Ray Stevens sings "Answer Me, My Love"...

Hello one and all to another fan created blog post focused on Ray Stevens. In my recent series of blog entries I've focused on the recent happenings in Ray's career and the upcoming new album on it's way. Since it's March 3rd at the time of this writing we're now just 4 days away from the release of Say Whut?. Now, for those of you that come across this blog page and read the career timeline on the right hand side of the page you're well aware that Ray's recording career goes back to the late 1950s. On this blog I celebrate the songs, albums, and achievements of the great Ray Stevens and through my commentaries I point out why he's one of the most unique entertainers to ever step foot inside a recording studio. 

A recent video surfaced of Ray on a 1967 episode of The Bobby Lord Show. This was a locally syndicated country music program but it also featured pop vocalists from time to time. Ray was marketed/promoted as a popular recording artist in the 1950s and 1960s who found an audience within the umbrella of country music by the end of the 1960s and he kept it intact throughout the following decades. Ray's appeal to country audiences was such that Ralph Emery often had him as a guest on all kinds of radio and TV programs long before Ray began to intentionally market himself to a country music audience. There's a full episode of Bobby Lord's show featuring Ray as one of the guests but recently Ray's social media pages added the performance of "Answer Me, My Love" from that television appearance. He sings other songs during that appearance but I decided to share the clip of his "Answer Me, My Love" performance since it's the one uploaded on Ray's official YouTube page. The song was never released on an album. It was issued as a single-only on Monument Records. 

Since I've been blogging about his recent happenings this 1967 performance (from nearly 60 years ago) will go a long way at explaining why Ray Stevens is one of the greatest and why a lot of us fans remain forever loyal...

Ray Stevens: February 12th Bill Cody radio appearance

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! I felt like doing a visual promo for one of the four CD's in Ray's 2021 box set, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century. As you can see it's the bluegrass CD titled Melancholy Fescue. It had been awhile since I had given some attention to that particular 2021 release. The main focal point of this blog entry, however, centers around a radio appearance from Ray Stevens on February 12 last week. It was the day after the Super Bowl as you'll hear when you listen to the interview. Bill Cody hosts a morning radio program on 650 WSM radio and it has a simulcast on television. There wasn't any sort of alert that Ray would be a guest on Bill's radio program and so I wasn't able to write any kind of blog entry promoting the appearance. I found out yesterday and I shared the YouTube link to several people that I know of who are as much a fan of Ray Stevens as I happen to be. As is the case with almost every interview that features Ray it's an up-tempo, light conversation filled with jokes or whimsical phrases. When you listen to the interview you'll discover that there will be some major activity taking place in Ray's career come the summer of 2024. There are actually two breaking news releases in the interview. The first is the completed production of a music video with the resident pianist at Ray's CabaRay showroom, John Jonethis. Ray didn't reveal when the video would be released. He says he'll be in the video but he didn't say whether he'd be a vocalist for John's performance or if he'd simply appear in the video in a non-singing role. 

The second breaking news announcement during the interview was the upcoming production of all-new episodes of CabaRay Nashville!! Ray revealed starting July of this year he'll be taping all kinds of footage for 26 new episodes of the half hour television series. The program had been on hiatus/out of production since 2018. There were 78 half hour episodes produced, initially, of Ray's half hour television series. The series first aired in the latter half of 2015 on RFD-TV and then in first-run syndication on local PBS stations. The first 26 half hour episodes aired on RFD-TV, titled Ray Stevens' Nashville, and then 52 half hour episodes aired in PBS syndication often on Saturday or Sunday afternoon or, in some markets, evening time-slots week, as Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. 

The PBS airings were scattered all over the local landscape and it was difficult for a lot of fans to see the program due to it not airing in national syndication. The show would air in local television markets on PBS meaning that fans in one State were able to see the program whereas fans in another State might've not had any PBS affiliate airing the show. The final handful of episodes were taped early in 2018 at the CabaRay showroom. Ray eventually brought all of the episodes to his YouTube channel and he premiered an episode every week on the channel. These YouTube airings were, for many fans, the first time they'd seen the PBS episodes given how scattered the airings/availability had been. Since the episodes of his TV show are part of his YouTube channel there's no reason why any fan with internet access hasn't watched all the episodes by now.  

