I was looking through some of my archives a few minutes ago and noticed a blog entry from 2017 where I highlighted a performance from Ray Stevens on the Marty Robbins Spotlight television series. The series aired in first-run syndication throughout 1977 and I believe, in other markets, it aired for several more years (repeat episodes) until the end of the decade. The video embed in that blog entry, I discovered, no longer existed and so I edited the blog entry and removed the blank video screen. A few weeks ago Ray uploaded a 10 minute video clip from his 1977 appearance on Marty's show. Ray sings "Feel the Music" and this appearance includes a comical banter between Ray and Marty who sit at separate pianos, back to back. Marty's piano is designed as if it were to match stage clothes from that time period...you'll see that it has a blue plaid/checker design. Ray was a spotlight artist in one episode of Marty's show and he made a guest appearance in the spotlight episode of Chet Atkins. When Ray guest starred on Chet's episode they both sang "Frog Kissing".
Country music in 1977 was riding a wave of national recognition and the music reflected the presence of what some would call outsider influence...the music had become more polished and had a pop penchant in an effort to attract a wider audience. I bring this up because some people would have you believe that country music didn't insert any changes until the early 1990s but if you look at country music over the decades you'll see all kinds of changes in sound and production...some era's the sound is traditional while other era's, like the mid to late '70s, the sound is pop-like. Most, not all, but most established country music artists resisted the changes but others embraced the benefits of expanding their audience reach. Ray Stevens is one of those artists that had never publicly stated what he defines as 'country music' or 'pop music'. Ray has always come across as an entertainer...not defining himself to any specific music format...but over the course of time it's the country genre that's had more of a welcome to his style of entertainment and with country having a sub-genre of 'country comedy' he fits right in...but in 1977 and specifically in this video clip Ray Stevens once again demonstrates that he can be serious, somber, and sensitive with his music one minute and the next minute he's a zany, silly, and absurdist comic with an endless supply of funny facial expressions and one liners.
Hello to the fans of Ray Stevens!! Earlier today a video was uploaded of Ray Stevens and Tammy Wynette presiding over a tribute to Marty Robbins in 1983. Ray nor Tammy sang any of his songs in this video clip but they shown performance clips of Marty over the years. Marty Robbins passed away, unexpectedly at age 57, on December 8, 1982. He was born September 26, 1925. The grief and heartbreak was massive and numerous tributes in newspapers and magazines filled the retail racks of shopping stores. His having passed away in December 1982 meant that country music awards organizations had to wait until the following calendar year before they could properly pay tribute to him.
The Music City News organization had annually put together a television special to spotlight the hit songs of the previous year. These specials were almost always produced in December and they would get syndicated all over the country throughout the first half of the following calendar year. The 1983 Music City News Top Country Hits of the Year, reflecting on country music and events of 1982, was hosted by Ray Stevens and Tammy Wynette and the first airtimes were set for January 1983. The two hosts sang solo songs and they opened the show singing "We've Got the Music Here Tonight". The salute to Marty Robbins was part of the 1983 television special. Here's the video clip of Ray and Tammy presenting the tribute...it features performance clips of Marty singing his songs. The somber tone of Ray and Tammy's voices appropriately convey the emotions among the overall country music community during the taping of this program...
Hello one and all...in this particular blog entry I'm giving some spotlight to an album from Ray Stevens released in 1977. I'm doing so because of a recent video clip that surfaced on YouTube several days ago. I did a couple of blog entries centering around this album in the past...I think the last one I did was a couple of years ago (2017) when the album turned 40 but I'd have to consult the archive section off to the right hand side of the screen. In 1977 another music legend, Marty Robbins, hosted a syndicated television show called The Marty Robbins Spotlight. Ralph Emery was the announcer and each episode would focus on one or a couple of artists. The series consisted of 36 episodes in which Ray was the featured spotlight artist in one but he also had an appearance in the Chet Atkins episode as well. In that episode the two of them perform "Frog Kissing", a single that Ray published, produced, and arranged featuring Chet singing in addition to playing the guitar. The song itself was from the pen of Buddy Kalb. The episodes of Marty's series, based on my own assumption, were taped at some point in the first half of 1977 and perhaps into the summer months before they began airing in the fall and so Ray's album, Feel the Music, was widely available by the time his episode was airing.
