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| July 2019 |
Hello once more...and in this blog entry I'm providing something of an overview of the Ray Stevens episode of
Larry's Country Diner from a couple of weeks ago. The episode aired on RFD-TV back on September 19th but it was taped in the summer. I came across on-line advertisements for the taping session and it happened on July 24, 2019. I'm quite certain I made mention of the taping in one of my blog entries at the time but I decided to look up the information for accuracy. Larry's television series has aired on the RFD-TV line-up for more than a decade and Ray's made a number of guest appearances on the show. I've had this fan created blog page up and running since 2008 and so it's accurate to say that I've probably given some sort of overview of Ray's appearances on Larry's show over the years. Now, of course, there was a period of time where our local cable company didn't offer RFD-TV as part of the basic line-up but now it's part of that lower priced tier of channels and so for the last 5 years or so we've gotten the channel on our line-up. I say that because no doubt I've not seen all of the episodes he's appeared on in their entirety...some of his past appearances on this show have surfaced on-line and I was able to see those. Larry's show periodically tapes episodes at Ray's
CabaRay showroom. The episodes are taped in marathon sessions on Wednesday's for several weeks in a row. I don't know how many episodes of the series have been taped at the
CabaRay since it's grand opening in 2018 but I'd say there's at least 30 episodes that have been taped there. The latest taping sessions took place during portions of the summer months this year...and as mentioned above Ray taped an appearance on July 24th. It was the first time Ray had appeared as a guest during it's production at the
CabaRay and so, as you could imagine, it was comical/surreal seeing the owner of the showroom seated on stage in front of the backdrop of the diner.
After an introduction by Keith Bilbrey the show begins and Larry speaks of the
CabaRay before reading a brief gospel scripture. He points out a champion of archery, which happens to be a child, seated in the audience. Larry, like myself, seen the irony of Ray appearing as a guest at his own showroom and joked about the scenario as he brought Ray out to immediate applause. As a tie in with childhood heroes he asks Ray about Sgt. Preston...then asks Ray if he's ever had a 'real job'. This is a running gag, of sorts, in Ray's career given that he relates in his interviews of how his father used to ask him if he's ever going to get a 'real job' someday. In truth it's a lot of work putting together albums, music videos, television shows...a lot of recording studio hours and now a lot of performance hours at the
CabaRay...but if you ask Ray if he sees it as 'work' he'll more than likely reply 'this isn't work...my family's still waiting on me to get a real job'. Larry speaks of Ray's upcoming performance which leads to Ray giving some insight into click tracks and how necessary they are when it comes to the kind of songs he records where there's multi-tracking and how often it is that there isn't enough musicians on hand during television appearances or at county fairs to re-create the sound captured on a modern-day recording which is often pieced together rather than recorded live in a couple of takes in the studio as in 'the old days'. Ray defends the use of click tracks and says there's nothing dishonest about them...because, in his words, "it's
MY music I'm singing against...".
Ray sings "
The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", a YouTube video hit from 2011. He had mentioned that it might be the first time he's performed it on television...and that might be true. I know he performed it in concerts and during appearances at the Opry, Fan Fair/CMA Fest, and the video's received hundreds of thousands of unique views on YouTube since it's 2011 debut...but as far as it being performed by Ray on a television show this was probably the first time it's happened. Larry shows the
Spirit of '76 CD (from 2011). A commercial for Boot Daddy is inserted into the happenings and upon it's conclusion Larry asks Ray if he's ever met the show's church lady, Nadine. Ray delivers a very shocking reply and says that he and Nadine are on the same wave-length. Following Larry and Nadine's comical banter it leads into Ray's next performance in which he speaks of being a music publisher and how much he loves recording public domain songs because he gets the opportunity to publish them through his own company...such as "
Dry Bones". This song was recorded by Ray, initially, for the 2012
Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. It appears on CD-2 of that 9-CD collection. The song next appeared on the
Gospel Collection CD issued in 2014. Ray goes into detail about over-dubbing and multi-tracking which leads Larry into mentioning that one of his favorite songs of Ray's is "
Freddie Feelgood" which features a wide array of scat-singing. Ray demonstrates a couple of the vocal impressions of music instruments.
Larry mentions
The Nashville Breakfast Club...a group consisting of Ray and other members of the music industry and those that are friends or associates of the entertainers. This sort of round table group gets together each week or whenever schedules aren't conflicted to socialize at a local restaurant. The first time I'd heard of this group was when I read Ray's memoir and he says members have come and gone over the decades...a lot of them passed away...but newer 'members' regularly join in and they all meet for breakfast every Saturday morning. It's my guess that it's a down-home, rural version of the
Algonquin Round Table of literary writers and humorists of the 1920s and 1930s which featured the likes of Franklin Paul Adams, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, and others. In Ray's memoir he suggests that Chet Atkins was the 'founder' of the
Nashville Breakfast Club.
In the meantime the conversation turned to westerns and Ray did his impressions of Gabby Hayes and Walter Brennan. Ray mentions Hopalong Cassidy being his favorite western star. Larry brings out 'Chicken Man', a spokesman for a chicken company sponsoring the show; Chicken Man recites a very fast rendition of lyrics from Ray's 1963 novelty hit, "
Speed Ball". Ray's presented with a Hopalong Cassidy lunch box. Ray sings "
The Preacher and the Bear" which, like "
Dry Bones", appeared on the 2012 box set as well as the 2014
Gospel Collection CD. Larry asks Ray how many albums he's recorded and the reply is the half jokingly "lots!" and Ray mentions to the audience that several of his albums are available in the gift shop. Larry, Ray, and Keith talk about Don Cusic and it leads into the closing performance from Ray of "
If Jesus is a Stranger". One of the things to take away from this appearance is the focus on Ray's gospel recordings. The photo of Ray below isn't from his appearance on
Larry's Country Diner. I opened the blog entry with a photo of Ray from his appearance on Larry's show just in case you're wondering. The one below is a random photo that began circulating on-line a number of months ago in publicity for the
CabaRay.
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| Ray Stevens 2019 |
When I was watching the episode it was incredibly surreal because even though it was taped at the
CabaRay in July of this year the material being spotlighted came from albums released earlier in the decade (the 2012 and 2014 projects). If not for the fact that it was taped at the
CabaRay and if not for the fact that the showroom didn't open it's doors until January 2018 the episode nevertheless came across, to me, as if it was
from 2014. Does that kind of reaction sound bizarre? The episode will be repeated later in the year and it should be available for on-line viewing for members of RFD-TV's Country Club subscription service. Once you see the episode for yourselves see if it doesn't come across as if it was taped in 2014...even though it wasn't.
There is something else noticeably absent from the conversations within the episode. There is no mention by Larry, no mention by anybody in Larry's cast, or from Ray himself, about the
Country Music Hall of Fame election from March of this year. I had thought that this would have been the main talking point for most of the episode which is why I was baffled by the decision to focus on older recordings instead of promoting recent happenings in his career or promoting upcoming projects in his career. All in all, of course, it's a great episode and it's exposure for Ray's music...and of course since Ray Stevens is the guest star you're going to be royally entertained...even though, personally, I would've liked to have seen discussions of more recent events in his career. We're thirteen days away from Ray's formal induction into the
Country Music Hall of Fame!! I'll be adding another installment in my mini-blog series in a couple of hours, perhaps...focusing on 2013, 2014, and maybe 2015 in Part 26. So, yeah, some of the songs and the CD's I've mentioned in this blog entry will resurface in Part 26 of my mini-blog series chronicling Ray's road to the
Country Music Hall of Fame.