Now, with the announcement that there will be 26 additional episodes produced, that'll bring the overall total number of episodes to 104. It wasn't revealed if these additional episodes will air on television or if they'll air on his YouTube channel once a week. There's a lot of information we still don't know but isn't it fun knowing that Ray will be producing episodes of the TV show again? 

In the interview with Bill Cody you'll want to start the video clip at the 37 minute, 11 second mark which is where Ray's portion of the show begins. Now, of course, you can listen to the entire video upload with Bill's other guests, too, but if you're just wanting to hear Ray's portion of the show it begins at 37 minutes, 11 seconds. 

Ray Stevens: Audio Diary 7

2023

Hello all of you fans of Ray Stevens!! I know that most of you have probably heard what I call the recent recordings from Ray. The  recordings, to date, have not appeared on any album yet. As mentioned in some of my other blog entries the recent recordings have either become available as stand alone digital downloads or as audio tracks on several streaming sites but there hasn't been a full album released where those songs can call a home. The image you see of Ray is strictly for promotional/publicity purposes. If any compact disc release is forthcoming I doubt that particular pose will grace the album cover but it may be included should a CD be released with a fold out. In this day and age you have to always wonder if a CD will be released considering how a massive amount of people get their music through online streaming and it's only a small amount of people that prefer compact disc purchasing. The recent recordings from Ray are: "Where Are All The Twelve Year Olds?", "You're the Cup Holder of My Life", "The More You Cry", and "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene". In this seventh installment of the Audio Diary series of blog posts I'm going to include the audio tracks of a couple of those recent recordings. I won't be including any video embeds, though. In this particular blog entry I'm going to share clickable links to the YouTube audio tracks. Why? Well, the reason for that is I don't want to have three video embeds stacked on top of one another. Some will  probably say to themselves: "oh, wow, he doesn't want three video embeds stacked on top of each other but he'll stack three links on top of one another...". True, that's what I'm going to do, because visually I think it looks more better using links. The two audio track I'm including are shown below...

Where Are All The Twelve Year Olds? 

You're The Cup Holder of My Life 

Those audio tracks come from Ray's appearance on Larry's Country Diner on RFD-TV. There's an audio of his performance of "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene" from Larry's show, too, but when it comes to that particular recording I prefer to promote the official music video. I won't be posting it here since this blog entry is meant to focus on audio-only but in a future blog entry I'll be embedding the video and providing some updated unique video totals. I'm also going to include my review of the song...a review I posted over on Amazon but it hasn't been posted to their site yet. 

Ray Stevens and the upcoming New Year...2023

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! This is my annual New Year's Eve post on this fan created blog and we're just hours away from reaching 2023. This past year was filled with all kinds of adjustments as the now-archaic pandemic restrictions/regulations were slowly being lifted and life was slowly getting back to normal. These events had been set in motion in the latter half of 2021. This is why, in my point of view, the pandemic life is rather archaic and by now should have been put in everyone's rear view mirror in a car going 65 mph. Ray kicked off the 2022 concert season at the CabaRay showroom in the spring and wrapped up the final concert of the season just last night. As far as recorded music output goes it was a down year, well, almost. Although, as far as we know, the songs haven't been officially recorded Ray nevertheless premiered several new songs in his guest appearance a couple months ago on the television show, Larry's Country Diner. Ray performed "Cup Holders" and "When Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene" in addition to performing "The Gambler and the Octopus" and "Where Are All the 12 Year Old's?". The latter song had actually saw it's public performance debut in 2021 when Ray guest starred on an episode of Huckabee. On that same episode he also performed "Disorder Down on the Border". I hadn't been able to attend any concerts at his CabaRay and so I don't know if he's performed "Cup Holders", "Where Are All the 12 Year Old's?", or "When Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene" for his CabaRay audiences or not. 

Ray has already revealed that the 2023 concert season at the CabaRay will begin sometime in March. Let's not forget that on January 24, 2023 he'll have a birthday! The human embodiment of the energizer bunny, Ray Stevens his own self, will reach 84. In 2022 Ray Stevens was elected to the Musicians Hall of Fame and he was a co-recipient (with Brenda Lee) of the Cecil Scaife Visionary Award.  

