Ray Stevens: Audio Diary 6

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! As Ray was departing from RCA Records in 1983 the record company issued a compilation album on him simply titled Greatest Hits. Ray had signed with the record company late in 1979 and his album debut for RCA arrived very early in 1980. Those who are fans of Ray, as I am, often cite his Warner Brothers years (1976-1979) as the turning point where the marketing of his music, overall, shifted from a general pop music audience to a country music audience. I agree with that but I'll further add that when he joined the roster of RCA Records he became even more woven into the fabric of country music...becoming very visible on all kinds of country music programming on television, increasing his appearances at county and state fairs across the country, and performing/appearing at country music themed awards show. Now, of course, this isn't to say that Ray was a stranger to county fairs, country-oriented television shows, and nightclubs prior to his signing with Warner Brothers or RCA...it's just that when you see him on television programs from the early to mid 1970s and then see him on television in the late 1970s and into the 1980s you'll notice some subtle changes in his stage presence and delivery...and obviously you'll notice that the beard became permanent in the late 1970s. A lot of Ray's comedy songs I'd categorize as fun songs, recordings that are heavy with southern comedy/southern humor, but there are plenty that can be categorized as topical and satiric. 

The 1983 Greatest Hits album that RCA released I've written about and spotlighted numerous times during the life of this fan created blog page. The collection includes 10 songs...and Ray wrote 9 of the 10 recordings. The mystery that I don't think will ever be solved about this album is why the record company decided to feature just two recordings that Ray did for the company (from 1980) and fill the rest of the album with songs from decades past. Ray recorded three studio albums for RCA during the years 1980, 1981, and 1982. In that three year time frame RCA released 6 singles on Ray...5 of the single releases reached the national best selling charts...and so it's baffling why those single releases weren't spotlighted on the 1983 album. The track list of the 1983 album: "Shriner's Convention" (1980), "Ahab the Arab" (1969 recording), "The Streak" (1974), "Everything is Beautiful" (1970), "Mr. Businessman" (1968), "The Moonlight Special" (1974), "Misty" (1975), "Gitarzan" (1969), "Freddie Feelgood" (1969 album cut), and "The Dooright Family" (1980). Do you want to know what single releases on RCA that could have been included on this 1983 album but weren't? Here they are: "Hey There" was released in 1980 in international markets instead of "Shriner's Convention". "Hey There" and "Shriner's Convention" contained the same B-side, "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me". "Night Games" was issued in the latter half of 1980 as the first single from his yet to be released 1981 album. The title track of that 1981 album, "One More Last Chance", was issued as a single in the first half of 1981. 

Inexplicably, RCA never released another single or album on Ray throughout the rest of 1981. This brings us to 1982 and the release of Don't Laugh Now. This album contained the final two single releases on Ray from RCA: "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" and "Where The Sun Don't Shine". As mentioned, 5 of the 6 single releases charted on the various best selling charts.. the one that didn't happened to be "Hey There". I have not, to date, come across any weekly sales or airplay chart from overseas that lists his comical take on "Hey There" as having made the charts. The other RCA single releases all reached the Top-100 best selling singles charts here in the United States. 

Now, from the 1983 Greatest Hits album, is the 1974 audio track of "The Moonlight Special". Ray wrote this song as a parody of the television series, The Midnight Special, upon which it's announcer was disc jockey Wolfman Jack. It's an example of how Ray's music played to a general, pop music audience at that time. I don't know if country music audiences at the time were even aware that TV show even existed?! You can listen to the track by clicking HERE. 

Ray Stevens: The RCA Single Releases

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Whenever I'd go and look through some of my statistics for this blog I'm always seeing several visits to a blog entry I wrote quite awhile ago focusing on the Barnaby Records single releases on Ray Stevens. It got me thinking...and I've written so many blog entries over the last 10 or so years...that perhaps it's time to re-visit that type of blog entry and focus on the Ray's RCA Records single releases. Ray was officially on the RCA roster for four years (1979-1983). In that time period the record company issued three studio albums, a Greatest Hits album, and six single releases from Ray Stevens. His greatest commercial hit happened to be his debut for the label, "Shriner's Convention", which hit early in 1980. This is a song that had been tested out beforehand in concert and in a couple of television appearances in the latter half of 1979. The single would become a Top-10 Country hit as would the album of the same name. The album peaked within the Top-5 on the Country Albums chart. Ray's tenure at RCA was short but the music he recorded while at the label was fabulous in my opinion. Ray's RCA catalog has never been properly kept readily available in the online digital age beyond a few recordings. Non-fans would say it's because there's a lack of 'hit songs' during that time period (an untrue statement, by the way) but Ray Stevens fans, like myself, will argue and say it's because the record company has no interest in releasing his studio albums to the digital market...and, IF that's really true, it's a shame. If it's NOT true then I'd like to hear an official explanation as to why his RCA recordings aren't widely available in a digital format.

1980: Shriner's Convention / You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me

1980: Hey There / You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me (released in Canada and overseas)

1980: Night Games / Let's Do It Right This Time

1981: One More Last Chance / I Believe You Love Me

1982: Written Down In My Heart / Country Boy, Country Club Girl

1982: Where The Sun Don't Shine / Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Love

The three studio albums Ray recorded for RCA are titled: Shriner's Convention (1980), One More Last Chance (1981), and Don't Laugh Now (1982). When RCA released a Greatest Hits album on Ray in 1983 they only included two RCA tracks. They should have featured five or all six of the A-side single releases and a few older tracks. However, a few years later, RCA issued several albums called Collector's Series. The series focused on past and present RCA recording artists. Ray's collection arrived in 1985 and then it got re-released in 1987. It was an album of 8 songs and they were all from his RCA years. Yes, a skimpy collection, but nevertheless it was an introduction to his RCA years for a lot of his younger fans who discovered Ray in the mid to late 1980s. Believe it or not Collector's Series remains the only official overview of Ray's RCA years. Unless you have the studio albums in vinyl or cassette format the Collector's Series remains the most widely released overview of his early 1980's music.  

Ray Stevens: 1 Day Until Musicians Hall of Fame Induction...

Hello once again and welcome to Part Two...now we're only 1 day away until Ray Stevens is inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame. If you read my Part One blog entry you may have come away with the impression that I was very broad (not detailed) in my overview of Ray's career time-line from 1955 through 1979. I have a detailed career time-line of Ray that runs along the side of the blog. It begins in 1955 and every so often I'll add an image to the time-line which represents a specific year. When Ray releases a new album or single I'll add the publicity image to the time-line. Anyway, I didn't want to be too detailed in my Part One blog since that's the function of the pictorial time-line. Toward the end of the last blog entry I brought up Ray's push into the country music mainstream as the mid 1970's rolled around. His friendship with Chet Atkins lasted decades. The two were often spotted together at music industry functions and gala's...and unless you're well detailed in the career/life of Ray Stevens then you may not know that the two were business partners in a string of real estate properties all over Nashville. In music industry publications some of the writers half-jokingly nicknamed Ray the Landlord of Music Row. Nashville is an album Ray released on Barnaby Records in 1973. I consider it his first major step into the country music format. The album's overall feel is in line with what Nashville was promoting as country music at the time. Ray was the producer and arranger on the album as he had been on his last several studio albums. "Nashville" was the main single release and it's become a mainstay in his concerts...but it had gone under the radar for several decades before Ray brought it back to the forefront of his career several years ago. It was a country music hit...it didn't appear on the pop chart. Ray was in the process of recording studio ownership around this time. He opened up a studio called The Ray Stevens Sound Laboratory. 

Some of his pop music releases crossed over to the country audience and I feel the friendship he had with Ralph Emery was a factor. Ralph was a very influential country music disc jockey and country music television host...and typically if a song was heard on Ralph's broadcasts chances were other disc jockeys around the country picked up on it. 

