Ray Stevens: Christmas Discount Sale...

Hello once again Ray Stevens fans!! The photo over on the right is an image of the Star located in downtown Nashville, Tennessee at the Music City Walk of Fame. The location is just outside of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The official address is Demonbreun Street in between 4th and 5th Avenue. The Country Music Hall of Fame is right across from the Music City Walk of Fame. Next door to the Walk of Fame is the Bridgestone Arena. It's a massively congested area of traffic and one way streets. Ray received his Star on August 21, 2018. Ricky Skaggs was on hand to do the official presentation and unveil Ray's Star. The Music City Walk of Fame has a website and there's a page for each inductee. Here's the Ray Stevens PAGE over on the Walk of Fame website. Once there you'll see a few photos from that August 2018 day. The following year, as almost all of you should know by now, Ray Stevens was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now then...to the focal point of this particular blog entry. There will be a discount sale at the Ray Stevens webstore for two days only. The sale begins tomorrow (Saturday) and it's for two days...tomorrow and Sunday. The sale is for everything in the webstore. All items are going to be marked down 20 percent. Ray's webstore has a lot of CD's, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and an assortment of trinkets featuring Ray's name or his face. There are DVD's full of music videos as well as the two DVD releases containing episodes of his CabaRay Nashville television program. Everything will be discounted in time for Christmas. The webstore, at the moment, doesn't reflect the discount sale since it doesn't begin until tomorrow but here's the LINK to the Ray Stevens webstore. Browse through the online store and take note of what you'll be ordering during the next two days during the discount sale.    

Ray Stevens: A look back to 3 years ago...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I just come over from one of Ray's social media pages and was reminded that on this day in 2018 he received his star on the Music City Walk of Fame in downtown Nashville. The walkway is located directly across the street from the Country Music Hall of Fame. The walkway is a tourist attraction and because of this there is a large sign that sits out front that reads Music City Walk of Fame Park. If there wasn't a sign showing the way a tourist wouldn't even realize it's even there unless they researched the area beforehand. As you could tell the Music City Walk of Fame is similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The names of recording artists, of all music formats, are pressed onto material (I'm assuming either stone or marble) and they're placed into the walkway throughout the park. When my brother and I went to Nashville a few months after Ray's CabaRay was opened to the public, early in 2018, we went to the Music City Walk of Fame Park. The two of us were walking along the sidewalks of downtown Nashville, after having parked the car in a lot, and as we were on our way to the Country Music Hall of Fame I spotted this park across the street and so we went over there and walked around looking at the names of singers on the walkway. I remember thinking to myself "why isn't Ray part of this walkway?". Anyway, my point is, we visited the walkway nearly half a year before Ray received his Walk of Fame Star in August. The recipients of Stars on the walkway aren't tied to country music exclusively...but the bulk of walkway Stars are country music personalities...and that's simply because country music is the dominant form of music in Nashville even though all kinds of music is recorded there. Ray received his Walkway Star along side Jeannie Seely, Brenda Lee, and pop artist Ben Folds. Bluegrass/Country singer, Ricky Skaggs, was on hand to present Ray Stevens with a Walkway Star. 

When you visit the Music City Walk of Fame the Ray Stevens star is located next to the Ben Folds star. In fact, the star directly behind Ray in the photo off to the right is the one for Ben Folds. In that photo Ray gives us a zany grin...and he's looking off to his right. There are several photos of Ray from the Walk of Fame ceremony that you can find on the internet. There's one of Ray and Ricky Skaggs in front of the star...several photos of Ray with his arms spread apart, nearly identical to the photo on the right, but with different facial expressions in each one. Some of the non-country performers that have a Star on the Music City Walk of Fame are: Peter Frampton, Steve Winwood, Michael McDonald, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, and Steven Curtis Chapman just to name several. The Music City Walk of Fame is a tourist attraction, as mentioned, and if you receive a Star on the Walk of Fame there's a lot of ceremonial festivities that take place. It gets overshadowed, figuratively and literally, by the Country Music Hall of Fame which sits across the street but never let that fool you into believing that those who receive a Star on the Walk of Fame aren't just as honored. All you need to see are Ray's photographs during the Walk of Fame ceremony and hear his acceptance speech to know how tickled he happened to be that people thought enough about him and felt him worthy enough to give him a Star on the Music City Walk of Fame. Now, several months after Ray received his star on the Walk of Fame (a little less than 6 months later), he received the news that he was going to be one of the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Ray would be elected in the Veterans Era category in 2019. In several commentaries from him following the news release and after the induction ceremony later that year he was just as thrilled as he'd been in 2018 when he received a Walk of Fame Star. 

Ray Stevens: Upcoming duet with Jeannie Seely...

