Ray Stevens: Vintage Visuals late '50s...

This is an updated photo of myself and an obscure CD titled Ray Stevens: The NRC Years 1958-1960. I posted a photo of myself and this CD in a blog entry last year and in that photo I'm as clean-shaven as Ray happens to be on the CD's picture sleeve. This time around, though, I've got some facial hair (I hadn't shaved in a couple of days) and obviously Ray Stevens remains clean-shaven in the photo. I decided to create this blog entry because of it's dramatic step back from the previous two I'd written. I thought it would be fun to return to the earliest of years in the career of Ray Stevens and return to 1959...oh yes...that's 60 years ago...and give some focus on this group of NRC recordings once more. It's something of a numerical pattern game I like playing...if I've written a blog entry focusing on Ray's career in 2001, for example, the next blog entry may jump ahead 10 years to 2011 or go back 10 years to 1991. I also have another reason for focusing on this time period in Ray's career...but more on that a little later. This CD features 11 recordings on the NRC label...a company originated in Atlanta, Georgia in 1958 by disc jockey/producer/publisher, Bill Lowery, and Boots Woodall. The acronym, NRC, stands for National Recording Corporation. Ray's early career is tied inexorably to Bill Lowery and you can't factually write articles, essays or blog entries on the early career of Ray Stevens and not incorporate the impact, importance, and influence of Bill Lowery. Even though NRC was co-founded by Bill Lowery in 1958 the business relationship with Ray goes back even earlier. As a song publisher and promoter Lowery often visited local radio stations and would promote artists and often the radio disc jockey would engage the artist with an interview. Ray signed his first recording contract in 1957 for a label known as Prep Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records. Although the Prep and Capitol sessions were produced by Ken Nelson it was Bill Lowery who happened to be responsible for the publishing end. "Silver Bracelet", released in 1957 on Prep, was written by Ray and published by Lowery Music.

One of the recordings that Ray did at the NRC label happened to be "High School Yearbook" based upon "The Deck of Cards". If you know your music history then you'll recognize the latter as a spoken word classic...I am much more familiar with the versions by country music artists but the pop music hit is identified with game show host Wink Martindale. The songwriters of "High School Yearbook" a/k/a "The Deck of Cards" are credited on the NRC recording as W. York, R. Baxley, and S. Singleton which I'm assuming stands for Shelby Singleton!? The song is based upon "Deck of Cards" but rather than it being a cover version about how cards are used by a soldier as a substitute for a bible Ray's recording tells of a high school student that uses a deck of cards to remind him of his less than stellar academic life and that the deck of cards is a substitute for a yearbook...closing the performance stating that as a result of his sloppy performance during Senior year in high school he won't be graduating with the rest of the class.

1959

The concept of a soldier comparing a deck of cards to a bible is credited with being created in the late 1800s but it was never set to music until the late 1940s. Ray's recitation from 1959 doesn't credit T. Texas Tyler as a songwriter...for he's the one that wrote "Deck of Cards" in 1948. The B-side of 1959's "High School Yearbook" is a song Ray wrote titled "Truly True" with Lowery Music as the publisher. In my way of thinking Lowery's desire of making Atlanta an important outlet for music represents the concept of Independent-thinking...that is, rather than working in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Nashville he felt Atlanta could produce just as many quality recordings as those places. This independent style of thinking, I'd say, influenced the people that worked for him...and Ray Stevens is no exception. When you think about it Ray has long been his own producer, arranger, song publisher, and session musician who rarely, if ever, releases records as a result of marketing research (often referred to as 'radio-friendly' songs) and he never deliberately chased trends although, being a shrewd businessman, he embraced a lot of styles over the decades and his career has had a lot of twists and turns as a result. His independence, he remarked in his 2014 MEMOIR, has a lot to do with his lack of collaborators as far as album production is concerned. He works with a crew of people on whatever it is that he's working on but he ultimately has the final say on his career decisions and song choices. There have only been a few times in his career where he recruited a co-producer and although his earliest recordings do not credit him as a record producer I'd say he was the creative force behind those recordings as far as their execution given his music arranging prowess.