The front of the album shows an illustration of a stereo speaker as a tie-in with the album's title. If you literally feel the music then you'll be placing your hand on an actual speaker...but, of course, the song itself has a much more deeper meaning. It's a motivational kind of song which says that you need to find purpose in life and live for yourself rather than living for other people...or, in other words, living a life in which everybody but your own self is happy. "Feel the Music" was issued as a single backed with "Dixie Hummingbird". There was also the usual promotional copy which featured "Feel the Music" on both the A and the B side. Strangely enough "Feel the Music" didn't reach the charts but then it's B-side was released as a single. "Dixie Hummingbird" received the promotional copy treatment but there wasn't a single released featuring it as an A-side. Instead, the record store employees went through and flipped "Feel the Music" over where "Dixie Hummingbird" was seen first by music consumers. The single releases didn't have an A or a B side designation anyhow. "Dixie Hummingbird", an outstanding performance, reached the middle pack of the country music chart...in that particular era the country singles chart matched the pop singles chart...each chart had 100 positions. It came oh so close to cracking the Top-40 of the country music chart. A third single from Feel the Music, "Get Crazy With Me", also reached the charts but it peaked in the lower half of the Top-100. Ironically it's B-side was none other than "Dixie Hummingbird". The back of the 1977 album features an image of Ray and the illustration of what the back of a stereo speaker looks like. The album was largely written by Ray with the exception of the Buddy Kalb composition, "Set the Children Free". The rest of the songs were all penned by Ray Stevens.
Buddy's songs didn't begin to feature prominently on Ray's albums until the mid 1980s onward. The first songwriter credit on a Ray Stevens album for Buddy Kalb was "One and Only You" on 1976's Just for the Record. The inclusion of "Set the Children Free" on 1977's Feel the Music means it's the second composition from Buddy Kalb to appear on one of Ray's albums. "Frog Kissing", the Chet Atkins hit with harmony vocals from Ray, didn't appear on any of Ray's albums but it marked a third Buddy Kalb penned song that Ray recorded in that 1976-1977 time frame.
A clip of Ray performing "Misty" on Marty's show was uploaded nearly a year ago (March 2018) and a couple days ago (February 13) the performance of "Feel the Music" was uploaded. The entire episode has never been uploaded onto YouTube but here's the most recent upload from the 1977 appearance on Marty's program...
Now then, even though the entire episode featuring Ray Stevens as the spotlight artist hasn't been uploaded onto YouTube as of this writing, the entire Chet Atkins episode (with a special guest appearance by Ray) is uploaded onto YouTube. A screen-cap from that appearance is below...
The Chet Atkins episode I'll embed further down the blog entry and the only reason I'm embedding the entire episode is because there isn't a video clip of Ray and Chet's performance from that episode. Ray and Chet would perform the song together several years later, in 1980, as part of an all-star salute to Chet's career. In that performance Ray was seated at the piano and by then had grown his recognizable facial hair...in other words he had become bearded...but the 1980 performance is just as good as the 1977 performance. The earlier performance, in comparison, comes off more lively and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the song was less than a year old when they performed it on Marty's show so by the time 1980 rolled around, with the song now going on four years old, it was still entertaining due to it featuring the novelty aspect of Mister Guitar singing.
Now, getting back to Ray's spotlight episode, I know you're all probably wanting to see the performance of "Misty" as well...and if so you can watch that performance below. In case you never seen this video clip before (it's been on YouTube for a year) it starts out with Ray and Marty in discussion and then there's a brief sketch involving a saxophone player and a violinist in which Ray interrupts with his comically exaggerated Austrian/German accent. I think the violinist is Lisa Silver. Afterward the camera returns to Ray and Marty discussing and laughing over what they just saw and eventually Ray performs "Misty"...