Hello all!! While searching around on the internet I came across more information about Ray Stevens involvement in an upcoming project from Jeannie Seely. In a blog I wrote several blogs ago I mentioned that Ray had recorded a duet with Jeannie but I couldn't find out much...until now. In an article posted in The Tennessean newspaper back on July 2nd it was revealed that Jeannie would be issuing a new project in August and that the duet she recorded with Ray would be the final track. The collection is titled An American Classic.

The producer of Jeannie's project happened to be Don Cusic, a name that should be familiar to all fans of Ray Stevens by now. The first single release from Jeannie's CD will emerge tomorrow...a duet with Willie Nelson. July 6th is also Jeannie's birthday. As many know by now Willie's recorded duets or performed on stage with just about every major recording artist of the last 50 years. Ironically, Ray Stevens is the extreme opposite...he rarely records duets. In his career I think he's recorded less than 10 duets...off the top of my head here they are...

"Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" (1995 duet with Connie Freeman)

"The Streak" (2005 duet with Cledus T. Judd; it's on the Ray Stevens tribute album Cledus recorded)

"This One Burger King Town" (2007 duet with T.G. Sheppard)

"Retired" (2009 duet with Brent Burns; Ray recorded a solo version of this song, too)

"Temptation" (2012 duet with Lori Stegner)

"That's My Desire" (2019 duet with Beegie Adair)**

In the case of "That's My Desire" he recorded it twice with Beegie Adair. One of the recordings is performed straight while a comical version was also recorded. The two duet recordings with Ray are included in her duets CD, Grover's Hat Project.

The upcoming duet with Jeannie Seely will be a version of "Dance Tonight", a song from the pen of Paul McCartney. I am making the assumption that Jeannie's project will be available for digital download in addition to it being available as a physical CD.

Ray and Jeannie were both honored in 2018 with Stars on the Nashville Walk of Fame. Ray was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. Jeannie's been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1967. Jeannie appeared on an episode of Ray's PBS series, CabaRay Nashville.

Ray Stevens: Music City Walk of Fame Press Coverage...

Hello once more...and in this blog entry I'm going to share some links that'll take you to several different websites. All of the sites feature press coverage/re-caps of the Music City Walk of Fame ceremony from August 21st. Each article basically uses the same press release but each author adds individual contributions to the overall article and most of the sites use different photo's of the recipients, too. One of the links, for example, includes a music video from each of the four recipients (Ray Stevens, Jeannie Seely, Brenda Lee, and Ben Folds).

First up we have an article from the TENNESSEE STAR. In the next link we have an article from BROADWAY WORLD. DIGITAL JOURNAL has the honors in this link. The fourth link will take you to COUNTRY BEAT magazine. THE GEORGIA SUN provides the fifth link of press coverage. A sixth link is from MUSIC ROW magazine and a seventh link is from KMAM radio in Butler, Missouri.

The coverage of the ceremony in the hours afterward was wonderful and those are just a sample of the websites I came across this morning when I arrived home from work. I didn't scour the internet too heavily yesterday because I wanted to give it a couple of days before I searched, in a detailed manner, for press coverage. When you visit any of those links, as a reminder, feel free to share them on social media sites or "like" them if you want. Feedback lets the people that run those websites and the authors of those articles know their coverage of the ceremony was appreciated. If you stay silent they'll never know.

In the articles there was mention of Ray's showroom, the CabaRay. Have you been there yet? He performs there every Friday and Saturday. The showroom's Piano Bar opens at 5pm. The dinner seating opens at 6pm. The concert begins at 7:30pm. There's a gift shop located inside the facility as well. You can purchase tickets or simply browse the CabaRay site by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens on the Music City Walk of Fame...

Hello one and all!! Yesterday was the Music City Walk of Fame ceremony in downtown Nashville and in this blog entry I'll be posting the YouTube video of the live stream from yesterday. You'll see emcee Bill Cody speak and introduce the presenter, Ricky Skaggs, who gives a heartfelt speech about Ray and the CabaRay showroom. Ricky points out one of the greatest things about the showroom is it's celebration of Music Row and the recording studios and producers that helped make Nashville 'Music City, U.S.A.'. You'll also see Ray on stage speaking...he mentions that he didn't know that he'd have to speak but this may have been a joke since his acceptance seemed well thought out...but then again he could've have been told about having to give some sort of speech a day or two ahead of time and then came up with what he said yesterday. He made mention of the current Mayor Briley having already made his exit and spoke of the origin of the song, "Nashville", and how he wrote it in Sydney, Australia while homesick. He made mention that in the original recording he referenced the current mayor's grandfather, Mayor Briley. He thanked/acknowledged those in attendance and pointed out his two daughters and his grandson. I don't want to give too detailed of a re-cap but I will add that he told a joke about Bubba, Earl, and the school teacher. In the video clip you'll see the other recipients on stage (Brenda Lee, Ben Folds, and Jeannie Seely) and seated directly behind them are the presenters. Charlie Daniels did the presentation for Brenda Lee while Trisha Yearwood did the presentation for Jeannie Seely. The presenter for Ben Folds was Jonathan Levine. A photo of all of them will close out this blog entry. This will be a rather unusual blog entry for me as it's mostly consisting of photo's and video clips. When you watch the video clip of Ray's speech you'll see who he's giving a thumb's up to.

