Melody" and uploaded it in October 2013. Since the music video's been online for nearly 8 years it's obtained more than 900,000 unique views. The audio clip from Curb Records has gotten a little over 1,000 unique views. Ray's medley of two songs with the same title "In The Still of the Night / In the Still of the Night" has 829 unique views. The online activity of these audio clips are ever changing so these reports I'm doing right now are a snapshot in time. The view-counts will increase with the passage of time. 

Following Great Country Ballads and Melancholy Fescue, Ray delivered his third digital album in late April titled Slow Dance. It's only been available for a week and a half...tomorrow will mark it's second week of availability (it was released on April 23rd). A couple of audio clips were promoted on Ray's social media pages. The first being "Only You and You Alone" and it's gotten 8.3K. Organic views have caused "Unforgettable" to garner more than 3,000 unique views on YouTube. Ray recently posted an audio clip of "Slow Dancing" on his social media pages and it's nearing 2,000 unique views at the moment. I'm reporting on the unique views of YouTube. Ray also shares some of his audio clips on his Facebook page but I'm only focusing on the YouTube stats. Some of the other audio clips from Slow Dance that have gotten at least 1,000 unique views are: "The Great Pretender" at 1.3K; "Make Believe / It's Only Make Believe" at 1.4K; and "Dream" which also has 1.3K. An audio clip nearing 1,000 unique views is "I'll See You In My Dreams" which has 955 as of now. In case you didn't notice most of the songs on this album are part of what's promoted as The Great American Songbook. Ray does a rendition of "Stardust" (645 unique views) and "What a Wonderful World" (805 unique views). 

All three digital albums saw some activity on the Top-100 New Releases Digital music chart on Amazon. Slow Dance continues to appear on that Top-100 list.

The fourth digital album will be released near the end of this month...May 21st is release day! Nouveau Retro will feature several more songs from the Great American Songbook did in ways that are completely different. The album hitting later this month appears to be a ballad heavy offering much like Great Country Ballads and Slow Dance. Melancholy Fescue was the only one featuring more up-tempo songs...which was to be expected given it's a Bluegrass album. Glancing over the songs that are on Nouveau Retro I see "Cry Me a River", "Earth Angel", "April in Paris", and "You Don't Know Me" just to name four. I'll start writing more about that digital album the closer we get to May 21st. In the meantime here's Ray's awesome rendition of "Unforgettable" from Slow Dance...

Ray Stevens: "Great Country Ballads" returns to Amazon's Top-100...

Hello all once again! As I've mentioned several times this year I'm not keeping day-to-day track of where Ray's digital albums are placing among Amazon's Top-100. Those lists are updated every hour. Every so often I'll go and look and make a note of it...and today is one of those days. Ray's previous digital album, Great Country Ballads, as you can see, has returned to the Top-100 on Amazon's best selling New Releases list. I don't know how long a CD or digital album has to be available before it's no longer called a New Release...but having said that I was surprised to see Great Country Ballads make such a return considering Melancholy Fescue is the one that's been on and off the Amazon Top-100 lately. Great Country Ballads was the first of four digital albums being released this year by Ray Stevens on Curb Records. It was released late in February. Last month Melancholy Fescue arrived and in a couple of days the third digital album, Slow Dance, will make it's online debut. A lot of you already know most of the things I blog about but there's always going to be some segment of any recording artist's fanbase who are much more reactive than pro-active. By this I mean some fans wait until their favorite singer puts out new songs or makes an announcement of an upcoming album on the way...and then there's the pro-active fans who initiate contact with a singer's social media pages and ask questions about this or that...hoping to get a heads up on future activity/releases long before there's any sort of announcement made to the general public. I wouldn't consider myself any kind of insider but I do attempt to be pro-active and promote Ray's music and career in my own kind of way. I often don't wait until a press release hits the internet...if I'm curious about something I'll send messages to his official website or social media accounts rather than wait around and be reactive. Since I write a fan created blog about the music and career of Ray Stevens you pretty much can't be reactive...you prefer to be pro-active...and blog about the latest happenings, in real time, rather than blog about it half a week, or, two weeks after the news broke. Now that I've given some unsolicited advice here's an audio clip of one of the songs from Great Country Ballads...a country standard called "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You" done in an entirely different way from the Hank Williams rendition most people are familiar with...

Ray Stevens: Great Country Ballads on Amazon's Top-100...