The 11 recordings on this CD, to my way of thinking, is an almost complete representation of his NRC years. Now, for the most part, the songs on the CD are listed as A-side/B-side. NRC released four singles on Ray during 1958-1960 but he recorded a number of songs for the label that were not released until years later on obscure, low-budget albums. In addition to recording he was also a session musician, music arranger, and songwriter for other artists on the NRC roster. The lack of detailed information surrounding Ray's recordings for NRC as well as Capitol Records tend to add confusion and uncertainty when it comes to bloggers...and this CD goes a long way in adding to the confusion due to the final three recordings on the CD. There is an on-line source that credits the song "Cholly Wolly Chang" to Capitol Records whereas this CD it's credited as a recording on the NRC label. Track ten, "Part of the Time", and the final track, "That's What She Means to Me" must be unreleased recordings for the label. If you do on-line searches for Ray's late '50s recordings you'll also come across an 8-track from Cadet Records titled Lean Times. That 8-track, which doesn't feature a year of release, is one of those releases that adds to the murkiness by blending his Capitol and NRC recordings on one compilation. Lean Times, for example, features "High School Yearbook" but it also features a song he recorded for Capitol in 1958 titled "Cat Pants". Also, Lean Times refers to "Truly True" as 'Truly Truly' as does Crown Records in their 1965 compilation album titled Ray "Ahab the Arab" Stevens and Hal Winters. What exactly are the songs found on this NRC Years CD you may be asking yourselves? Here's the song list...

1. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon
2. Who Do You Love?
3. Happy Blue Year (instrumental)
4. High School Yearbook
5. Truly True
6. What Would I Do Without You?
7. White Christmas (instrumental)
8. My Heart Cries For You
9. Cholly Wolly Chang
10. Part of the Time
11. That's What She Means To Me

Earlier this year a book was released on the life and career of Bill Lowery and his impact on the music industry...with a bulk of that impact originating from Atlanta, Georgia. The book is titled Atlanta Pop in the '50s, '60's, and '70s: The Magic of Bill Lowery. You can purchase the book from Amazon by clicking HERE. The book's been available since April of this year. There's a limited preview section and there's a lot of mentions of Ray...in the index it shows that Ray's name appears several other times in areas of the book without the free preview. The back cover of the book has a nice photo of Joe South, Tommy Roe, and Billy Joe Royal. When you visit Ray's CabaRay showroom in Nashville you'll obviously make a stop inside the piano bar. On the wall overlooking the bar is a large portrait of Bill Lowery, with a drink in his hand, and a banner above that reads: The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium.

Ray Stevens: The abc's of NRC...

Several blog entries ago I wrote about the music of Ray Stevens during his brief stay with RCA Records (1980-1983). The tenure resulted in three studio albums during the years 1980, 1981, and 1982 and one compilation release in 1983 during the four years he was signed to the label. Ray had actually joined RCA late in 1979 but no recordings from him emerged until early in 1980. In this blog entry I'm going further back and re-visit his brief stay on a label known as NRC (1959-1960). The acronym stood for National Recording Corporation and it was owned by and operated by Bill Lowery, a guiding force in the early stages of Ray's career (and other recording acts as well). The label and the recordings originated in Atlanta, Georgia which itself was a major departure from the industry norms of the era which pretty much dictated that Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Nashville were the music recording centers of America. A disc jockey, originally, as well as a local television figure in the Atlanta, Georgia market Bill Lowery formed his own music publishing company, Lowery Music, and concentrated on publishing songs of all genres. Several of the songs he published ended up being recorded by country and pop music artists and two songs, in particular, were "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent (1956) and "Young Love", which saw four releases in quick succession: One of the song's writers, Ric Cartey, issued a version of the song in 1956 that didn't chart but then Sonny James released a version that become a gigantic country music hit and it crossed over and landed in the Top-10 of the pop charts in 1957. Then the actor, Tab Hunter, recorded the song and it overshadowed Sonny's version on pop music radio by hitting the top of the charts. A Canadian group, The Crew-Cuts, issued their version early in 1957 as well to eventual Top-20 success. As the publisher of "Young Love" it became one of Bill Lowery's biggest hit songs. He formed NRC in 1958 while Ray Stevens was still under contract at Capitol Records. Ray had been recording for Capitol, a contract resulting from Bill Lowery's influential recommendation/suggestion, for almost two years before making the move to Lowery's NRC label in 1959. Ray's first-ever commercially released recording happened to be on a subsidiary label of Capitol called Prep Records in 1957. The producer of Ray's recordings at the time was Ken Nelson.