I did a Google News search prior to my beginning this particular blog entry and I came across several video clips focusing on the Music City Walk of Fame ceremony. Some video clips run 4 hours while other video clips are from local news stations and those run the usual length...5 minutes at the most. In the collage below I included an image of Ray giving his speech at the microphone and right next to it in panel two came after the acceptance speech was over. Ray and presenter, Ricky Skaggs, went over and had their photo taken of Ray's Star on the Music City Walk of Fame. Bill Cody could be heard from the stage mentioning that Ray has the 84th Star on the Walk of Fame. In the background you can hear the guitarists from the stage performing "Everything is Beautiful" during the photo session. In panel three it's the Star, of course. I wanted to try and get an image of it by itself. 

Local Nashville station, Channel Five, also has snippets of the ceremony featuring all of the Walk of Fame recipients. You can read/watch that by clicking HERE. You can also see a newscast featuring commentary/video of the ceremony on WSMV-TV by clicking HERE.
 

Ray Stevens: Music City Walk of Fame Ceremony...Today!!

Hello one and all...well, the day has finally arrived...later this morning Ray Stevens will be among the recipients receiving a Star on the Music City Walk of Fame. It was around this time yesterday morning that I was putting the finishing touches on my previous blog entry and here I am anxiously awaiting for the ceremony to begin. Ray's office staff are hoping to have a live stream of the event on YouTube and Facebook. If there are any technical glitches then we'll have to wait for photo's and a recap to appear on-line but I'm hoping the live stream will go on without a problem. Ricky Skaggs is going to do the presentation of Ray's Star. As mentioned in some of my other blog entries Ray will be honored along side Brenda Lee, Jeannie Seely, and Ben Folds.

I didn't post this collage yesterday because I wanted to save it for the actual day he'll be receiving his Star. I included a simple star image from an image collection for panel four and I included an image of Ray's 1973 album, Nashville, in cassette format. It ties in with the city of Nashville and by pure coincidence he's in a shirts in which his shoulders and collar is decked out with stars. There is a song on the Nashville album titled "You've Got the Music Inside" and it also includes his take on "Never Ending Song of Love" as well as the aching "Love Me Longer" and the introspective "Golden Age". Since Ray's being inducted onto the Music City Walk of Fame this morning I purposely chose music-driven images, pretty much. Panel two, above the star image, is a photo of Ray taken from inside the CabaRay showroom. In the panel beneath the star image (panel five) it's a publicity photo of Ray from 1975. It would later serve as the cover photo of a 1980 issue of Country Song Roundup as well as serve as the cover photo of an obscure re-release of Even Stevens. Panel three, as you can tell, is a cassette version of Ray's 1977 album, Feel the Music. That's the album which includes his wonderful performance of "Save Me From Myself" in addition to the marvelous "Get Crazy With Me", "Road Widow", the majestic title track, and "Dixie Hummingbird". Well, now...it's 11:01am here...10:01am in Nashville...90 minutes left before the ceremony at the Music City Walk of Fame gets underway!

Ray Stevens: Music City Walk of Fame ceremony...Tomorrow...

As I write this blog entry this morning I can't help but think ahead to tomorrow...that's the day when the latest Stars will be added to the Music City Walk of Fame. I've written a couple of blog entries about the ceremony already (August 12th and just the other day, August 18th) and I'll no doubt be blogging about the ceremony tomorrow when it actually takes place. The ceremony is scheduled to get underway tomorrow (August 21st) at 11:30am Central and I do not know which of the recipients will be spotlighted first. If you've been reading my previous blog entries or have been reading the coverage that Ray and his social media staff have added to their on-line sites then you'll know that in addition to Ray receiving a Star there's going to be honors for Jeannie Seely, Brenda Lee, and Ben Folds. Ray and Brenda have a Georgia connection and their career's parallel one another...both began recording professionally in the late 1950s, too. Jeannie Seely is one of the legendary female country music artists and regularly appears on the Grand Ole Opry every weekend. Ben Folds is someone I knew of, by name, but not being a listener of the style of music he performs I know very little about him. I looked up some things on the internet just to find out biographical information on him and I was reminded of where I had originally heard the name...a group called Ben Folds Five was in existence from 1995 to 2000. I found out that he's long since had a solo career, too.