Hello all...I never thought to keep track of the Top-100 best seller lists over on Amazon even though Ray's current album, Great Country Ballads, was released almost a month ago (February 26th). Those best-seller lists change hourly but I decided to visit Amazon's website and I looked up the New Releases, Digital Music, and I selected the Country music format. In the Amazon Top-100 for Digital Download new releases Great Country Ballads is near the Top-40 as of this hour (10-11pm Eastern). It has me wondering how long the album's been in that Top-100 and if it had ranked higher than where it currently is or if the current position is a sign that it's moving upward. The Digital album is only listed on that specific Best Selling New Releases Top-100 for country music...over on Amazon the overall list is called Amazon Hot New Releases and there's categories for all the various music formats. Since those lists are updated hourly I'll check them in an hour from now and see if the digital album has moved up or down or remained in the same sales position. 

Have you purchased or listened to any of the audio tracks from Ray's current album yet? He'll be releasing the second of four all new digital albums this coming Friday (March 26th). Once it becomes available I'll purchase it, write a review over on Amazon, and then paste it here on the blog...or I might switch it around and write a review here and then paste it over on Amazon. You can purchase the digital download over on Amazon by clicking HERE. If you prefer to listen to the songs online you can visit YouTube and search for each song individually. Curb Records uploaded all of the audio tracks from the current album onto YouTube and so I'm assuming they'll be doing the same this coming Friday when the next Ray Stevens album is released!!

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Making Believe"...

In this Ray Stevens rendition of the country music classic, "Making Believe", Ray puts his music arranging skills front and center. When I first heard Ray's version of the song when I downloaded Great Country Ballads last month I thought to myself that it may be one of the songs he'll perform at his CabaRay once it re-opens. It has that extra something, to my ears anyway, that has me thinking it might be an audio clip he'll promote on social media at some point this year. If record companies were still issuing singles "Making Believe" sounds like a future single release. If you want to purchase the digital download of the entire album you can click HERE. I've been featuring audio clips from the album that Curb Records uploaded onto YouTube. 

In years past I'd promote the purchasing of music but with the recording industry pushing digital downloading and streaming on a wide variety of social media platforms, more or less dissuading the practice of purchasing the music in favor of their getting revenue based on the amount of downloads, clicks, or unique views a song has accumulated...with all of that becoming the standard practice in the music industry I've loosened up my attitude, a little, and won't preach about why consumers should still purchase music rather than listening to audio clips that record companies place on the internet. Now, having said that, I still plan on purchasing the CD-format box set this summer and I'm doing so because I still prefer music on a physical CD and I'm also purchasing it for the Box Set's artwork and musician, songwriter, and publisher credits. Some of Ray's fans probably are going to wait until June and purchase the box set...some fans are probably going to only purchase the individual digital albums and not the box set...whereas some fans, like myself, are purchasing the individual digital download albums AND will be purchasing the CD box set.   

"Making Believe" goes back to 1955 when it's writer, Jimmy Work, released it as a single. His version became a hit but, in those days, well established recording artists also liked to do their version of the latest hit single, too. Kitty Wells recorded "Making Believe" the same year, 1955, and her recording spent 15 weeks in the runner-up position on the Billboard country chart. It couldn't dislodge "In the Jailhouse Now" from the top spot...a song that would spend 21 weeks at number one. The father/daughter duo, The Kendalls, released a version of the song in 1977 as did Emmylou Harris. Her recording hit the Top-10 on the country chart. In 1987 legendary country music artists Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn recorded a version together for a collection sold on television on Heartland Records. A year later their recording became the title track of what would be their final duet album together during his lifetime.

Those are just some of the recording artists that put the song on the country charts over the years. It's been recorded by dozens of other recording artists over the decades. Ray Stevens took his turn at recording "Making Believe" for Great Country Ballads and he puts his own feel to it...