As longtime fans of Ray Stevens should know but I'll make mention for newcomers...those earliest recordings for Capitol and NRC didn't chart nationally...well, one of them did, technically, but it was removed from radio playlists before it became "a hit". These non-charting singles represent Ray in his formative years on vinyl and long before his more familiar musical characteristics emerged. I don't need to tell longtime fans of Ray this but, as mentioned, the newcomers often are shocked to hear recordings by Ray from the late '50s to the mid '60s time frame. In those years, specifically the late '50s, Ray's recordings had a touch of teen-idol, romantic crooner atmosphere to them...but that shouldn't come as any surprise considering pop music of that time period was built around love ballads, teen angst, and sometimes tragic, emotionally heavy heartbreak in addition to the upbeat rock and roll sounds that are nostalgically tied to that era. In addition to being a vocalist at NRC he was also heavily involved as a writer, session musician, and music arranger of other artist's songs. If you search YouTube or do any kind of on-line image search for 'Ray Stevens + NRC Records' you'll find out a lot of information. The NRC recordings by an artist named Paul Peek has Ray credited as the Orchestra leader. Specifically it's referred to on the label as The Ray Stevens Orchestra. I do not know the names of any of the other musicians that were part of this orchestra but Ray's name headlines it so I assume he was the pianist and I'm guessing that Jerry Reed and Joe South were guitarists...but beyond those three I'd have no idea who the rest of the musicians happened to be. I know that Billy Joe Royal and Tommy Roe were part of the Georgia music scene, too, along side Ray and the others mentioned but I don't know if they were part of this 'orchestra' promoted on Paul Peek singles.

In the photo above I'm displaying a CD of 11 recordings by Ray Stevens as part of a series called The NRC Years. The series spotlighted the recording artists that recorded for the label in the late '50s and early '60s. There are some errors situated around this CD, however. On the cover it has his years at the label as 1958-1960 but in reality he wasn't on the NRC label until 1959. In addition to this there are a couple of songs in the collection that were recorded for Prep Records but were commercially unreleased in single format: "That's What She Means to Me" and "Cholly Wolly Chang". Those two recordings have appeared on a couple of compilation albums in the past but a single release was never available. Track ten, "Part of the Time", is another recording that never appeared on a commercially released single but it's available on this CD.

The recordings on this obscure CD collection are: "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", "Who Do You Love?", "Happy Blue Year", "High School Yearbook", "Truly True", "What Would I Do Without You?", "White Christmas", "My Heart Cries For You", "Cholly Wolly Chang", "Part of the Time", and "That's What She Means To Me". The first eight recordings were issued on NRC while the last three weren't. The Christmas recordings are instrumentals. NRC issued four singles on Ray and since a single consists of an A-side and a B-side that's eight recordings altogether. I have no information when "Part of the Time" was recorded. I don't know if he recorded it while at NRC but chances are it's a recording from his Capitol years, too, because both "Cholly Wolly Chang" and "That's What She Means to Me" are credited to Prep Records and noted as unreleased in the liner notes of another compilation CD on Ray that I have called Ahab, Jeremiah, Sgt. Preston and More...The Early Ray Stevens from 2014 and having not seen any conflicting information I take the liner note information to be credible. Those same three recordings that make up tracks 9, 10, and 11 of The NRC Years appear on a various artists LP from 1962 titled The Young Lovers. That project features 10 recordings (3 from Tommy Roe, 4 from Bobby Rydell, and 3 from Ray). As mentioned NRC released only four singles on Ray but he'd move on to Mercury Records in 1961 and literally move from Georgia to Nashville, Tennessee by 1962 but never fully leaving his Georgia-born roots behind.

To say Bill Lowery had an impact on the career of Ray Stevens is a gigantic understatement. Bill was responsible for getting Ray on records, first of all, and promoting the songs in addition to publishing practically everything Ray recorded for almost a decade (1957-1966). Ray, by 1966, had become more or less a seasoned veteran among session musicians in Nashville and other important and influential industry figures (Shelby Singleton, Chet Atkins, and Jerry Kennedy) had also seen all of the talents Ray had to offer during countless recording sessions for not only his own recordings but on the records of other artists. His move to Nashville spearheaded the path his career has taken ever since. Earlier this year when Ray opened his showroom, CabaRay, it specifically pays tribute to Music City, U.S.A. and several key figures that shaped Nashville into Music City. Photo's of record producers and musicians line the walls and the booth's are named for several record producers, too. When you think about it Bill Lowery received the biggest visual tribute at the CabaRay...informally called the piano bar it's officially known as The Bill Lowery High Spirits Emporium...and a large photo of Lowery, with a drink in his hand, decorates the wall above the bar.