It's difficult to predict whether or not he'll have out any new albums in 2023. In 2021 he issued, through Curb Records, 5 albums: Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, Nouveau Retro, and Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore. In bygone years 5 separate studio albums issued in one calendar year meant the material could be worked for a number of years. However, in this digital online internet age we live in, where the audio tracks from an album can get thousands of plays in a matter of hours, no longer is it advantageous in my opinion for any recording artist to ride a couple of albums for 3 to 4 years. Oh, it can be done...but the way music is now consumed the appetite is much too large and audiences want music almost instantaneously...they don't want to wait for the traditional process to play out of artist's releasing one single, then another, and then the full album and then another single or two after an album's released. Now, having said that it's difficult to predict if any new albums from Ray will arrive in 2023, with Ray having performed several songs that are new to us in this current calendar year it's highly possible that a new Ray Stevens album or two will emerge in 2023. 

What are a few of the upcoming album anniversaries for 2023? Well, his second studio album released in 1963, titled This is Ray Stevens, reaches 60 in 2023. Hitting 50 in 2023 is the overlooked Losin' Streak album as well as the much more publicized Nashville album. In a previous blog entry I mentioned his 1983 Me album hitting 40 in 2023. I'll be highlighting some of those albums and some of the songs in addition to highlighting odd-year anniversaries such as a look into 1994, just as an example. I leave you with Ray Stevens performing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" from his CabaRay Nashville television series. Unless there's breaking news I'll communicate with all of you Ray Stevens fans next year!! 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville on YouTube E-11, S-2

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! Episode 11 of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville made it's debut on YouTube last night. The special guest happened to be Con Hunley. Ray opened the show singing "The Baptism of Stumpy Brown", a comedy song from his 2015 album Here We Go Again!. 

Ray brings out Con Hunley and compares him to Sinatra. Now, for those not familiar, Con Hunley at one time was among a collection of country music artists in the late '70s and early '80s that benefitted strongly from the pop music overtones that were gradually being implemented into the sound. Also, Con was among the class of recording artists that music industry magazines and fan magazines often cited as a country music heart throb. Conway Twitty, Mac Davis, Con Hunley, T.G. Shepard, Razzy Bailey, Leon Everette, Larry Gatlin, and Billy 'Crash' Craddock were often placed in that category at some time or another during their recording careers. Con's biggest hit happened to be "No Relief in Sight".

Ray asks about Con's latest recordings and they both speak of Norro Wilson. The camera pans over to Norro who's seated in the audience next to Buddy Kalb. Norro happened to have been one of Con's record producers in the late '70s/early '80s time period. Con recruited Norro to work on the latest album, A Collection By Request. Ray asks what he thought of the country music album by Ray Charles and this leads into a conversation about Con's love of Ray Charles songs. Con and Ray Stevens sing a duet of "Georgia On My Mind". 

Con sings "She Ain't You". I looked that song up and found out that it originated on an album he released titled Sweet Memories in 2005. That album was produced by Norro Wilson as well. 

Ray closes the episode performing "If Ten Percent is Good Enough for Jesus" which was preceded by an introduction from Professor Cusic. The professor tells a brief history of the song and how it's become enormously popular in Ray's concerts since the day he introduced the song to his audiences back in 1993. Curb Records initially released it as a CD single that year...referred to as a promo single...featuring currency on the CD's photo sleeve with Ray's face in the portrait. The song first appeared on Ray's 1993 studio album, Classic Ray Stevens.

Ray Stevens...there's something in a Sunday...

Ray Stevens and company...1969...in a photo shoot advertising the upcoming single, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". I am pretty certain that's Ray standing up in front of the table judging by the structure of the eyes and the put-on sorrowful facial expression and then off to his left in the white suit I think is Fred Foster and then next to him is Jim Malloy. Ray, Fred, and Jim were the producers of the albums that Ray recorded during his stay at Monument Records. If i'm correct in guessing those three, that's a pretty good round of guessing...the other men in the picture I have no idea who they are. On my computer I enlarged the picture several times to attempt a better look...it's a very young Ray, of course, with a beard...notoriously clean-shaven during that time period but several pictures have emerged through the years showing him sporting a beard.



"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" is a song from the pen of Kris Kristofferson. Ray is noted as the first artist to record the song although the hit recording belongs to Johnny Cash. Ray's recording appears on his album Have a Little Talk With Myself which I wrote a blog about awhile ago. The recording was Ray's debut on the country music charts...rising into the Top-60 that year while peaking in the lower portion of the Hot 100. It's less than stellar performance on pop radio was ironic because that was the format in which Ray was closely associated with...1969 was also the year he had a Gold record with "Gitarzan", a Top-10 pop hit...but the content of the Sunday morning song clashed with Ray's clean-cut image and therefore wasn't a big seller and as a result of low sales it didn't chart as high on the Hot 100. It's connection to Nashville songwriter, Kris Kristofferson, helped the song gain some exposure on the country charts and helped Ray cross over to country for the first time.