Ray Stevens: Country Road TV Artist of the Month

Hello all of you fans of Ray Stevens!! I'm sure most of you have known that the month of March on Country Road TV was declared Ray Stevens month. Well, in a more formal way of saying it, Ray is the Artist of the Month. Country Road TV is one of those networks that by-passes conventional cable television and offers their content online through a subscription. This doesn't meant you have to sit in front of your computer to watch it...most modern television sets come with APP menus and streaming capability so what once was only available to see on a computer screen is also available on your television screens with the proper APP installed. The network is available on Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and on computer, laptop, and phone devices. The channel offers a lot of country music programming...including complete episodes of the television show Marty Robbins hosted, Spotlight. Ray appeared on two of those episodes. In one episode Ray was the spotlight artist and in another he was a special guest on the Chet Atkins episode where they both sang "Frog Kissing". In the Artist of the Month page for Ray Stevens they include a somewhat breezy biography and eight videos that feature an appearance from Ray Stevens. In most of the clips he's the main focus but there's some video of his appearances on the Country Family Reunion specials and those feature well over 30 recording artists on each episode. 

I'd been keeping track, a little bit, and I noticed thousands of people have heard the latest recordings from Ray Stevens on his Great Country Ballads album. The audio tracks from the album on YouTube have obtained a lot of activity in the last couple of weeks since the album's release. Curb Records will be releasing the second of his four all new albums later this month...the Bluegrass flavored Melancholy Fescue. The release date for this collection will be March 26th. 

Like Great Country Ballads I'll be purchasing the digital download of Melancholy Fescue at the end of the month and I'll be writing a review. As I've mentioned in several previous blog entries these albums are a showcase for the music arranging skills of Ray Stevens. He produces and arranges all of his albums but most people overlook those arrangement skills...it seems like his arranging talents only get noticed whenever he does his versions of songs previously recorded by other artists...even though he's the music arranger on every song he's recorded over the last 50 plus years. Anyway, these kinds of upcoming albums that Ray will be releasing will put his music arranging skills front and center. Just in case you're asking yourselves or are wondering about it...the question of 'what is a music arranger?'. Well, the music arranger is the person who figures out the kinds of instruments that'll be heard in a song and where they'll be heard. The arranger also should be able to read and write music and understand the basics of music structure. It can be a very technical thing if you're just walking into that field but most often the music arranger has natural ability, or, a special gift enabling them to do what they do. I don't think music arranging is something you can sit down and teach someone but maybe you can. I think I'd heard Ray, in various interviews, credit Bill Justis as being influential when it came to his own interest in arranging music. However, Ray was already a skilled musician and songwriter by the time his name began appearing on his albums as music arranger, too, in addition to record producer credits. Now then, we already have Great Country Ballads chock full of songs arranged in Ray's interpretations so now we're anticipating the next release, Melancholy Fescue.   

Ray Stevens audio clip: "City Lights"...

Hello all fans of Ray Stevens!! The current album from Ray, Great Country Ballads, is just the first of four upcoming digital downloads. The second new album will hit in a couple of weeks. I'm sure most of you, if not all of you, have made your way over to YouTube and listened to the songs on Ray's current album. Curb Records uploaded all of the songs for your listening pleasure on YouTube. I also purchased the album through an on-line store. In this blog entry I decided to include the audio of "City Lights" which had been a huge country music hit for Ray Price from the pen of Bill Anderson. The single had also become a big hit for Mickey Gilley. In interviews Bill spoke about some of the inspiration behind the song...he was looking outside a window and seen a street of lights that lined the city blocks and they seemed to go on and on for miles but yet no such lights existed outside city limits. He created a story of how bright and pretty those lights were and how they can be seductive to certain kinds of people and how some fall prey to the allure of those lights (honky-tonking/drinking). Anyway, I had heard both of their versions of "City Lights" but I hadn't heard the renditions by other recording artists. The Ray Stevens version of "City Lights" is unlike the familiar performances by Ray Price and later, Mickey Gilley. "City Lights" is one of twelve songs found in the current Ray Stevens release...

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Please Help Me I'm Falling"...

One of the things I've often done over the last 10 years is keep an eye on the exposure that Ray Stevens songs are getting on the internet. The biggest impact online comes from several places: his official webpage, his official Facebook page, and his official YouTube channel. Curb Records, the label he's currently associated with, issued audio clips of his current digital album, Great Country Ballads. I've embedded several of those audio clips as well as the one uploaded onto Ray's official YouTube channel, "Your Cheatin' Heart". Since that one is associated with his official channel over there it's gotten the most unique views with 8.4K at the moment (8,400 + ). 