"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", as mentioned in Part One, was the first single of Ray's to appear on a country music chart. The single charted pop in America and in Canada as well as country in America and Canada. The Canadian RPM publication had Ray's single ranked higher on their pop and country chart's indicating that it either had more sales or more airplay in Canada than here in the United States. If you search weekly chart publications you'll find all kinds of interesting tidbits revolving around single and album releases in Ray's career. Since his career bounced all over the music spectrum you'll find that an album or single might do well in one format but not even appear in another...but then, by the next release, the format that didn't embrace the previous single may embrace the following single and vice versa. Ray's next country appearance came with "Have a Little Talk With Myself"...and though it's appearance on the weekly country chart was brief the fact that his singles were breaking into country music as early as 1969 suggested his wide appeal. 

1970's "Everything is Beautiful" was a multi-week number one pop hit, a multi-week Adult-Contemporary number one, and it reached the music charts internationally...and it, too, crossed over to the country chart and reached the Top-40 in that format. A series of gospel singles in 1971 hit pop and adult-contemporary...with one, "Turn Your Radio On", pulling a triple-prize by charting pop, adult-contemporary, and country. In the country market the single hit the Top-20. Two preceding singles "All My Trials" and "A Mama and a Papa" both reached the Top-10 on the Adult-Contemporary charts both here in the United States and in Canada. His rock and roll arrangement of "Love Lifted Me" was also a hit...but in Bangkok of all places. Billboard magazine's Hits of the World shows the single listed on Bangkok's music chart for multiple weeks. Ray's international publicity took him all over the globe in the early to mid 1970s. As you see here it's a March 1971 issue of a Sydney, Australia tourist guide with Ray Stevens on the cover. Later on Ray wrote the song, "Nashville", a song I mentioned earlier, during one of his lengthy overseas tours. Ray is quoted as saying he wrote the song because he was homesick for Nashville. Ray plays the piano, keyboard, and synthesizer and is credited as one of the musicians in almost all of his albums. He is also credited with being the record producer and music arranger. His first producer credit, as far as his own recordings are concerned, come along in 1968. Specifically it was a co-producer credit with Fred Foster on the Even Stevens album. That is the album that introduced a general public that never bothered to play the B-side of singles a chance to hear a serious side of Ray Stevens. Serious songs often appeared as the B-side of his novelty songs throughout his years at Mercury and during the earliest years of his recording career on Monument (which began in 1965) but Even Stevens was an entire album of non-comedy and it's main single was the pop hit, "Mr. Businessman". Fred Foster, Ray Stevens, and Jim Malloy were the record producers on the Gitarzan comedy album. Ray's final studio album for Monument, Have a Little Talk With Myself, was produced by Ray with co-production by Jim Malloy. Ray's first studio album where he was the sole record producer happened to be Everything is Beautiful, released in the summer of 1970. The Mercury singles and two studio albums (1961-1965) were produced by Shelby Singleton...with some single releases featuring co-production by Jerry Kennedy. 

From 1970 onward Ray has been the main producer of all of his albums and the music arranger on all of his recordings...with the exception of two back to back albums in 1982 and 1983. Don't Laugh Now, from 1982 on RCA Records, featured co-production work from Bob Montgomery. Me, from 1983 on Mercury Records, featured co-production work from Jerry Kennedy. The 1982 album was Ray's third for RCA. A few years earlier, in 1980, Ray was the recipient of two career recognition awards. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame as well as the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ray's exquisite Don't Laugh Now is so good...there's a mix of all kinds of styles on the album. The opening track is his catchy take on "Such a Night". The album features a novelty song in "Where The Sun Don't Shine" and a series of love ballads including the hit single, "Written Down in My Heart". 

Ray's deep dive into country music comedy began in the latter half of 1984 when he joined MCA Records. It was on this record label where Ray's albums took center stage as each of his releases on the label entered the Country Albums chart...with two of the albums reaching Top-10 status and almost all of them having long chart runs. It is also on MCA Records that the sales of his albums were so large that several of them eventually achieved Gold and Platinum certification. As unbelievable as it may sound Ray's 1981, 1982, and 1983 studio albums didn't appear on the weekly album charts. So, when 1984's He Thinks He's Ray Stevens debuted on Billboard's Country Albums chart it marked his first appearance on the chart with a studio album since Shriner's Convention in 1980. A 1983 Greatest Hits album, on RCA, became a hit. 

Ray's career branched out into different avenues in the 1990s. The decade of the 1980s was dominated, mostly, with his comedy albums for MCA and his consecutive wins as Comedian of the Year by the readers of Music City News magazine and viewers of The Nashville Network. In the 1990s he signed with Curb Records and he revealed his plans for building a theater in Branson, Missouri. The theater opened to the public in the summer of 1991. This led Ray into the realm of VHS tape. He produced and starred in a collection of music videos and sold them on VHS under the title Comedy Video Classics in 1992. VHS reporters for the music industry cited Ray's VHS as being revolutionary. Television commercials played on hundreds of television stations and at all hours of the day and night. It became a multi-million seller through direct marketing and when it was released to retail stores in 1993 it repeated the same success. Billboard named the VHS it's Video of the Year in 1993. Ray Stevens Live!, part of a concert at his former theater in Branson, Missouri, was sold on VHS and was certified Double-Platinum through direct marketing. In audio that decade Ray recorded three studio albums for Curb Records. He performed at his Branson theater for three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993). Here's video of Ray at the piano performing "Yakety Sax/Yakety Axe" along side Chet Atkins and Boots Randolph. It's from an episode of Nashville Now...you'll see the show's host, Ralph Emery, at the beginning of the video.

Ray returned to MCA Records late in 1996 and recorded two albums for them and released more comedy music videos. He had marked his return to MCA with the retail release of his VHS tape, Get Serious!, which was sold through direct marketing in 1995. It was certified Double-Platinum. 

When Ray goes into the Musicians Hall of Fame tomorrow we'll all be excited but we also know that Ray's career will continue to move along. He'll continue performing concerts at his CabaRay showroom in West Nashville and his songs will continue to be discovered by thousands of people who search the internet for 'comedy songs', 'comedy music', 'funny songs', etc. I deliberately cut off my overview of Ray's career in the mid 1990s because I feel I've written a detailed overview without it turning into an entire career retrospective. I'm hoping the Musicians Hall of Fame will give Ray's career an in-depth going over tomorrow...but even if they don't it's still going to be exciting to know that Ray's being recognized for his career by such a prestigious organization.   

Ray Stevens sings "Written Down In My Heart"...

Hello all of you Ray Stevens fans!! Well, we're one day away from the first concert at the CabaRay for the 2022 concert season. Ray's spacious showroom re-opens tomorrow evening March 19th...the piano bar sets the mood and then, shortly thereafter, the dinner portion of the evening begins. If you've ordered a dinner ahead of the concert you'll be allowed to enter the concert area 2 hours before the show. If you didn't order a dinner you'll be allowed to enter the concert area 1 hour before the show, or, you can remain in the piano bar, or, you can look around and take in the art work lining the walls and view the various awards that Ray's won over the years. The concerts last 90 minutes and the piano bar re-opens following Ray's performance...and usually Ray goes into the piano bar and participates in autograph/photograph sessions with fans and performs piano duets and sing-a-longs with the showroom's resident pianist, John Jonethis. Those planning on going to one of Ray's CabaRay concerts can click HERE for more information. 

A couple of months ago I wrote a lengthy blog entry about Ray's 1982 album, Don't Laugh Now, reaching 40 this year. Adding to that blog entry in this one I've decided to embed a performance by Ray Stevens of one of his singles that year, "Written Down In My Heart". I've embedded this video performance in the past but since I didn't include it in a January blog entry that I wrote I've chosen to embed that performance here. The love ballad comes from the pen of a writer named W.T. Davidson. The performance comes from a 1982 appearance by Ray on The Barbara Mandrell Show. Ray guest starred on their variety show twice. Take notice and appreciate the wonderful introduction Barbara Mandrell provided...

Ray Stevens sings "Such a Night"...

Well, here I am once again and I'm writing a blog entry about Ray Stevens. Are you a serious collector of Ray Stevens music? I have a lot of vinyl albums, vinyl singles, cassette tapes, CDs, and digital downloads of Ray Stevens in my personal music collection. I also have several trinkets and memorabilia. I asked that question because the main topic of this blog entry is the Ray Stevens recording of "Such a Night". I should be a little more technical...it's a performance of "Such a Night". The recording happened in 1982 and it's on his studio album, Don't Laugh Now. The album came at a time when Ray was intentionally focusing on the serious, ballad side of his recording career. It's something he had always focused on during the majority of his recording career...but he would eventually market himself comedy beginning in 1984. He would continue, every so often, to release serious recordings...he even does so to this day...but from 1984 onward the comedy aspect of his recording career has dominated. 