Now, here's the Chet Atkins episode in it's entirety. Ray Stevens makes his appearance 18 minutes into the show (actual time stamp showing 17 minutes, 53 seconds). Ray is introduced as "your average man on the street" (although you can hear the audience laugh and applaud when Ray's face appears on the video screen) but the brief routine continues as "the average man" is asked by Marty what he thinks of Chet being a singer. After some jokes at Chet's expense Marty officially introduces Ray and this leads into the "Frog Kissing" performance...
Hello once again!! Although Ray Stevens is busy behind the scenes getting things prepared for the next season of his television series there is another vintage appearance I'm about to promote on this fan-created blog. Call it perfect timing due to my habit of celebrating anniversaries involving Ray Stevens...but 40 years ago the one and only Ray Stevens was the featured Spotlight Artist on Marty Robbins obscure syndicated television series, Marty Robbins Spotlight. Late last year an episode spotlighting Chet Atkins appeared on YouTube and as a special guest, yes, it was Ray Stevens. I commented at the time that it would be great if the episode spotlighting Ray would appear on-line and like a wish come true such a thing happened this morning.
The episode is entertaining from start to finish. You don't ordinarily associate Ray with a Marty Robbins, for example, but this is another example of Ray's ability to adapt and interact with anybody. It reminds me of the time that Ray guest starred on an episode of George Jones' television series...there again he's appearing on a program hosted by someone you normally don't picture interacting together and yet the two come off as long-time friends. The same thing is true in the episode of Marty's program. Ray performs an outstanding "Feel the Music" and later, "Honky Tonk Waltz". He and Marty perform several bits together (a song medley, for example, features both of them at the piano) and there's an interview segment. One of the funniest parts of the episode is Ray in a trench coat, speaking in a thick German-American dialect, and performing a leg slapping routine.
Throughout the segment featuring Ray and Marty at the piano the camera would frequently focus in on Marty's faux disbelief in hearing how varied Ray's musical styles happened to be...in the medley performance Ray gives his take on "What I'd Say" by Ray Charles and in a surreal moment Ray sings the first verse and chorus of "I Write the Songs", the smash hit recorded by Barry Manilow...why do I call it surreal? It's due to the fact that a couple of years after this episode aired Ray would record a song inspired by the sound and song titles from Barry's string of hits. Here is an example of one of those Marty Robbins comical looks of disbelief...
Marty's television series ran in syndication for a couple of years. I've seen information citing 26 episodes exist and other sources mention 24 episodes. I've even come across on-line sites stating the program has 52 episodes but I'm pretty sure only 24 (or 26) is the actual number. If anybody knows for sure how many actual half hour episodes of Marty Robbins Spotlight there happens to be leave a comment. It's a mystery to me, at least...and speaking of television programs...Ray himself has a television series...
Ray's television series, as a reminder, has jumped from RFD to PBS. It's been airing on scattered PBS stations since January after airing for a year and a half on RFD. The title has also changed from Ray Stevens' Nashville to Ray Stevens' CabaRay Nashville. The plan is to eventually tape episodes of the television series from the CabaRay venue.
Construction on his CabaRay entertainment venue is also well underway. It's still expected to open in the latter half of this year. Ray has periodically posted photo's of the venue's construction. The story of Ray embarking on construction of the venue broke in March of 2016 which is how the general public became aware but the most loyal of fans had been aware of the proposed venue for a couple of months prior. Does anyone not have the New Orleans Moon CD? In case this is all new to you the CD came out in 2007 as a salute to the music/culture of Louisiana a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina. The CD hit in March 2007 as an exclusive offered at Ray's web-store. It became available all over the internet in July of that year. It's been 10 years since it's release (technically a decade next month) but for the rest of this month (February) you can get the CD at a mark down price in celebration of Mardi Gras. I've been having a bit of trouble accessing the Store area of his website. Just in case you have the same trouble I'd suggest calling his office and ordering the CD over the phone. You can find ordering information/phone numbers at his official website by clicking HERE.