Next in line is "Please Help Me I'm Falling in Love With You" with a little over 3,000 unique views. The exact number is 3,233. That YouTube audio clip was also issued by Curb Records right around the time the digital album was released. I don't know what caused that audio clip, in particular, to jump out and capture the most unique views among those that Curb Records uploaded...something tells me modern audiences not familiar with the Hank Locklin classic seen the shortened title, "Please Help Me I'm Falling", and seen Ray's name, and perhaps assumed it would be some sort of comical song and they gave it a listen? That's just a theory, though. Ray gives the song a completely different music arrangement just in case you're just finding out that Ray has new recordings available. 

 

Ray Stevens audio clip: "I Can't Stop Loving You"

The ballad side of Ray Stevens comes into full display on Great Country Ballads. I've written several blog entries promoting the album leading up to it's release date (today) and I've written commentary on several social media sites throughout the afternoon. In my previous blog entry I provided my review of the collection. I looked over some of the things I wrote and, as always, I found things I dwelled on too much and other things I didn't give enough spotlight to. I chose the photo of Ray to capture the overall serious mood of the brand new album. One of the things that, in hindsight, was important to do from a marketing standpoint was not emphasize that it would be a traditional country music album. The album's title doesn't specifically suggest there's going to be 'classic country' arrangements backing these recordings...it's simply an album of love ballads that originated in country music but performed in a completely different way by the legendary Ray Stevens. I found out that Denis Solee is the saxophonist heard on these recordings. He's usually the one on mostly all of Ray's albums. He appears on Ray's CabaRay Nashville television show, too, and so I should have just assumed it was him but I wanted to be accurate. Since it's a digital album there aren't any credits for musicians or the engineer. The songwriter and publisher credits are visible on digital downloads, though. The image below is a promotional banner advertising that the new digital album is now available. It's not an image link to an online store! Almost 10 years ago I used a banner advertisement for Ray's Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music on most of my blog entries and on social media sites I was often asked why the banner wasn't linked to Ray's online webstore. So, before anyone clicks the image, it isn't a link to any online store. It's just a promotional banner for the digital album. 

Ray's been working on these albums for a number of years. If you have Ray's 2014 memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, he made mention of two of the albums in that memoir...they were a work in progress. The albums had been in the planning and development stage for more than 6 years and, at last, they're starting to see the light of day. Ray will release 3 more digital albums over the next three months...one new album per month (March, April, and May). In June a box set will be released with all 4 digital albums available in CD format. Curb Records, as mentioned in a previous blog entry, has uploaded the audio clips from the album onto YouTube. The album is on Ray's Spotify page and you can find it on all the digital music stores. I purchased mine on Amazon. This isn't an official audio clip from Ray's YouTube channel...instead it's one of the audio clips on YouTube provided by Curb Records. It's Ray's rendition of "I Can't Stop Loving You". That song is a classic...having been recorded by it's songwriter, Don Gibson, as well as Ray Charles in addition to Conway Twitty and hundreds of recording artists. Ray Stevens brings a different arrangement to the iconic song as only he can. 

Ray Stevens: My Review of "Great Country Ballads"...

Well, well, well...it's me once again!! I've just finished listening to and taking notes about the brand new Ray Stevens album, Great Country Ballads. The album had several surprises as far as instrumentation is concerned. If you're going into this with the mindset that it's going to be a wild, zany vocal display of mayhem and comedy then you'll be surprised by the seriousness with which he performs these 12 songs. The album's title should be a clue for those unaware of what lay in store on this album...you'll be treated to 12 ballads performed with updated arrangements by Ray Stevens. I took notes on all of the songs but I'm not going to critique each and every song. I mainly took notes, out of habit, so I could look to them when writing my review. The digital download opens with "Please Help Me, I'm Falling". Ray establishes how 98 percent of the album will sound with this opening track. He lowers the tempo from what most may recall from the original by Hank Locklin. Ray puts in a lot of soul and rhythm and blues flavor before bringing it to it's climax. To my ears those are the sounds that Ray is generating on the recording...some may consider it smooth jazz.

His rendition of "Crazy" is similar to how he performed it in the late 1990s on an episode of the country music show, Primetime Country. That performance is on YouTube. The song comes from the pen of Willie Nelson and it was a huge hit for Patsy Cline and it was a hit for Emmylou Harris and later, Reba McEntire. His take on "City Lights" is unlike any version previously available...from the pen of Bill Anderson it became a hit for Ray Price and later, Mickey Gilley, and Bill himself recorded a version of it a couple of times over the decades. Ray Stevens gives it a sung-narration feel and he's over-dubbed his own voice to create a background harmony. He does this on several other recordings but the bulk of the harmony singing on the album comes from his usual female group. The thing about a digital download is there's no musician credits or who the harmony singers are...no credits for the engineer, publishers, songwriters, production team (even though it's safe to assume the entire album was produced and arranged by Ray Stevens). Curb Records has the audio clips of Ray's songs on YouTube already. I've embedded the audio of "City Lights"...