It's important for newer fans of Ray to keep in mind that he was grouped in with the pop music scene throughout the 1960's and into the early 1970's. Ray made infrequent appearances on the country music charts and on country music programs in the early 1970's but his label, Barnaby, was still marketing his music to the pop and international audience. Not until the mid 1970's was there a concentrated effort made into promoting Ray as a country artist...his move to the Warner Brothers label in 1976 kick-started the move toward country. Ray's career time-line is documented in my first few blog entries. Anyway, this promo ad for "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" is an image I've had in my collection for a period of years and I scanned it and uploaded it onto my computer tonight.

Take a Look inside the Book

Don't laugh at my attempts at showing the contents of the 1977 souvenir book released on Ray Stevens. I rarely use my web-camera except to take pictures on the spur of the moment when I don't feel like dragging out the digital camera or to make very short facial expression video clips to insert in some of the You Tube video montages I put together. Anyway, on the video clip, I show-off the book i've been writing about. I've had this for about a year but forgot I had it because I put it away after examining it thoroughly way back when I bought it...then when I went to clear out some things from my closet I was surprised to see that 1977 souvenir book sitting up in my closet. I'm glad I didn't re-purchase it as it's come up for sale on eBay a lot of times. Maybe in the back of my mind I knew I had that book so I never bothered purchasing it each time I seen it come up for sale?

I also took a picture of one of the Ray pictures...including a brief shot of myself right next to it...as you can see off to the left side of the screen. The video below is my page by page showing of the book's contents, including a lot of mistakes by me...holding the book too close or too far back...common problems when it comes to first timers. Also, it was difficult trying to turn the pages and try and keep the book in the camera's shot at the same time.



I'm still keeping the green and red Christmas colors in a majority of my posts...some posts won't have colors, though. The video is a little over a minute long...I didn't think it would be THAT long because it didn't seem like it took over a minute to show off the booklet but turning the pages added to it. It only has a handful of pages. One of the faces you'll see is Del Shannon...the two were in concert in England back in 1977. I ended the video imitating a routine I saw on SCTV from John Candy years ago...one of his characters named Dr Tongue appeared in mock 3-D horror films and usually two or three times during the sketches, he would be holding whatever it might be, and pull it back and forward at the camera in an effort to make it look "3-D".

Ray Stevens...Multi-talented musician, part two

In 1974, Ray Stevens released the song that forever became linked to his career. "The Streak" was a novelty single in every sense of the word. It capitalized on the fad of running around without any clothes. The story goes that Ray was on an airplane and he was reading a news magazine and he saw an article about streaking and he got an idea for a song. Later, he found out, that streaking was a big fad on college campuses and that it had spread into the mainstream. Ray rushed out "The Streak" and at the time there were other streaking songs on the market...Ray's song is the only one to become a hit and it became a gigantic hit. It flew up the Hot 100 and was #1 in a matter of weeks...staying #1 for three weeks. The single sold in the millions...most reports indicate it sold at least 5,000,000 copies. This out-sold his previous Gold record, "Everything Is Beautiful", which had sales reported to be over 2,000,000. "The Streak" would also reach #1 in England and become a country Top-5 hit. The song introduced the catch-phrase "Don't Look, Ethel!!" into the vernacular. An album built around the song followed. The album in question, "Boogity-Boogity", was issued in 1974 and it featured another single, "The Moonlight Special".

That particular novelty single poked fun at the TV show The Midnight Special, which featured radio DJ Wolfman Jack as it's on-camera announcer. Ray, as he often does in his comedy recordings, struts his comedic stuff by vocally imitating Wolfman Jack in the role of Sheepdog. Along the way we hear satirical spoofs of Gladys Knight and the Pips, Alice Cooper, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The names have been changed in the song to Mildred Queen and the Dips, Agnes Stooper, and Jerry Joe Harry Lee Jimmy Billy. The single managed to creep into the Hot 100, peaking in the Top-75. The single was too long but it also made light of the music teenagers of the time took seriously as to my guess why the hilarious spoof wasn't a bigger hit. Nonetheless it was a very funny recording.