Ray Stevens...CD import from the United Kingdom...

I came across an internet article about an hour ago indicating that an import CD on Ray Stevens is going to be released soon. The import, from the United Kingdom, has 31 tracks of Ray Stevens greatness. It consists of late '50s and early '60s recordings from Ray that have been commercially available before on long out of print collections...but never before in one comprehensive collection (or as close to comprehensive as you can get when you consider that his professional recordings date back to 1957).

The answer is "no", in case anyone may ask if there's ever been a detailed box set issued on his music. There has never, never NEVER been a career spanning box set of his recordings. It isn't for a "lack of hit songs" or anything...

Even artists that are referred to as pioneers in rock, pop, bluegrass, and country music and never had many or any 'radio hits' have had box sets released spotlighting their catalog of music. One of country music's earliest performers, Jimmie Rodgers, nicknamed The Father of Country Music (among other nick names) released music and had impact before there ever was a creation of a 'country music chart' in Billboard but yet there have been multiple box sets released on him.

The 31 track collection, though not a career spanning box set, assembles a good sampling of Ray's late '50s and early '60s recordings. Titled The Early Ray Stevens, it features eye catching cover art...but there's no information about the possible inclusion of liner notes or an essay of any kind. The music comes from his days at Prep, Capitol, and NRC (the first 15 tracks), and it includes the entire 1962 Mercury LP 1837 Seconds of Humor in addition to "Santa Claus is Watching You" and the single edit of "Ahab the Arab". The LP has 14 tracks on it and so you add up those 14, plus the 15 tracks from the late '50s/early '60s, and you get 29. Add in the single edit of "Ahab the Arab" and the holiday song and there you have the 31 tracks on the CD. America's Amazon site states that the CD is out of stock...it has a release date of April 11 (an error, obviously). On the United Kingdom Amazon site it has the CD available for pre-order but it isn't going to be released until April 22. If you feel comfortable purchasing items from overseas (I've done so only a couple of times) and you want some of Ray's earliest recordings on what appears to be a decently put together CD then visit the United Kingdom Amazon page located HERE and place an order.

You may be thinking to yourself: "...this is all great but what are the songs on the CD??!!"

I haven't forgotten...here's the 31 songs on the CD...

1. Rang Tang Ding Dong
2. Silver Bracelet
3. Cholly Wolly Chang
4. Five More Steps
5. Tingle
6. That's What She Means to Me
7. Chickie Chickie Wah Wah
8. Cat Pants
9. The Clown
10. The School
11. High School Yearbook
12. Truly True
13. What Would I Do without You
14. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon
15. Who Do You Love
16. Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills
17. Teen Years
18. Scratch My Back
19. Ahab the Arab (single edit, Monaural)
20. It's Been So Long
21. Furthermore
22. Saturday Night at the Movies
23. Santa Claus Is Watching You
24. Loved and Lost
25. Ahab the Arab (LP version, Stereo)
26. Popeye and Olive Oil
27. Rockin' Boppin' Waltz
28. PFC Rhythm and Blues Jones
29. Rock and Roll Show
30. Julius Played the Trumpet
31. A Hermit Named Dave

If you want to see the CD's picture/cover art, click on the Amazon link above. The song's track list can be seen at the label's site. They also offer it for sale and they have both a United Kingdom and an American price list...click JASMINE LINK to be taken to their store page. They have the release posted as April 11, 2014 (11/04/14) but it should be April 22, 2014 (22/04/14).

In other Ray Stevens news...

Sitting right on the edge of 1,000,000 unique views is the Ray Stevens ballad "God Save Arizona". You want to know just how close to a million it is? It's sitting at 999,015 as of 9am this morning!!! Hopefully by later today, or soon, I'll be able to celebrate the video's entry into the million view club which already contains several other You Tube videos from Ray Stevens.

Since it's Friday, there's a new webisode of Rayality TV posted on Ray's You Tube channel. Here is Webisode 4 of the series...this segment is titled "Back at The Encore" and it's a little more than 5 minutes total...