When you listen to the album you'll notice that there's a recurring saxophone solo that pops up in most of the songs. The saxophonist may be Denis Solee or it could be Buddy Skipper. I'll try and find out who the musicians are. We may have to wait until June for the CD copy to become available. You can tell that Ray is thoroughly enjoying himself as he goes from song to song putting his spin on these classics. The belting out of "Bouquet of Roses", for example, and the over-dubbed harmony and the saxophone solo...it all comes together to highlight even further that this album is every much the music arranger's joy as it is the singer's joy...and in this case the music arranger and singer are one in the same! The album is titled Great Country Classics but they're presented in a very different way and you'll notice this right away with the opening track on through much of the album. "Room Full of Roses" is one of the songs that features a saxophone solo and the song's tempo is not like the rendition popularized by Mickey Gilley. In Ray's rendition there is no piano pounding and boogie woogie overtones...instead there's a softer delivery and there's piano but nothing like what you'd hear in the up-tempo version. I had heard Ray's rendition of "Your Cheatin' Heart" on YouTube...he put out a sneak preview audio clip that I embedded in a previous blog entry. It was the only song, to that point, that ended with a mid-tempo conclusion. The album lives up to it's title as ballad heavy. 

Now, then, when you hear "Making Believe" come across your speaker I believe you'll also feel the way I did. As soon as I heard the intro and the opening lyrics I immediately felt that this may be treated as a future single release. By that I mean it may become a song Ray frequently highlights whenever he goes back to putting on concerts. It just has that sound that makes one think it's possibly going to be one of the songs used for publicity/promotion. It features dobro and fiddle...the first appearance of those instruments on this album. The rendition of "Sweet Dreams" was probably recorded during the same session as it, too, features dobro, violins, and a saxophone! The closing song, his rendition of "Till I Get It Right" is fabulous. It's slower than the original by Tammy Wynette. The album, overall, is a great showcase of Ray's music arranging skills and his vocalizations. It's a ballad heavy album and so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone considering the album's title. It's the first of four all new albums that are to be released on Ray Stevens this year. The next album arrives late in March and it'll be a lot more up-tempo by it's very nature considering it's going to be a Bluegrass album.      

Ray Stevens: "Great Country Ballads" hits Online stores Today!!

Yes, I'm looking at the time down in the corner of my laptop and it's showing 1:29am on February 26th!! What was that? I typed February 26th!! The day has finally arrived...the day that the first of four all-new Ray Stevens albums hit online stores. It felt as if this day wouldn't get here quick enough!! I put in my order for Great Country Ballads about 20 minutes ago. I went to look at the order confirmation and what I saw was a message stating that it's been categorized as a Pre-Order and the date of purchase shows February 25, 2021! I knew that the Amazon headquarters, well, the main one, is out on the West Coast where there's a 3 hour time difference but I didn't think such a thing would prevent East Coast customers from hearing the music on release day...after all it's February 26th here in the East. 

Anyway...I'm sure later this morning I'll be able to listen to the music I purchased. I'm reminded of what had taken place when I purchased the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" a couple of months ago. I ordered it but it took nearly half a day before it shown up in my music player. So, I'm assuming I won't be able to listen to the digital download until later this morning. Anyway, I'll be awake around 3am just in case that's the magic time of the morning when my download will be playable. I know that YouTube has some of the songs from Great Country Ballads already uploaded and ready for anyone to listen to. Curb Records provided the audio tracks to 8 of the 12 songs over on YouTube. I'm torn between waiting until my music player on Amazon allows me to listen to the digital download I purchased or going over to YouTube and listening to the songs there. If you're wanting to purchase the digital download from Amazon you can click the following LINK.

Ray Stevens: "Your Cheatin' Heart" audio clip...