In a change of moods, Ray delivered the calm "Everybody Needs a Rainbow" in late 1974. The single was a Top-40 country hit as well as a Top-20 Adult-Contemporary hit. The chart wasn't called Adult-Contemporary until later in the 1970's...it was still going by the Easy-Listening and Middle-of-the-Road banners.

As pop music was changing in the mid '70s, Ray was becoming increasingly visible on country music TV shows. He was still charting pop and country but as far as television exposure his calling card were country music TV shows. He made the rounds of Hee-Haw, Pop Goes the Country, and That Nashville Music during this time period. "Misty" was Ray's next single...it was another big hit that won him a Grammy for Best Arrangement of the Year. The arrangement of "Misty" was up-tempo and featured a banjo, fiddle, and steel guitar as it's lead instruments. The song was a Top-5 country hit, a Top-20 pop hit, and a Top-10 adult-contemporary hit. Ray's album, also named "Misty" featured his take on pop standards. "Indian Love Call" was a single from this album...it became a Top-40 country hit and a Top-65 pop hit. Ray arranged this song in a ballad style that was very different than the hit recording from Slim Whitman years earlier. Ray's version came complete with "bop-shoo-bop" background vocals which he provided himself. A third single from the album was issued in early 1976...the very slow "Young Love". This had been a hit for Sonny James and this version from Ray inched up the Hot 100 and reached the country Top-50.

Ray left his long-time Barnaby Records home for Warner Brothers in 1976. It is on this label where he was promoted officially as a country singer for the first time in his career. His debut single for them, "You Are So Beautiful", a previous pop hit for Joe Cocker, featured a similar arrangement with "Misty" using the same instrumentation. "You Are So Beautiful" became a Top-20 country hit. He followed that with the country Top-30 "Honky Tonk Waltz". In late 1976 he issued "In The Mood" under the name Henhouse Five Plus Too. The novelty single featured a chicken clucking choir performing the Glen Miller pop hit. Ray wasn't going to release the performance as a single but Warner Brothers insisted and it became a Top-40 pop, adult-contemporary, and country hit in early 1977 and it became a hit in England where it was issued under Ray's own name. Later in 1977 Ray's publishing company boasted the success of "Way Down", a single recorded by Elvis Presley. Unfortunately, "Way Down" became the last hit single during Elvis' lifetime. It was also in 1977 that the pop duo Captain and Tennille had Top-20 success with Ray's song "Can't Stop Dancing". His other songs that year included "Get Crazy With Me", a Top 100 country hit and "Dixie Hummingbird", which managed to inch up to the Top-50 on the country chart.

1978 was another relatively quiet year for Ray on the singles front. "Be Your Own Best Friend" was the only commercial single to emerge from Warner Brothers. It was a country Top-40 hit. It was the name of his main album that year which also featured "L'amour", "With a Smile", "You're Magic", and other love ballads. He had recorded another album that year paying tribute to the R&B music he grew up listening to. That album, "There Is Something On Your Mind", contained no hit singles but it features a wonderful tribute to early R&B. Ray tackles "Money Honey", "Talk To Me", "One Mint Julep", the title track "There Is Something On Your Mind", and others. In 1979 he issued a new novelty single...

"I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" came along at a time in Ray's career when it needed a publicity boost. This song was written by Dale Gonyea and it was never revealed why Ray picked the song to record unless for the obvious connection to Barry Manilow, then one of the biggest pop artists all over the world. The album that Warner Brothers issued to promote this single was called "The Feelings Not Right Again". The title track is a song from his 1978 album "Be Your Own Best Friend". The song was chosen as the 1979 album title because it sounds similar in title to one of Manilow's songs "Trying To Get The Feeling". The album cover design on Ray's 1979 release was a parody/spoof of Manilow's album design of "Trying To Get The Feeling". It's a very funny send-up.

The "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" single predictably didn't chart too high country but it did well on the pop and adult-contemporary formats. It was a Top-50 pop hit and more ironically it was a Top-20 hit on the adult-contemporary chart, a format Manilow dominated throughout the mid/late 1970's. This became Ray's final single on the Hot 100...charting country exclusively with his next wave of singles in the 1980's. This would also bring a close to his three year contract with Warner Brothers. He went to RCA to kick off the 1980's.