The video comes from a concert he gave in 2015 during what was billed as the Here We Go Again! tour. He had released his memoir the previous year and if I recall correctly you could have your book autographed after the concert during the photograph/autograph session. The tour was named after his comedy album that year...the one that features "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me" on it. "Such a Night" is typically what Ray opens his concerts with. I don't know how long it's been his opening number...he performed it at the couple of concerts I've been fortunate enough to attend. The song goes back to the rock and roll sounds of the 1950s...and when you hear the music arrangement you'll discover it immediately. One of Ray's favorite rhythm and blues groups, The Drifters, recorded the song in 1953 and that's the rendition Ray likely became familiar with. Their rendition was issued in January 1954 and it eventually climbed into the Top-10 of the Rhythm and Blues chart. Ray often makes a point to specify that he was influenced by The Drifters when the lead singer was Clyde McPhatter, a singer who also previously recorded with another rhythm and blues group, The Dominoes, that Ray has previously cited as an influence (along side Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Spike Jones, and The Coasters). Johnny Ray had a number one with "Such a Night" in England in 1954. Elvis Presley recorded his version of the song in 1960 and had a hit with it, too. The song's been recorded by numerous recording artists over the years. Ray titled one of his DVD releases, Such a Night: 50 Years of Hits and Hilarity. Yes, the opening number of the concert was "Such a Night". 

The concert footage was taped at The Welk Theater in Branson, Missouri in 2010. The title of the DVD was in reference to 2010 being the 50th anniversary of the Ray Stevens novelty single, "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", which had become the first single of Ray's to attract national attention. He had been recording since 1957 but in 1960 "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" had began gaining traction as a regional hit...and as it gained national momentum it also attracted the lawyers of King Features Syndicate, the company that owned the rights to the character 'Sgt. Preston', and they threatened a lawsuit if the record company, NRC, didn't pull all copies of the song off the market. The single was charting nationally just below Billboard magazine's Hot 100...there used to be a 25 position chart filled with songs that hadn't broken into the national music scene, yet, and the songs were said to be Bubbling Under the Hot 100 if they made an appearance there...the near-hit in 1960 inspired him to focus on novelty material to gain national attention and so he did! However, as the video above demonstrates, Ray Stevens sings any type of music. 

Ray Stevens: Bobby Bare performances...

Hello one and all...yesterday happened to be the 85th birthday of country music legend, Bobby Bare. To mark that event the social media sites of Ray Stevens posted a video clip of Bobby, from 2009, performing "Detroit City" on an episode of a short-lived sitcom Ray starred in called We Ain't Dead Yet. If you'd seen episodes of the clip-filled Rayality TV series, which recently ended it's run on RFD-TV, it contained bits and pieces from that 2009 series. In the video clip you'll see several people that have since passed away...



Bobby recorded the majority of his songs for RCA Records and in the producer's booth was Chet Atkins. The style of country music coming out of Nashville in the late 1950s and well into the early 1970s was nicknamed The Nashville Sound. Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley, and Bob Ferguson are typically given equal credit for creating The Nashville Sound. It could be described as pop music arrangements placed on top of, lyrically country, songs. In the umbrella of The Nashville Sound there was a style referred to as Countrypolitan and that sound, historically, is connected to the records produced by Billy Sherrill. This style expanded on the Nashville Sound and it incorporated even more strings, soaring music arrangements, more background harmonies, and there was an overall glossy/beautiful production of the traditional country song. Those who prefer minimal production with sparse instrumentation consider The Nashville Sound, and especially Countrypolitan, to be "overly-produced, overblown, over-the-top, overbearing, and obnoxious". Those are just some of the more polite descriptions from country music purists! Anyway...

Nearly a decade after Bobby Bare sang "Detroit City" on We Ain't Dead Yet in 2009 he was a guest star on an episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville a couple of years ago. In this episode one of the songs performed was "Streets of Baltimore". Bobby made reference to Ray's music arranging skills in this episode. Ray wasn't credited as an arranger on the recording. I'd previously searched for images of the single release and the LP, last year, and the music arrangers aren't credited.

Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Twelve...

Hello once again!! As we move along the road leading up to the Country Music Hall of Fame induction of Ray Stevens we arrive in 1982. Ray was in the middle of his recording contract with RCA Records and had issued two studio albums, so far, for the company. A third studio album arrived in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This fabulous album blended country music, bluesy country music, and rock and roll flavors within the ten songs found on the album. The album's cover photo features Ray looking very serious and holding a smiling mask. The photo that appears on the back of the album has a smiling Ray Stevens holding a frowning mask. Ray, of course, was continuing to make music of a more serious nature and on this album he splits time between love ballads and uptempo love songs. The previous album featured heavy use of slow love ballads. The 1982 album kicks off with the uptempo "Such a Night" (a song Ray would use several decades later to open up his shows). RCA issued the first single from this album early in 1982...the love ballad "Written Down In My Heart". This single reached the Country Top-40 and if you happened to be a viewer of Barbara Mandrell's television show then you would've seen him perform this song in one of his appearances. The love ballad was backed with a mid-tempo love song, "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". In the production of this album Ray enlisted Bob Montgomery as a co-producer. This was the first time since 1969 that a Ray Stevens studio album featured a co-producer with Ray. The studio albums from 1970 to 1981 were produced solely by Ray.

In the spring RCA Records issued "Where the Sun Don't Shine"...this particular song is given a southern gospel music arrangement and it's considered a novelty song as one would think when looking at the song's title...it's more than a novelty song, though...it's a break-up song more or less and Ray tells the woman what she can do with everything in the house she owns as well as her friends and family. This bouncy single made the Country charts in the summer of 1982 and it turned out to be Ray's final single release on RCA Records. The rest of the year consisted of Ray out on the road touring and appearing on various television programs. He had become a familiar face on the annual fan-voted Music City News awards telecast...co-hosting several of the telecasts dating back to 1980. The organization used to telecast a Songwriters Awards event...and given Ray being a songwriter as well as a music publisher he either co-hosted or performed on this telecast frequently throughout the early to mid 1980s. In the meantime the calendar rolled into 1983 and while Ray hadn't issued a single since the spring of 1982 nor an album since Don't Laugh Now, RCA was still obligated contractually to release a compilation album on Ray. This Greatest Hits arrived in the summer of 1983 and it made the Country album chart...but strangely enough RCA didn't fill the album with too many recent hits from Ray...instead they placed "Shriner's Convention" and "The Dooright Family" on the compilation album (both songs, on RCA, come from 1980) but the remainder of the album collects specific hit singles from the period of 1968 through 1975. Ray, in the meantime, signed a contract with Mercury Records...the label upon which he became a major recording artist in the early '60s. In the annual Fan Fair event (now called CMA Music Fest) Ray performed on stage during the Polygram Records show. Polygram is/was one of Mercury's subsidiary labels. Ray's latest studio album arrived in the latter half of 1983 with the unusual title of Me.  It reunited him, professionally, with Jerry Kennedy and the two of them are credited as the record producers of the 1983 album.

The album, as I've stated several times in this fan created blog, is one of my all-time favorites from Ray Stevens. Me comes across as such a departure from some of the albums he recorded in this era but I've never really been able to explain how so. There's a melancholy feel throughout the album...a number of love songs on here are about lost love...and the mood of the music goes hand in hand with the somberness. The album's first single, "Mary Lou Nights", is one of those bluesy country songs...with the harmonica taking center stage in the performance. The B-side, on the other hand, should have been an anthem for state tourism and adopted by the Chamber of Commerce as a jingle but it wasn't. The song I'm referring to is "A Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee". It's such a great song...the lyrics paint a portrait so well that it sounds like it was destined to be turned into a music video. It's very catchy...as is another song on here called "Game Show Love". No, it isn't a novelty song, even though music critics past and present may try and label it as such given the catchphrases and titles of game shows mentioned throughout. It's a break-up song, actually, about a man finally learning that the woman he's loved wasn't serious...it's all been a game to her. The album's lead-off song became the second single release from the album. The title of the song sounds like a novelty but when you listen to it you'll get goosebumps: "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out". The ballad featured "Game Show Love" as it's B-side on the single release. Not released as a single but an incredible song is "Special Anniversary". Mercury released a third and final single from the album in early 1984...the emotional "My Dad" from the pen of Dale Gonyea. "My Dad" was backed with "Me" on the single release. "My Dad" dealt with the importance of father's and it made an appearance on the Country singles chart in the first half of 1984 but it didn't reach the Top-40...and after the one album deal with Mercury Records it was time to shop around for another record label.