Oh what it's like to be a night-owl! I woke up about 20 minutes ago and discovered that Ray Stevens has uploaded an audio clip on YouTube of one of the new songs on his upcoming album, Great Country Ballads. The song, "Your Cheatin' Heart", a definite country music classic from the pen of Hank Williams. That's not the only song on Ray's upcoming album that was made famous by Hank. Ray also does a version of "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love With You". Country music website The Boot had an exclusive earlier this morning with the audio clip of "Your Cheatin' Heart". Since then Ray has uploaded the audio onto YouTube. I'm including a link to The Boot so you can read what's in the article. You can read the article from The Boot by clicking HERE. You can even listen to the audio clip on their webpage or, of course, you can listen to it below in the video embed. Ray, as one could expect, provides a much different arrangement. As touched on in previous blog entries one of his longtime passions is the construction of music...wondering whether or not a song needs the addition of a saxophone, or more guitar than an original included, or, taking out a signature instrument and replacing it with, perhaps, a saxophone...whatever it takes to make it come across an entirely different song. His rendition of "Your Cheatin' Heart" is unlike those that have previously been released by other recording artists over the decades. The use of the saxophone on this recording isn't intrusive...when some people see the word 'saxophone' they think of the honking, roaring saxophone heard on The Coasters comedy songs...but in this setting the saxophone is played softer...the style heard in the smooth jazz format. Listening to the song no doubt creates even more anticipation of getting the entire digital download album tomorrow!! Yes...we're now one day away from Great Country Ballads being released!  

Ray Stevens: Eagerly awaiting "Great Country Ballads"...

As the title of this blog entry states, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the new Ray Stevens album, Great Country Ballads, this coming Friday!! As mentioned in a previous blog entry this upcoming release will contain Ray's versions of 12 country music classics. Some of the songs had previously been covered by one of his idols, the late Ray Charles, and so I don't know if he will use the arrangements heard on the Ray Charles recordings, use the arrangements heard on the original country recordings, or come up with his own arrangements. In a Facebook post a couple of days ago they played a snippet of one of the songs on this upcoming release...and the rendition of "Til I Get it Right" was re-arranged from the original by Tammy Wynette.   

1. Please Help Me I'm Falling

2. Crazy

3. City Lights

4. I Can't Stop Loving You

5. Bouquet of Roses

6. Room Full of Roses

7. Your Cheatin' Heart

8. Cryin' Time

9. I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You

10. Making Believe

11. Sweet Dreams

12. 'Til I Get It Right

If you know your classic country music, as I do, then you should be very familiar with the original recordings. "Room Full of Roses" was a huge hit for Mickey Gilley. "Bouquet of Roses" was a massive hit for Eddy Arnold. Buck Owens had a monster hit with "Cryin' Time", one of the several songs Ray Charles did a version of. Hank Williams is covered with two of his big hits, "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "I Can't Help It"; and he tackles another iconic hit, "Please Help Me I'm Falling", made famous by Hank Locklin. The new digital albums, as mentioned in previous blog entries, are being released on Curb Records. Ray signed with Curb Records in the latter half of 2020. He and Jeannie Seely recorded a duet together, "Dance Tonight", which appeared on her album of duets. Now, not too long after this, news surfaced that Ray had joined Curb Records once again. He was signed to the label several times in the past (1990-1996; 2001-2005) and in the next decade the label got distribution rights to several of the albums he recorded for his own label, Clyde Records. Earlier this month Curb got the digital download distribution for Ray's 2015 comedy album, Here We Go Again!. The album had previously been issued on Ray's own record label but earlier this month Curb Records became the official distributor.   

Ray Stevens: "Great Country Ballads" almost here...

It's me once again!! We're getting closer to release date of the first of four brand new albums from Ray Stevens! Great Country Ballads is scheduled to become available as a digital download this coming Friday February 26th! I don't know if the music will become available as soon as it turns Midnight or if it'll be released during traditional business hours on Friday (anywhere between 9am to 5pm). I know the last time Ray had a digital download released, "The Quarantine Song", back in December 2020, on-line sites didn't have it available for several hours into it's release day. I recall being frustrated at the time because the music was suppose to be available on release day and yet it wasn't...it didn't become available for purchase until mid-morning/early afternoon on release day. So, with that in mind, I'm going to assume when Great Country Ballads is released, it won't immediately become available on-line.

