Hello all fans of Ray Stevens!! As I type this it's four minutes until midnight and so I wanted to start this blog while it's still July 15th. Today happened to be the birthday of Buddy Kalb...one of Ray's longtime collaborators. Buddy is one year older than Ray...the two of them have appeared together in numerous music videos and the song's Buddy has written have appeared on dozens of Ray Stevens albums over the decades.
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| Buddy and Ray; July 2020 |
This photo of Ray and Buddy appeared on Ray's social media pages earlier today. Buddy, I don't believe, is in the process of blowing out the candles. I think he's reading the message on the cake. I post photo's small so that it doesn't take up text space but if you look closely you'll see a couple of gold singles hanging on what appears to be a doorway. You'll also notice Ray wearing a new hat...well, I call it new because I've never seen him wear this particular hat before. When you visit any of his social media sites you'll be able to see a larger image. One of the social media sites was hacked on Wednesday...I hadn't visited that particular site yet to see if it's back to normal. I'd read that numerous high profile members of the site were targeted by the hackers. I suspect when I visit this site later I'll be asked to come up with a new password to be on the safe side. Anyway, as I'm typing this portion of the blog entry we're into early Thursday morning, July 16th. Several years ago a writer named Jeremy Roberts interviewed Buddy Kalb and Ray Stevens, individually. Jeremy and I had put together a list of songs Buddy wrote/co-wrote and that Ray recorded. Buddy's contribution to Ray's professional career began in 1976...they'd been friends for years before he joined Ray's publishing company as a writer. The first song of Buddy's that Ray recorded happened to be "
One and Only You". The song appears on Ray's 1976 album,
Just for the Record. The following year Buddy supplied another inspirational song, "
Set The Children Free", for Ray's
Feel the Music album in 1977. The next Buddy Kalb song that Ray recorded, "
You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me", appears on Ray's 1980 album,
Shriner's Convention, early in 1980. "
Night Games", another song from the pen of Buddy Kalb, recorded in the summer of 1980, became a single release that coming fall and the first 'hit' song of Buddy's that Ray recorded. The 1976, 1977, and early 1980 recordings were what the industry referred to as album cuts...songs that appear on an album but weren't commercially released on a single record. "
Night Games" appeared as a single-only release in the fall of 1980, reaching the Country Top-20, and eventually found it's way onto Ray's 1981 album,
One More Last Chance. In the world of country music the Urban Cowboy movie and cowboy imagery had taken over country music marketing. "
Night Games" appropriately took place inside a singles bar...and in the photo on Ray's 1981 album we see him decked out in cowboy attire. Buddy had several writer credits on the 1981 album: "
Night Games", "
Melissa", and "
Let's Do It Right This Time".
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| Ray Stevens; 1981 |
Buddy's involvement in Ray's career remained steady throughout the 1980s. As the decade wore on Buddy's name became a mainstay on Ray's albums...professionally appearing in the songwriter credits as C.W. Kalb, Jr. In 1984 Buddy provided Ray with "
Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and from then on there wasn't a Ray Stevens album that didn't feature at least one Buddy Kalb song...most albums consisted almost entirely of songs from the pen of Buddy Kalb. In 1988 Ray produced his second music video, "
Surfin' U.S.S.R.". His first ever music video arrived in 1985, "
Santa Claus is Watching You". Buddy's debut in a Ray Stevens music video arrived in the 1988 music video and in the most memorable kind of way. Buddy appears in drag...dressed up as a cigar smoking woman wearing a Moscow U sweatshirt. How's that for a music video debut? Ray and Buddy co-wrote almost the entire 1989
Beside Myself album. There are 10 recordings on that album...8 of the songs were written by Ray and Buddy. One song, "
Bad Dancin'", featured additional lyrics credited to Bruce Innis and Cinde Borup while another, a John Wayne tribute called "
Marion Michael Morrison", was a song credited solely to Buddy Kalb. One of the fan favorites, "
Barbeque", was written by Ray. It's from the 1990 album,
Lend Me Your Ears. That album is chock full of songs from the pen of Buddy Kalb...as is 1991's
Number One with a Bullet. In the 1990s music videos became Ray's focal point...and Buddy became Ray's sidekick/co-star in most of those videos. Buddy can be seen as the arresting policeman in the "
It's Me Again, Margaret" music video, the officer eating the donut. In "
The Streak" Buddy is seen as the 'director' of the music video.
In Ray's 1995
Get Serious! movie (direct to VHS) Buddy co-stars as a fictional version of himself as well as the character of Dudley Dorite throughout the movie and in the music video, "
Dudley Dorite of the Highway Patrol". If you look closely you'll see Buddy as one of the Indians in the music video of "
The Woogie Boogie". Buddy appears in Ray's "
Too Drunk To Fish" music video and appears as the head of Mission Control in the "
Virgil and the Moonshot" video. Buddy later on portrayed the title character in the music video for "
The Blue Cyclone". Earlier I mentioned writer Jeremy Roberts. Here is his interview with Buddy Kalb...click
HERE. After you read it make sure to click the handclap sign on the left hand side of the screen. It's your way of giving the interview an approval rating. It also contains a list of songs Buddy wrote or co-wrote that Ray recorded in his career to that point. Some of Buddy's recent contributions is Ray's current music video hit, "
Quarantined", as well as a song Ray's performed on his
CabaRay Nashville show entitled "
It's My Job". When you watch Ray's television series on local PBS stations you'll hear Buddy Kalb do the voice-over before and after the show.
Buddy Kalb and Ray Stevens in 2019 at the
Country Music Hall of Fame. In the background, clearly visible, is Eddy Arnold's plaque. Ray was elected to the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. I have a photo of Ray's plaque on the right hand side of the page. If you scroll through the photo time-line it's the next to last photo in the time-line...but here are Buddy and Ray on that fun day in 2019.