You might say that Ray was at a crossroads in his career at this point in time. Yes, for much of the 1960s, 1970s, and into the early 1980s he recorded his share of serious songs and he produced, arranged, recorded, published, and or played on many, many serious recordings of his own and for other recording artists...and yet even with all of this his public image was one of a comedian/novelty artist/clown. It might seem like an easy decision now or perhaps destiny but Ray decided to make a major career move in 1984. Some critics and historians may downplay this career decision as not 'major' but something done out of necessity or they may take another approach and determine it isn't much of a career move if one were to look at his public image. The change in music direction arrived in the late summer of 1984...pretty much 35 years ago this month. Ray had signed with MCA Records upon the conclusion of his Mercury contract and the early results shown up in September of 1984 with his first single release for the label...the uptempo, bluegrass flavored "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye". This single featured the satirical "Joggin'" as it's B-side (a novelty about joggers and exercise fanatics). A funny thing happened, though. MCA released his debut album for the label, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, in November of 1984. "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" was, frustratingly, still in the 'testing' stage at radio stations. Country disc jockeys began playing another song from the album on the air...the satirical "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". Well, one thing led to another, and MCA had a hit on their hands...one after the other word of mouth spread about this squirrel song and MCA issued it as a single in November of 1984. The B-side is "Ned Nostril", a song in which Ray does a Johnny Cash impression throughout. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" became such a hit that Country radio had no choice but to play it...and the results helped the single catapult into the Country Top-20 in early 1985 and the album became an enormous hit as well...and I'll get more into detail about the album and the resurgence in Ray's overall popularity when I pick things up in Part Thirteen.

Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Eleven...

Here we are in Part Eleven and we're in the latter half of 1979 in the career of Ray Stevens. If you do the math that's 22 years into his professional recording career...and if you do even more math 1979 was 40 years ago...so we've got a lengthy road left to travel as we make our way to 2019.

Warner Brothers issued a follow-up single from Ray in the summer of 1979 on the heels of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". It was more of a re-release...they brought back Ray's 1977 single, "Get Crazy With Me", and issued it with "The Feeling's Not Right Again" as the B-side. Those two recordings happened to be part of the 1979 compilation album, The Feeling's Not Right Again, that Warner Brothers issued on Ray in the aftermath of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" becoming a hit single. "Get Crazy With Me", originally backed with "Dixie Hummingbird" in 1977, has a catalog number of WBS-8318. The re-release in 1979 has a catalog number of WBS-8849.

The 1977 and 1979 issue

Technically some may not consider the 1979 copy being a re-release because of it having a different B-side, different art work, and a different catalog number but yet it's the same recording on both single releases. Anyway, upon the release of this single, not too long afterward Ray signed a recording contract with RCA Records. This was another high profile record label, like Warner Brothers, when compared to Barnaby Records and in some cases Monument Records. One of Ray's long time friends in the music industry, Chet Atkins, was not only a legendary guitar player but was also one of the top producers at RCA and was eventually given the title of Vice President of the record label...and during Ray's early years in Nashville it was usually Chet that hired him for numerous recording sessions...so their friendship went way back to the early '60s. In addition to Chet's presence at RCA one of Ray's other long time friends, Jerry Reed, had been on the RCA roster for a number of years and so the two of them became label mates. I don't know who officially signed Ray to the RCA label but by the fall of 1979 he was performing an unrecorded song in his concerts and he performed it on television a couple of times as well. In a television movie that aired in October of 1979, Concrete Cowboys, there's a brief clip of him performing this song and in an episode of Pop! Goes the Country from 1979 he performed the song in it's entirety and spoke of it's origins.

The song was comical...not necessarily a song...it was a narration almost. The title being "Shriner's Convention" Ray told the tale of an unorthodox Shriner named Noble Lumkin being scolded during a telephone conversation by head Shriner, the Illustrious Potentate. It's a one-sided conversation and all we hear is the head Shriner giving orders and then reacting to what he hears on the other side of the phone. There are three separate phone conversations between the two Shriner's...in the first conversation the Illustrious Potentate calls Noble Lumkin but the Noble has no idea who this 'Illustrious Potentate' happens to be. Potentate rather quickly grows frustrated within the first several seconds and drops the formalities and angrily replies "Coy!!! This is Bubba!!!". The satirical lyrics and the kind of humor presented throughout the recording was risky...meaning that it's a type of song that perhaps is only appealing to those within one of those fraternity organizations and therefore will get the humor and understand the nuances of the lyrics more so than a general audience might. Fortunately, though, a general audience loved "Shriner's Convention" when RCA released it as a single in February of 1980. The antics of Coy and the annoyance of Bubba tickled the funny bone of those that heard the recording and those two fictional characters became just as synonymous with Ray as Ahab, Fatima, Clyde, Gitarzan, and Ethel had become in the past. Coy loved motorcycles, for example, and in one phone conversation Bubba memorably asks how Coy was able to get the Harley on the high dive of the motel's swimming pool. The song was inspired by an actual Shriner's convention that was taking place and while Ray was on the road in the middle of a tour one of the hotels he was staying at included rooms being occupied by several boisterous Shriner's that, according to Ray's recollections, "were having way too much fun...carrying on all night long..." and so he created a story of a boisterous Shriner and how his behavior is frowned upon by the more senior members of the fraternity.

"Shriner's Convention" became a big hit for Ray early in 1980. It made it into the Country Top-10...and while all of this was going on he was working on a Shriner's Convention album. RCA issued two versions of the single. There is an edited version for radio that has a running time of 4 minutes and 10 seconds. There is also an unedited version with a running time of 5 minutes and 33 seconds. RCA issued a promotional single featuring the Edited copy on one side and the Unedited copy on the other side. The commercial release featured "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me" on the B-side. Ironically, in the United Kingdom, RCA released a different single on Ray...his comical approach to the pop love ballad, "Hey There". The B-side remained "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me". I'm assuming RCA felt the humor of "Shriner's Convention" wouldn't play that well to an international audience. In Canada "Shriner's Convention" hit the runner-up position on their Country chart. The album's cover, as you can see, depicts Coy on his motorcycle with the waitress he picked up when he visited the motel's swimming pool. In the background are angry Shriner's and on the back of the album there's a couple of comic strip panels focusing on the plot of the song with Bubba growing annoyed, panel by panel, over Coy's antics. The album reached the Top-10 on the Country Album chart in the spring of 1980. The entire first half of 1980 for Ray Stevens was all things Shriner, Coy, and Bubba. The album features nine novelty songs...some of them are "Coin Machine", "The Last Laugh", "The Watch Song", and a song that's become popular among his fans, "The Dooright Family". Ray performed "Shriner's Convention" and "Love Me Longer" on an episode of Hee Haw...the episode originally aired on February 16, 1980...which was right around the time the "Shriner's Convention" single was just starting to take off. By the middle of 1980 Ray was distancing himself once again from the comedy and along came a bouncy bar room ballad titled "Night Games" from the pen of Buddy Kalb. This single was backed with another Buddy Kalb composition, "Let's Do It Right This Time". An article in Country Song Roundup featuring Ray on the cover hit the market in September 1980. The name of this article is More Than Meets the Ear and it's an article that puts a spotlight on his serious side and how the comedy records overshadow the serious material.

