This is such a grand album and right off the bat we're treated to the swaying rendition of "
Only You", a former hit for The Platters. Ray hits similar notes in this recording that rival his 1975 recording of "
Indian Love Call", for example. This opening track sets the stage for the entire digital album. Track two, "
Unforgettable", has Ray bringing in his famed harmony singers to repeat numerous passages but it isn't in the vein of a Gladys Knight and the Pips style. Ray continues the soft sounds and lush arrangements heard in "
Only You" in his rendition of the "
Unforgettable" Nat King Cole classic. Ray, no stranger to vocal over-dubbing, creates harmony vocals in his own voice and it shows up near the end of the recording...and this is in addition to the harmony from the female back-up. On Track three Ray combines the song, "
Make Believe", with the Conway Twitty hit "
It's Only Make Believe". The first half of the medley originated in the musical,
Showboat. Ray doesn't attempt to match Conway or keep the same arrangement...Ray interprets the song, vocally, like any number of pop music crooners and the music is in line with the sound heard in the first two tracks. Ray does, however, conclude the medley with a dramatic finish. The arrangement and instrumentation heard in the first two tracks of the digital album, as mentioned, sets the stage for
Slow Dance. There are solos of the saxophone in several recordings. The arrangements found on this digital album aren't in the same manner heard in
Great Country Ballads but they're of the same family...if that makes any sense. Ray covers The Platters a second time on this digital album with "
The Great Pretender". He re-arranged the song...from the instrumentation and the phrasing...so there isn't any vocal gymnastics that were found in the original. Ray croons the song and so the performance matches the feel that Ray is going for.
"I'll See You In My Dreams" had previously been recorded by Doris Day and then Pat Boone...and that slow ballad leads into Ray's equally wonderful rendition of "Slow Dancing". That song became popular through a recording by Johnny Rivers but as a child in the 1980's and in a family that listened to country music I was way more familiar of "Slow Dancing" by Johnny Duncan. Ray sings "Slow Dancing" as a straight ahead love ballad...he doesn't do the narration that Johnny Duncan has on his recording...but Ray does a great job on it, I think. "Slow Dancing" ties into the album's title, Slow Dance.
If you're a longtime fan of Ray Stevens, as I am, or if you've followed his career since the 1960s then you may be aware of a 1967 recording on Monument Records called "Answer Me, My Love". The song was only released on a single-only and didn't appear anywhere until a mid 1990's CD release of his 1968 studio album, Even Stevens. The track on this digital album called "Answer Me" is the same song that Ray recorded in 1967. Now, given that we're in 2021, this updated "Answer Me" features entirely new instrumentation and a slightly different phrasing and tempo than his 1967 recording did.
If you're a recording artist and are wanting to cover songs from a certain time period in pop music or you are doing an album filled with songs from what's called The Great American Songbook chances are you'll do a version of "Stardust". That particular ballad originated in 1927 from Hoagy Carmichael...lyrics written by Mitchell Parish. The song had been recorded by numerous artists throughout the late '20s and into the '50s. The song was revived several more times in the 1960s but then country singer Willie Nelson recorded it and named one of his albums after the song. That 1978 album of pop standards from Willie would spend 10 years on the country album chart. "Stardust" has been recorded several more times since then by other recording artists and with Slow Dance we have Ray Stevens adding his rendition of "Stardust" to the long list of versions that have come before.
Ray follows "Stardust" with his rendition of "As Usual" which had been a hit for one of his long-time friends, Brenda Lee, in 1964.
Ray had previously released a salute to Frank Sinatra in 2008. I bring this up because track eleven on Slow Dance is "This Is All I Ask" which Frank Sinatra previously recorded...from the pen of Gordon Jenkins...and Ray packs it with an almost power ballad approach...pushing all the right emotive buttons you could think of. Now, not to be outdone, is the closing song...the iconic "What a Wonderful World". Ray keeps the soft, lush arrangement throughout. In the back of my mind, before I'd heard Ray's version, I thought that he might slip in a brief vocal impression of Louis Armstrong but he kept it straight and didn't veer off into doing that. Slow Dance is everything I had hoped it would be. I wasn't sure how he was going to arrange most of these songs but he updated them considerably and changed the phrasing on several so as to not be a carbon copy of the originals. When I'd found out that "Slow Dancing" was among the songs on this album I tried to hear Ray narrate parts of the song the way Johnny Duncan did but, as mentioned, Ray by-passed that technique and sang the song without including narration. The album's photo ties into his television series, CabaRay Nashville. Ray always asks someone in the audience to dance with him as an instrumental of "Everything is Beautiful" plays in the background as the credits roll.
I can't wait to hear the fourth digital album Ray Stevens is scheduled to release...that one will hit in late May. I'll be adding YouTube video content of audio clips from Slow Dance in the hours and days ahead.