Yesterday Ray posted a video clip of an appearance he made on a 1990 episode of Funny Business, a series of specials Charlie Chase hosted on The Nashville Network throughout the '80s and '90s.

I'm not embedding it because the audio playback is super low...you'll have to increase your computer's speakers a lot in order to hear it. It's a shame about the audio because it's a really good appearance...most of it takes place on the golf course...and later on Ray performs "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" (a single of his in late 1986 and into early 1987). Here's a LINK to the video clip...turn up your volume!

Ray Stevens: 45 at 51

The fabulous Ray Stevens was recording for the NRC label during 1959-1960 and "My Heart Cries for You" was one of the singles that the label released. The song was the standard teenage pop heartbreak/heartache love ballad that was enormously popular at the time. I like the song and at various places Ray slips in a little Elvis Presley style vocalization. If someone today were to hear the song and the artist's name would be hidden from view not one person who isn't well-studied on Ray's career would identify the singer as Ray Stevens. The recording was released in 1959 when Ray was all but 20 years old. The producer of the song was a man by the name of Bill Lowery. It's Lowery who became instrumental in helping a group of Georgia singers and entertainers start their path to eventual super-stardom, with Ray being one of the several. There is a video montage of "My Heart Cries For You" on You Tube for those who want to hear the song for themselves. It's available on a very, very obscure ultra-rare CD titled Ray Stevens: The NRC Years that I stumbled on at an on-line auction site. The collection wasn't sold in stores and I don't believe it's in print anymore.  I may have written about this CD before but I've written so many I'm bound to duplicate some things, which is a huge understatement. Anyway...the CD doesn't even have a year of release on it. The catalog number is NRC-CD13 which is very obvious that this CD is the thirteenth in a series of releases on other artists on the NRC label. There are 11 recordings on here, 2 of those recordings are instrumentals. Ray, of course now, is known as a comedic singer and there's two songs on here that are in a novelty/funny category. One of the novelty songs is "Cholly Wolly Chang", a Chinese-laced recording spoofing rock and roll in China. One of the most repeated phrases in the song is "rock and roll Hong Kong!!!". The CD covers his stay with NRC which culminated in 1960 with the release of "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon". That particular song is the second of two on this CD that offer humor.

1. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon
2. Who Do You Love?
3. Happy Blue Year (instrumental)
4. High School Yearbook
5. Truly True
6. What Would I Do Without You?
7. White Christmas (instrumental)
8. My Heart Cries For You
9. Cholly Wolly Chang
10. Part of the Time
11. That's What She Means To Me

 

Ray Stevens: 45 at 50

With the temperature outside dipping down into the low teens I felt like adding another blog entry into my "45 at..." series. This time around we have a Ray Stevens 45 at 50. This single saw it's release in 1960 and for most Ray Stevens fans we all know the story behind this song and the fall-out it received at the time. Let's just explain some things for those who may not know. This particular single, "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", is a novelty single about the character that at the time was one of the more successful live-action children's shows with considerable action and adventure. In most episodes Sgt. Preston would be in some sort of predicament or he'd need assistance at the last second and usually his dog, King, would come to the rescue. Preston, a fictional member of the mounties, became the prototype for just about every Canadian Mountie spoof and caricature throughout the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Mounties aren't spoofed much, if at all, anymore, because of dreaded political correctness, I assume, where people here in America tend to be overly sensitive about how other culture's and other ways of living are depicted on television and in movies. But that's just my theory.

Anyway...after Ray wrote, recorded, and NRC released the single in 1960, it shown some signs of becoming a national hit song. In fact, the single came close to breaking into the Hot 100 pop chart that year...but as word-of-mouth spread it must have spread to the owners of the Sgt. Preston character, too. The owners threatened a lawsuit unless the song was removed from distribution. As history shows, the song was pulled from the market and several months later NRC went bankrupt. Ray found himself on the doorstep of Mercury Records in 1961...well on his way to becoming a popular attraction and singer.

The obscure recording hasn't been well circulated on album or CD but once in awhile it will pop up on an oldies collection...one of the more prominent collections that the song appeared on was All-Time Greatest Hits, a compilation by Varese Sarabande in 2001. This CD is where I heard the song for the first time and I loved the dog howls and everything...the thing that makes me laugh the most besides the dog howls is the narration. Ray was 21 when he recorded the song.