"Night Games" reached the Top-20 on the Country chart in the fall of 1980...fitting right in with the national trend taking place in the wake of the Urban Cowboy movie...where all walks of life were dressing up in Western attire and acting as if they were real cowboys and cowgirls. Not only that but radio stations were flipping their formats from Adult-Contemporary and pop music to country music. The trend took over the Country Music industry for a solid three years...at least. The film made it's debut in June of 1980 and it catapulted Mickey Gilley, already a successful Country music singer, into a superstar and his night-club, Gilley's, became an international tourist attraction (the bulk of the movie took place inside Mickey's famous, former night-club). A second 1980 appearance on Hee Haw which aired on October 11, 1980 featured Ray performing "Night Games" as well as "You've Got the Music Inside". RCA didn't issue any further singles from Ray in 1980 following "Night Games". The year featured a couple of recognition's for his career in the form of induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. RCA released a follow-up to "Night Games" early in 1981...as it turned out "Night Games" was the first single release from a forthcoming studio album from Ray. The title track of this forthcoming album turned up in single form early in 1981. The lover's plea "One More Last Chance" is a ballad overflowing with all kinds of energy...not necessarily a power ballad...but the song kicks off with an electric guitar and the music swells up during a brief intro prior to Ray delivering the first words of the song. The song hit the Country Top-40 and it was followed by the album, One More Last Chance. It's such a wonderful collection of mostly love ballads...with heavy use of steel guitar on several songs...and on the album's cover there's Ray dressed up in his Western/casual attire...showcasing the trend of Urban Cowboy for one and all to see...

One of the unfortunate things surrounding this album is that RCA nor Ray explored anything else from the album. "Night Games" is on this album but it's more of a 1980 hit single while the title track hit early in 1981...and was climbing the Country chart at the time of the album's release. Upon the peak of the "One More Last Chance" single there would be the entire calendar year of 1981 remaining but as it turned out RCA never released any further singles from this album. Ray, in the meantime, was still touring heavily and his television appearances were just as steady. He guest starred for several episodes on the soap opera, Texas, and performed several songs...including "One More Last Chance". The film, The Cannonball Run, starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, became a gigantic movie in the summer of 1981 and beyond. Ray wrote and performed the movie's theme song, "Cannonball". Ray was also heard singing a love ballad he wrote, "Just For the Hell Of It", in the 1981 movie. Some of the songs on One More Last Chance include "I Believe You Love Me", "Melissa", his uptempo arrangement of "Pretend", "It's Not All Over", and the beautiful "Just About Love". Don't quote me on this but I think this is one of the first studio albums or possibly the only studio album in his career in which he didn't write or co-write any of the songs. He was still the producer and arranger and he played piano/keyboard/synthesizer as well as the horns heard on "Pretend" but as a songwriter he didn't contribute any of the songs. Regardless of this all of the songs on the album feature his personal stamp given that he musically arranged every song...and music arranging is something he'd been doing on all of his albums and singles going back to the early '60s. In part Twelve we'll be heading into 1982 and 1983 and during those particular years Ray was coming to something of a crossroads in his career.

Ray Stevens: Vintage Visuals early 1980s...

Oh yes I'm almost a week late in posting this image on my fan created Ray Stevens blog page. I wrote several blog entries recently centered mostly around Ray's participation in CMA Fest 2019 as well as his concerts at the CabaRay but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity of sharing this particular photo...

I almost came close to titling this blog entry 'Georgia at Alabama' as if it were a College ball game. It's Ray Stevens on stage with Alabama, of course. When the photo was posted this past Tuesday on his social media sites I remarked that Ray's belt buckle and vest cry out Urban Cowboy and that the photo has to be from somewhere during the 1980-1982 time frame...maybe 1983. Ray and Alabama were label mates on the RCA roster during that point in time. The label was also the home to Ronnie Milsap, Charley Pride, as well as the label that kept the catalog of Elvis Presley in print. Chet Atkins, one of Ray's closest friends in the music industry, had long been a recording artist (instrumental albums) as well as a record producer for RCA and later an executive at the label but he stepped down as an executive at some point in the late '70s. I'm pretty sure Chet was responsible for guiding Ray to the RCA roster in 1979 once Ray's contract with Warner Brothers expired but I don't know if Chet, himself, signed Ray to RCA in 1979 or if someone else happened to. Ray's debut album for RCA was released in February of 1980 shortly after the release of the album's title track, "Shriner's Convention". Ray recorded three studio albums for RCA: Shriner's Convention (1980), One More Last Chance (1981), and Don't Laugh Now (1982). The label released two compilations on Ray during the 1980s: Greatest Hits (1983) and Collector's Series (1985). The latter was a general release in which artists both past and present for RCA were each given their own Collector's Series spotlight release. Ray had joined MCA Records by the time RCA began issuing the Collector's Series compilations so he was considered, obviously, a former RCA artist. Each release consisted of eight songs. Chet Atkins, in the meantime, had departed from RCA in 1982 after a decades long run. He joined the label in 1957 and so he spent 35 years on their roster as a recording artist and music executive before departing for Columbia Records. I imagine it's pure coincidence that Ray's third and final studio album for RCA arrived the same year Chet departed from the label: 1982.

Now...about that photo...

Ray, as you can see, is in the early '80s country music attire...casual clothing with a decidedly western flavor (Urban Cowboy). The next thing that caught my eye is the wild hair of their drummer but then the third thing that caught my eye is Jeff Cook's shirt!! Does it look familiar? If you're a Ray Stevens fan the shirt should be very familiar to you. In addition to it's appearance on 1983's Greatest Hits (released on RCA) Ray also wore the shirt (or one very similar) in a television appearance in an episode of The Fall Guy. He appeared in the episode 'The Pirates of Nashville' and during a performance scene of "Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee" he wore one of those flowery black button up shirts. The episode originally aired November 23, 1983. Ray Stevens, Dottie West, and The Charlie Daniels Band appear. Dottie and Charlie appear as themselves, though, while Ray plays a fictional character essential to the episode's story-line. The irony, though, is at the time of Ray's appearance on The Fall Guy he had signed with Mercury Records and had issued a studio album, Me, and so he wasn't on the RCA roster when his episode of The Fall Guy premiered; and yet another irony is one of Ray's RCA recordings is heard in the background, 1982's "Country Boy, Country Club Girl", during the show's opening scene. I have no information on the production details of Ray's episode of The Fall Guy. It was taped at some point in the latter half of 1982 or sometime in the first half of 1983 given that it's an episode of the show's 1983-1984 season.  

Ray Stevens and That Nashville Music...

Two blog entries in the same day...oh yes...sometimes I may do such a thing! In my previous blog entry I wrote about Ray Stevens and his promotional video clip for It's Starts with M.E. which you can find in the April 2019 archives off to the right hand side of the page.

Yesterday evening featured a Ray Stevens mini-bonanza on RFD-TV. It began at 7:30pm Eastern with the airing of That Nashville Music and this was followed by Hee Haw at 8pm. In the Hee Haw episode Ray Stevens guest starred and sang "Shriner's Convention" and "Love Me Longer". This episode originally aired on February 16, 1980 with footage taped in the fall of 1979. The episode had previously aired on RFD-TV last year and it's been uploaded onto YouTube numerous times. It's the first of two appearances by Ray Stevens on Hee Haw in 1980. The second 1980 appearance recently aired for the first time on RFD-TV (February 24, 2019) in which Ray sang "You've Got the Music Inside" and "Night Games". This footage was taped at some point during the summer 1980 taping session and originally aired on October 11, 1980. Preceding the Hee Haw episode last night was That Nashville Music. This was a syndicated country music series that aired for 15 years (1970-1985). On-line information regarding the guests and air-dates is scarce to non-existent but I know Ray made appearances on the show throughout it's lifespan...and last night an episode from 1981 aired on RFD-TV. The series originally began under the title That Good Ol' Nashville Music and was hosted by Dave Dudley. Eventually the series featured a different guest artist each week in the informal role as host/presenter. The episodes were taped at the Grand Ole Opry House and in the episode I seen the off-screen announcer was the legendary Opry announcer, T. Tommy Cutrer. Ray opened the show with "You've Got the Music Inside", performed in the manner in which he had been performing it in his concerts and on television shows of this time period: a blend of uptempo and ballad. The recording of the song, which Ray issued twice (1973 and 1978), were recorded as slow ballads...but Ray obviously decided that the song needed uptempo elements sprinkled throughout so it wouldn't be too long of a ballad for live performances. He performed this arrangement of the song on Pop! Goes the Country, which is where I first seen it, prior to the performances on Hee Haw and That Nashville Music.