In my previous blog entry I provided a track list of what's going to be on this first release. Some of the songs include "City Lights", "Please Help Me I'm Falling", and "Till I Get It Right". Curb Records, if you remember, will release one digital album per month on Ray through the next couple of months. After the release of this album, there will be some publicity for it, and then in March the follow-up album will get released, Melancholy Fescue. In April comes the Slow Dance digital album and then in May, Nouveau Retro, comes along. In June all four albums will be released in one CD box set collection. Some may ask why will there be a Box Set release in June? Some may ask why not release all four of them now rather than issue one per month? I prefer what they're doing as if that's a surprise to anyone reading. The four albums are being issued digitally because, let's face it, most consumers purchase music over the internet and so having the music available digitally on release day is the right thing to do. Now then...once all four albums have been issued individually, there will be a box set issued in June. This is when the CD copies of those digital download albums become available. As I pointed out in a previous blog entry I prefer CD copies over digital downloads...but I'm not going to wait until June for CD's to become available. Have you seen Ray's Facebook post where he offered a small snippet of one of the songs from this download? It was posted back on the 19th (this past Friday). In this post he also provided commentary about the upcoming Great Country Ballads project: "Being from the South I got a heavy dose of country music and that's the reason for this collection I call Great Country Ballads. These songs are truly iconic songs of the 20th century, back when radio was the primary way people got their music. The big sellers were songs like "Please Help Me I'm Falling" by Hank Locklin, "Big Bouquet of Roses" by Eddie Arnold, and "Your Cheating Heart" by Hank Williams. These songs and the original recordings touched people. They sure made an impression on me and I hope my renditions of them will touch something in you too. It's not my attempt to try to improve them by any means, it's just me paying tribute in my unique way to the gift of truly ballads that I received 'over the air ways' as I was growing up. These songs are in many ways..."the soundtrack" of my life".

Since I'm on a computer I'll be downloading the digital albums and then, later on, I'll be purchasing the CD box set. I've seen several people on his social media sites asking why there's even going to be digital downloads...they ask: why not just release them as CD's? Well, to go back to what I was just saying, a majority of people purchase music on-line and so it simply makes more sense to release music through the preferred method, first, and then issue the music in other formats later for collectors. When I purchase digital music on Amazon it goes to my Amazon music library. In case I failed to say it... Great Country Ballads is almost here!! February 26th!! I'll be reviewing it as soon as I'm finished listening to it. Is it the 26th yet??

Ray Stevens: Upcoming album, "Great Country Ballads"...

Hello all!! If you caught my earlier blog entry then you'll know that there will be 4 brand new albums hitting the market from Ray Stevens over the next four months. In my previous blog entry I did a general overview of the albums but since each one is being released monthly I decided to zero in on the first of the 4 albums. Great Country Ballads is set to make it's debut next Friday (February 26th) as a digital download album. I'm sure there's no explanation needed as to what a digital download album is...but in case you're wondering it'll be only available on-line. You'll visit an on-line music store, search for Ray's Great Country Ballads album in the digital music section, and then you'll see the product page open up detailing the price, record label, etc. The music will be uploaded to your listening device. Whenever I purchase digital downloads they're uploaded onto my built-in music program on my computer and I'm sure that's the same for anyone else who purchases Mp3 digital downloads. I was thinking about the publicity photo of Ray on Great Country Ballads and it was 33 years ago (I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like; 1988) when Ray previously appeared on a studio album in a cowboy hat. It was the second and, until now, the last time that he appeared in a cowboy hat on a studio album. The first time was 40 years ago (One More Last Chance; 1981). Take a look at that belt buckle and thumbs up gesture! The image harkens back to classic country music and that's what this album will be comprised of. 

I don't exactly know, as of this writing, if Ray will sing these songs in their traditional way or if he's re-arranged any or all of them. I don't make bets...but if I did I'd say most of the songs he chose to record for this album were re-arranged and sang differently than what most people will be familiar with. I'll be writing about this album the day it's released - that's when I'll be writing a review and posting it here and elsewhere - and so my commentary/review will obviously be even more specific as I relate how the songs sound, how they're performed, and if they've been re-arranged or not. I'll also include links to the music stores selling the digital download. I'm eagerly anticipating this first release...and I'll be just as eager to hear the next three albums, too!! Great Country Ballads lives up to it's name! Take a look at the songs Ray recorded for this album...

1. Please Help Me I'm Falling

2. Crazy

3. City Lights

4. I Can't Stop Loving You

5. Bouquet of Roses

6. Room Full of Roses

7. Your Cheatin' Heart

8. Cryin' Time

9. I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You

10. Making Believe

11. Sweet Dreams

12. 'Til I Get It Right