What about that collage? Well, it's a random photo collage depicting Ray through the years. Panel one actually appeared as the cover page for sheet music of "Indian Love Call" in 1975. The color of the pamphlet happened to be green and so there's a green overtone to the photo of Ray. The second panel's photo of Ray originated at some point in the mid 1980s. It appeared in a magazine article on Ray Stevens in 1986 and later served as the cover photo of a 1992 gospel collection, A Brighter Day, on Clyde Records. Panel three comes from the recently uploaded video of Ray in 1971 on an episode of BBC In Concert. He's performing "Gitarzan" in that 1971 appearance and then I decided to place a photo from this year of a "Gitarzan" performance next to it. So it jumps from 1971 to 2018. The final panel is a photo of Ray last year at one of his concert stops prior to the grand opening of his CabaRay showroom this past January.

In the collage off to the right I decided to emphasize imagery focusing on his CabaRay showroom and his locally syndicated PBS series, CabaRay Nashville, in addition to spotlighting two of his signature hits, 1962's "Ahab the Arab" and 1974's "The Streak". The first panel uses the same photo I spotlighted in the other collage because I happen to like the photo. The center panel is a somewhat recent publicity photo of Ray which appeared a couple of years ago when he released the on-line music video and CD single, "Dear America", in September 2016. I purchased the Mp3 instead of the CD because I didn't know if a CD copy would arrive in what they call a jewel case or in a slip case or if it would arrive in a plain white paper sleeve. A couple of previous CD singles offered at Ray's web-store had arrived in plain paper sleeves...no art work/cover photo...so I decided I'd hold off on purchasing the CD single of "Dear America" just in case it didn't arrive with a photo of Ray and instead I purchased the Mp3.

The Music City Walk of Fame is located at 121 Fourth Avenue, South and it's situated inside a park setting as you can see from the sign off to the left. The ceremony is going to take place inside the park beginning at 11:30am Central tomorrow (August 21st). As mentioned in other blog entries I've written the park is located across the street from the Country Music Hall of Fame. On one side of the park there's the Bridgestone Arena and on the other side of the park there's the Symphony Center. It's all situated in one sector of downtown Nashville. You can Google images of the park and you'll see the general layout and how the Star plaques are lined up on the sidewalk. The ceremony is free to the public so if you're a fan of Ray Stevens and are in the area by all means visit the Music City Walk of Fame tomorrow and experience the event. As is the case in many ceremonies of this kind there's likely to be acceptance speeches by those honored and of course there's going to be biographical information delivered by the emcee of the ceremony, too. Since there's going to be four honoree's receiving their Star I assume each one will be allotted a predetermined amount of speaking time. I don't think the ceremony is going to clock each honoree, though. As of this writing I don't know if Ray will appear first or if he'll appear last. He'll be the oldest of the honorees: Ray was born in 1939, Jeannie Seely was born in 1940, Brenda Lee was born in 1944, and Ben Folds was born in 1966. So, they might honor each one based on seniority or they go by reverse seniority (in that case Ben Folds would be first to receive a Star and Ray would be spotlighted last). However the presentation ends up being I'll be looking forward to the ceremony! It's almost 11am here in the East...almost 10am in Nashville...around this time tomorrow morning it'll certainly be busy at the Music City Walk of Fame park!!

Ray Stevens and the Music Mile...

Do I have some exciting news to share on this blog entry this afternoon or what?? I don't know when the news broke but I just returned from running errands and got on the computer when I arrived home to find out that next month (August 21st) Ray Stevens is going to be among the entertainers being enshrined on the Music City Walk of Fame. The ceremony is set to take place at 11:30am Central time and it's free to the public. You can read about the event by clicking HERE. The attraction is situated at a park...when you enter you'll see the sign that reads Music City Walk of Fame Park. It's nestled within a very busy area of Nashville. You have 5th Avenue South and 4th Avenue South on either side and the you have what's referred to locally as Music Mile which it shares with Demonbreun Street. I mention that because Music Mile may not show up on GPS devices should anyone from out of the area plan on attending the ceremony. Looking at the maps of downtown Nashville, directly across from the Walk of Fame is the Country Music Hall of Fame. Also within walking distance is Bridgestone Arena. My brother and I went to Nashville back on March 1st and if you don't have GPS or have some sort of idea of where you're going it can be a little overwhelming...so if you plan on attending and you're not from the area the official address of the Music City Walk of Fame Park is: 121 4th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37203. The other entertainers receiving their Star on the Music City Walk of Fame on August 21st are Jeannie Seely, Brenda Lee, and Ben Folds.

Next week...on August 1st...Ray Stevens is scheduled to appear as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry. Tickets for Wednesday night's Opry presentation can be purchased HERE.