Reba McEntire and Leon Everette were the other two performers on the 1981 episode of That Nashville Music. Reba wasn't considered a newcomer in 1981 and yet she wasn't the super-star she became just a short couple of years later. She became a super-star after she joined MCA. As a result of her being a well established recording artist in 1981 she performed two songs: "How Does it Feel to be Free?" and "Today All Over Again" with harmony vocals from her sister, Susi McEntire (during her lengthy career as a Contemporary Christian artist she went by the name of Susi Luchsinger). Although Reba and Leon began tasting fame in the mid and late '70s, Reba was placing singles on the Country Top-40 consistently by the time of this 1981 television appearance. Anyway...

Leon Everette appeared in the segment following Reba's first performance and his segment baffled me. He's wearing the unzipped black jacket from the cover photo of one of his albums, Hurricane, plus he's wearing a cowboy hat for the performance. The thing that's baffling to me is the actual name of the song. He makes numerous mentions of roses and within the performance he states the phrase "Raining on the Roses" a couple of times during what appears to be song's chorus and so I'm assuming "Raining on the Roses" to be the name of this song...but yet no song with that title appears on any of the studio albums released on Leon Everette during the years of 1977 through 1981. I've already looked up his studio albums on eBay and gone over the track lists of those albums. Unless this song appeared on some obscure collection of songs that hasn't appeared on-line yet, was never recorded but only performed for this appearance, or whether I've got the song's title wrong hopefully someone out there will have some recall of the recording I'm baffled over. Now, when I was watching Leon's stage presence, he reminded me of Conway Twitty and Gene Watson...not vocally, of course, but the manner in which those two presented themselves on stage seemed to have heavily influenced Leon's performing style.

Leon, at the time, was a label mate of Ray. The two were on the RCA roster in 1981. Reba, on the other hand, had been on Mercury for a number of years...Jerry Kennedy would produce a lot of her earlier recordings...and eventually she would have Norro Wilson as a producer for several of her recordings...and those two men were a couple of legendary figures with connections to Ray Stevens.

Ray sang "Marie" prior to Reba's second performance...mentioning Randy Newman as it's writer. I'd never heard the song before and so this performance from Ray was brand new to me. As mentioned, Reba and Susi performed "Today All Over Again", and this was followed by a brief clogging routine. Ray closed the show with a song whose title is, I think, "Everybody is a Clown Inside", which I've not been able to find any information about. One of the band members dressed up as a hobo clown (in the tradition of Emmett Kelly) and pantomimed/acted to Ray's performance.

As far as Ray's attire...for those that like to know these things...when he opened the show he was seated at the piano. The button-up shirt he was wearing was sort of light blue...it had some embroidery on it similar to the design that appears on the black shirt he's wearing on the 1983 Greatest Hits album on RCA. The remainder of the episode featured Ray wearing a brown jacket/suit...it might be the same one worn during an appearance he made on Barbara Mandrell's television show in 1981. As of this writing the 1981 episode of That Nashville Music hasn't been uploaded onto any social media video page and so I'm not able to embed the episode. A video of the episode exists on RFD-TV's subscription service, Country Club, though. You can visit that page by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens on Hee Haw: 1980 (Second Appearance)...

As mentioned in the blog entry immediately preceding this one this is my second blog entry of the day...as the day progresses, though, I may write some more blog entries...one never knows. We're suppose to have a massive weather system roll through this area later today and into the evening though and wind gusts could reach 40 to 50mph...and so that could hamper any kind of potential future blog entries for the remainder of today.

Several weekends ago RFD-TV aired Ray's second 1980 appearance on Hee Haw. I had never seen that appearance as I had always been familiar with the first 1980 appearance where he sang "Shriner's Convention" and "Love Me Longer". The reason I had been more familiar with that appearance is because TNN (the former cable channel, The Nashville Network) used to air repeats of Hee Haw in the early to mid 1990s and among those repeats was Ray's first 1980 episode. That episode originally aired in February 1980. In his second 1980 appearance, from October, Ray performed his re-arranged version of "You've Got the Music Inside" as well as his current single at the time, "Night Games". In addition Ray appeared in several comedy segments with George Lindsey which took place in the iconic cornfield set. I created some screen caps for my own collection of Ray Stevens photos that I've saved over the years from online searches, etc. but I won't be posting all of the screen caps from his second 1980 appearance on the blog. I'll share another one a little bit later. The February 1980 episode featured footage taped in the fall of 1979 whereas the October 1980 episode featured footage taped in the summer of 1980. Hee Haw had a quirky production process in which everything was recorded out of sequence during just two month-long production periods each calendar year and all the footage was edited and assembled into 26 half hour episodes. Footage taped during the summer production period appeared in the first 13 episodes of each new season while footage taped in the fall of the year began appearing in the remaining 13 episodes. The series kept this production method intact throughout it's entire history. I often make mention of the show's production style because it enables readers to have a better idea of why a singer may be performing a hit from a previous year or something that had yet become a hit but was performed anyhow...and it all had to do with the taping sessions of the show and which production period the guest was making their appearance.

Now, altogether, Ray made numerous appearances on the television series, Hee Haw, throughout it's long run. His first appearance occurred in 1972 (with a beard ironically enough...not clean-shaven). In fact both of his 1972 appearances shown him with facial hair. He was one of the guests on the 1972-1973 season opener (September 16, 1972) and he performed "Turn Your Radio On" and "Along Came Jones". In his second appearance that season (November 25, 1972) he performed "Isn't It Lonely Together" and "Gitarzan". The footage that appeared in both episodes was taped in the summer of 1972. As you can tell by the songs chosen he kept it in the late '60s for three of the performances with the lone exception being "Turn Your Radio On" which at the time of his appearance in the fall of 1972 was considered one of his recent recordings. It had become a hit on the country charts in the latter half of 1971 and into 1972. I've never found out why he or the producer of the show decided on songs that Ray recorded several years earlier (1968/1969) rather than sticking to more recent material (oddly enough his 1970 massive hit, "Everything is Beautiful", was not performed during either 1972 appearance!) but nevertheless his first two appearances from 1972 were wonderful to see.

The next appearance from Ray occurred in October of 1975 and on this episode he performed "Misty" and "Indian Love Call". The footage was taped in the summer of 1975 and so this was months before he would win a Grammy in the category of Best Arrangement of the Year for "Misty". Ray didn't make another appearance on Hee Haw until the February 1980 episode. The bulk of his appearances on the series arrived in the mid to late 1980s. The show had long featured Roy Clark and Buck Owens billed as co-hosts. Buck, however, decided to leave the series at the end of the 1985-1986 season (the show debuted in 1969). This caused the show's producers to come up with a guest co-host feature in which each week Roy would be joined by a different co-host each week. Ray appeared as a guest co-host throughout the late 1980s and he also appeared on episodes as a music guest without being featured as a guest co-host. In 1987, for example, he appeared on two episodes that aired within several weeks from each other...which was an unusual occurrence for any guest let alone a guest co-host. It's my feeling that Ray was such a natural that he could've easily become the show's official co-host along side Roy Clark following Buck's departure but I don't think the idea of Ray ever becoming a permanent co-host was ever discussed but how amazing would it have been!! Even though Ray had appeared on country music programs throughout the 1970s and several single and album releases entered the country music charts that decade he was still thought of as a pop music vocalist and singer of novelty songs but this perception began to change during the late 1970s and so by the time his 1980 appearance on Hee Haw came along he was being marketed as a country music performer. He was marketed and promoted as a country music artist pretty much exclusively from the late 1970s through the mid 1980s before he began an incredible run with comedy records which forever labeled him as a singer of novelty/comedy songs.

He's had such a lengthy, successful run with comedy songs and albums entirely devoted to comedy throughout the mid 1980s and beyond that the mere mention of him, once upon a time, being a pop music vocalist is often met with laughter from those not familiar with the range of songs Ray had recorded over the decades before he began the country comedy phase of his career for which much of his material over the last several decades has played to. I'd say within the last decade and a half he's released plenty of non-comedy projects and so he never abandoned the ballad/serious side of his career...but as in times past a lot of the consumer attention tends to gravitate toward whatever comical recording might come along from him rather than the non-comical. His television series, CabaRay Nashville, offers Ray the chance to showcase his diverse range of music styles as well as provide a lot of guest artists an outlet to perform and talk. The series also gives certain viewers, those not as familiar with Ray, a chance to see how serious he really is and how he lives and breathes the recording and creating process.

Now, for those that like to take note of whether or not Ray has or doesn't have a beard during an appearance, there are numerous times throughout 1975 where Ray made television appearances with facial hair and then there are appearances that year where he's clean shaven. He's bearded during the Grammy awards telecast (presenting an award along side Moms Mabley) as well as in an appearance on Pop! Goes the Country in 1975. Ray appeared clean-shaven on his Misty studio album but yet he has a beard on a compilation album released the same year (1975) called The Very Best of Ray Stevens. Interestingly Ray performed the same set of songs on both Hee Haw and Pop! Goes the Country. Anyway, here are the two 1975 albums side by side. Ray had a beard on the album cover of Losin' Streak in 1973, let's not forget...so it isn't something that had been unprecedented prior to 1975...but from 1978 onward all of the studio albums features Ray on the album cover with a beard. I don't think Ray's ever appeared clean-shaven in public since 1978. I've sometimes wondered what the reaction would be if Ray would shave off the beard, simply for shock value, given how many decades he's been seen with one. It's still Ray Stevens...with or without facial hair...and I think a lot of people, as strange as it sounds, tend to forget that and would actually think the lack of facial hair would mean a change in personality or performance style or vocalization, etc., etc. It would certainly change his visual appearance obviously but it would still be Ray Stevens. The last studio album released by Ray to feature him clean shaven is 1978's There Is Something on Your Mind.

Ray Stevens vinyl Singles I came Across...

Over the weekend I made a visit to an area flea market. Some may not take the time to frequent them as often as they used to with so many on-line sites, most of time, offering the same kind of items: used books, crafts, machinery, music, memorabilia, etc. Anyway, I like to visit flea markets every so often because sometimes I come across things that I'd probably never come across on eBay or if I do come across things on eBay more than likely they'll be a whole lot cheaper at a traditional flea market or antique mall. I often come across vinyl copies of the Ray Stevens single, "Funny Man", on eBay and a lot of the time it's either an international release, a promo copy, or another similar kind of offering. The copy I came across is indeed a promo copy but there's a couple of markings on the label which, in the eyes of professional collectors, probably immediately decreases the single's value. However, because I'm not a professional collector/dealer and since I don't purchase Ray Stevens items or any other item for the purpose of selling it I decided to go ahead and purchase the single for my own collection. The song was released as a single by Mercury Records in 1963 and it hit the Top-20 on the pop chart in Canada. The B-side, "Just One of Life's Little Tragedies", is one of the many under-rated, under-appreciated ballads...by saying that I mean there's long been a popular misconception that Ray only sings comedy songs...but if one actually listens to his albums in their entirety rather than searching for, or focusing solely on, the 'hit' recording (which is often comical) you'd be surprised to learn just how many non-comedic songs he's actually recorded in his 60 plus year career.

In addition to the 1963 vinyl single I also came across a copy of Ray's 1980 single on RCA, "Shriner's Convention". This copy is also a promo featuring the edited take on one side and the unedited take on the other side. The short version has a length of 4 minutes, 10 seconds while the long version has a length of 5 minutes, 33 seconds. As is the case with a lot of single releases there were promo copies, international copies, domestic copies, alternate domestic copies, alternate promo copies often referred to as DJ copies, etc. There's a red vinyl copy of the single that was manufactured as well. It, too, features the short version of "Shriner's Convention" on Side A and the long version of the song on Side B. The single hit the Top-10 on the country chart early in 1980. In addition to the promo single of "Shriner's Convention" that I purchased at the flea market over the weekend I already had the commercial single that was issued to the general public in my personal collection. It's B-side is "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me". I'm not actively seeking the red vinyl copy of "Shriner's Convention" but if it ever comes into my possession I'd then have a copy of all the various single releases of that particular recording. There were a number of vinyl albums of Ray at the flea market that I already have. Here's an observation I made concerning the various vinyl album booths that I visited: in one of the booths at the flea market they had his vinyl albums in the country music section. In another music vendor's booth they had some of his vinyl albums mixed in with random vinyl albums of stand-up comedians.

Ray Stevens and the abc's of RCA...

Hello one and all...as I made mention in a previous blog entry the current season of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television series wrapped up a couple of weekends ago and so most of my blog entries are going to be more along the lines of the kind I used to do before I began devoting most of my time to writing reviews and comments of his television program.

A couple of blog entries ago I wrote about Ray's under-rated stay at Warner Brothers Records in the late 1970s (1976 through 1979) and I revealed a collage that I created revolving around his music of that period. You can read that blog by clicking HERE. I posted it back on July 10th but it's something that I'm going to periodically refer to from now on because of my desire to spotlight those recordings to anybody that visits this fan created blog page.

Although I don't really need to remind anyone I'll go ahead and do so for any new readers that come across the blog:

I celebrate/spotlight all areas of Ray Stevens career. I also take pride in the fact that I offer accurate, fact based information when it comes to albums, music videos, or appearances from both the past and present by Ray Stevens. I also never marginalize any aspect of his career. There are some music historians and music fans, in general, that only blog about the widely known aspects of Ray's career and offer very little else about him or they offer partially accurate information due to sloppy research. I came across a discography of Ray Stevens from some website...it was an image taken from one of those music guide books...that discography had more skips than a well worn vinyl album. Albums were omitted and some had the wrong year of release. Sloppy...sloppy...need I type it again? Sloppy!

But let's move along to the subject of this particular blog entry. I call it the abc's of RCA and I title it as such because I'm going to shift some focus onto his RCA recordings in the early 1980s. I've written on this subject before...my older blog entries indicate as much...but I like to update my commentary and revisit past subjects rather than let previous thoughts and analysis rest in the archives. These RCA recordings were on the heels of the under-rated Warner Brothers recordings and like the recordings on that label his RCA material is rarely, if ever, available for purchase in any detailed quantity.

The RCA years in the career timeline of Ray Stevens cover 1979 to 1983. Ray signed with RCA in the latter half of 1979 and he went to work on his first album for the label...the results surfaced very early in 1980 in the form of the single, "Shriner's Convention", in February. The comedy album, Shriner's Convention, surfaced as well. The single and the album both hit the Country Top-10. I have a vinyl copy of the 1980 album in addition to the cassette release. The single received a lot of publicity in various country music trade magazines of the time period and given that the song and album were devoted to comedy (his first comedy album in 6 years) it forever more cemented his image as a comedy/novelty act among country music consumers. Around the same time that "Shriner's Convention" was hitting in America RCA issued one of the tracks from the album as an international single. "Hey There" was issued as a single in Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany, and in the Netherlands. That single's B-side is "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me" which is also the B-side of "Shriner's Convention". I've never been able to find any chart data on "Hey There"...no data on chart statistics or what month the single was released...but there are plenty of images of the single available on-line and I'll post one of those images later in the blog entry.

Anyway, upon the fast climbing success of "Shriner's Convention", just as in times past, whenever Ray saw success with a comical project he'd almost immediately distance himself from it and return to serious, non-comedy recordings. After the meteoric success of "Shriner's Convention" and everything that came with it early in 1980 he ultimately began work on a serious follow-up. In the fall of 1980 Ray emerged with "Night Games". Sufficient enough time had lapsed between the release of the rollicking "Shriner's Convention" in February and "Night Games" in August. Ray performed "Night Games" on a 1980 television special honoring his long time friend and sometimes business associate, Chet Atkins. On this same television special he and Chet performed a rendition of "Frog Kissing" which Chet had a hit with in 1976. Ray produced, arranged, and published the recording session. In the era of the Urban Cowboy fad "Night Games" told the story of life in singles bars and the relationships that form in darkness but often vanish in the light of day. The song climbed into the Top-20 on the country music chart.

The B-side of "Night Games" is a love ballad called "Let's Do it Right This Time". Each of these recordings, from the pen of Buddy Kalb, appear on Ray's 1981 album, One More Last Chance.

As you see in the above collage in panel two Ray is dressed in cowboy attire with an alluring woman at his side. On the back of the album Ray appears in a casual shirt and wearing the cowboy hat that the alluring woman is wearing on the front of the album. I have the album on vinyl but not in cassette which is why there isn't a photo of myself and a cassette version. Prior to the release of his 1981 album, however, the title track was issued as a single in January 1981 and it eventually became a Top-40 hit on the country charts. "One More Last Chance" is a super recording...stellar use of steel guitar and electric guitar...and you've heard songs referred to before as a lover's plea...well, this one is a highly emotional lover's plea. So much was put into the production...it's also a lengthy recording. There are numerous lengthy recordings on this 1981 album...it's ballad heavy...but some are kind of uptempo but still lengthy. The B-side of "One More Last Chance" is "I Believe You Love Me".

It is such a great album and, for me, it remains a mystery as to why no further single releases or publicity arrived for the rest of the calendar year concerning the One More Last Chance album. If you were at the movies in the summer of 1981 you no doubt heard Ray singing on The Cannonball Run movie. He sang the theme song, "Cannonball", and a love ballad, "Just for the Hell of It". The movie opened in theaters on June 19, 1981. Prior to this he appeared on the soap opera, Texas, and performed "One More Last Chance" on camera. It's credited on-line as episode 217...the original air-date being June 10, 1981. So, no, it wasn't like 1981 was a bleak year or anything in his career. What turned out to be Ray's final studio album for RCA arrived early in 1982 in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This album was far less ballad heavy and it also represented some changes on the technical side. Ray enlisted a co-producer, Bob Montgomery, and on several recordings the arranger was Ron Oates. On practically every studio album by Ray Stevens dating back to 1970 Ray is credited as both producer and arranger...and the keyboard/piano/organ/synthesizer player.

On this album Ron Oates is credited with keyboards and is the credited arranger of "This Old Piano", "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love", and the album's first single, "Written Down in My Heart". Ray is credited as the arranger on the other seven recordings. The neon-like cover art in the lettering seen on the vinyl copy ties into the '50s era rock and roll feel of the album's lead-off track, "Such a Night", along side the abundance of electric guitars heard throughout the album. Yet, "Written Down in My Heart" is a soothing love ballad with just a few touches of electric guitar. The single hit the country music Top-40 in early 1982...the B-side is the mid-tempo "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". The last single RCA released on Ray appeared in the spring of 1982, "Where the Sun Don't Shine". This sing-a-long carries a southern gospel overtone in the music arrangement but the lyrics offer a humorous story about a man leaving a woman and offering parting advice in the form of the song's title. It made the country music charts but didn't crack the Top-40. Ray remained an RCA recording artist, contractually, into 1983.

The company released a Greatest Hits compilation on him that year which was comprised almost entirely of recordings of Ray from Monument Records and Barnaby Records (covering the years 1968 to 1975) but it tacked on two recordings from his 1980 debut album for RCA. "Shriner's Convention" and the album track, "The Dooright Family", appeared on the 1983 compilation. In hindsight RCA should have included the six single releases from Ray during his brief stay on RCA and then filled the remainder of the album with older songs but instead there are only two RCA recordings on 1983's Greatest Hits. "Hey There", interestingly, is never included on any compilation album even though we all can clearly see it was released as a commercial single but yet the equally hilarious recording, "The Dooright Family", which was never released as a commercial single, has long become prominent on several compilation albums. Ray even produced a music video of the song in 1995...so it's gained a reputation among fans as being a 'hit' song in spite of it never being commercially released as a single.

After Ray's RCA contract ended he went over to the Mercury label for one album (1983's Me) and then he signed with MCA about midway into 1984. During his stay at the label he enjoyed much sales success for the rest of the decade as he embraced the comical image he had tried so valiantly to distance himself from for pretty much his entire career up to that point.

RCA, in the meantime, released a compilation in 1985 called Collector's Series. A brief overview of Ray's time with the label...it features eight recordings chosen seemingly at random...from his three studio albums for the label. This title would be re-issued in 1987 with a slight change in song selection. In the 1985 copy it includes his 1981 hit, "One More Last Chance". In the re-issue in 1987 that song is omitted and replaced by the non-hit, but comical "Put It In Your Ear" from the 1980 Shriner's Convention album. I have the 1985 vinyl and cassette copy of Collector's Series.

I used to have the 1987 re-issue on cassette but the tape was eaten by a malfunctioning player. The image in the fourth panel in the collage is the CD copy of the 1987 release of Collector's Series. Even though this eight song RCA compilation provides only material from his RCA period in each release (1985 and 1987) each one omits a couple hit songs: "Night Games" and "Written Down in My Heart"...but because it spotlights the RCA recordings and since no other compilation that's come along features as many I consider Collector's Series an essential purchase for fans looking for early '80s recordings by Ray Stevens. The next best thing is seeking out his vinyl albums from that time period. Those vinyl albums are: Shriner's Convention (1980); One More Last Chance (1981); and Don't Laugh Now (1982).

Here are the commercial singles, year of release, and catalog number for Ray Stevens on RCA:

"Shriner's Convention"; 1980 PB-11911
"Hey There"; 1980 PB-9525
"Night Games"; 1980 PB-12069
"One More Last Chance"; 1981 PB-12170
"Written Down In My Heart"; 1982 PB-13038
"Where the Sun Don't Shine"; 1982 PB-13207

Ray Stevens...January 1980...

Hello to all the fans of Ray Stevens!! Has anyone been checking the items on eBay lately? I often come across a lot of CD's and vinyl LP's and singles from all over the world during a Ray Stevens eBay search and this morning happened to be no different. There happens to be for sale 2 LP's of a radio program that Ray appeared on during the final week of January 1980. The Ralph Emery Show, syndicated on radio stations all over the United States, aired daily for more than 10 years beginning in the early '70s. The program ran 1 hour.

Each episode also featured a special guest/spotlight artist for the week whose songs happened to be aired more than others during a given week. Also, interview footage by Ralph and the guest that week aired periodically throughout an episode.

Ray Stevens appeared on Ralph's syndicated radio program during the last week of January 1980. The first episode, airing on January 21, 1980 (Monday) and the third episode from January 24, 1980 (Thursday) are available on vinyl on eBay. Each vinyl disc has 1 program split into two segments. The A-side has part 1 of the hour program and the B-side has part 2. Along with the vinyl you'll also get the program sheet that lists all the songs played and the length of each segment and the time length of each commercial. According to the sheet for each hour long program there are 10 segments in total. The total running time for both the show and their commercial breaks add up to 47 minutes. My guess is the local stations had to come up with the remaining 13 minutes of commercial time.

Take note: The item is only available until May 7th but here is a link to the eBay page as it exists on May 4th... Ray Stevens January 1980

Ray's involvement in that week's programs coincided with his birthday that year...he turned 41 on January 24, 1980 and had a soon to become gigantic novelty song just starting to make a lot of noise: "Shriner's Convention". That particular song is played on the January 21st episode of Ralph's radio program.

The song, ironically, had been a part of Ray's career since late in 1979...footage of Ray performing the song on a made-for-TV movie from 1979, Concrete Cowboys, reveals this. That film (starring Jerry Reed and Tom Selleck) aired on TV on October 17, 1979. I don't know the production dates of the movie...but given that the film aired in October 1979 has me assuming that Ray's scene had to have been shot at some point in the fall of 1979 (August...September at the latest). If anyone has any details about that film's production dates it would certainly clear up this mini-mystery. Ray performs "Shriner's Convention" in the movie beginning at the 34 minute, 10 second mark.

A TV series in 1981, based on the movie, aired for an incredibly brief run in the spring of 1981. Ray Stevens guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of the TV series.

As far as the 1981 TV series goes, Jerry Reed reprises his role from the movie but Tom Selleck's role was recast with Geoffrey Scott. Selleck had gone on to star on Magnum, P.I. beginning in 1980 and obviously wasn't available to reprise his role from the 1979 movie.