Hello once again!! I was going to write a blog entry tomorrow about Ray Stevens being inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame this coming Tuesday (November 22) but I decided to go ahead and write my celebration blog entry today. Why? Well, I can't help myself...I can't wait until tomorrow evening or late in the night tomorrow...I want to mark the celebration now. This will be Part One, however. I'll write Part Two later tonight or sometime early tomorrow morning.
A general public most likely know of Ray Stevens by way of any number of comedy recordings. Ray himself likes to say that if anybody knows who he is then more than likely they know of him for some kind of comedy song or some sort of comedy video...now, of course, comedy isn't all there is to Ray Stevens. Throughout his
now 65 year recording career (dating back to 1957) Ray has recorded just about every type and style of popular music imaginable. He began singing the style of music that was most dominant...the teenage love ballad. His roots are in Georgia. He was born Harold Ray Ragsdale in Clarkdale, Georgia and he resided in Georgia until a permanent move, five years into his recording career, to Nashville, Tennessee in 1962. Late in his high school years he and his family (his parents and a brother) packed up and moved to the Atlanta area. He and his brother had to switch schools, too. Ray had been attending Albany High School but the move from Clarkdale to the Atlanta suburbs meant he was going to graduate from Druid Hills High School. It was in high school that Ray formed a band called The Barons. Prior to the move to Atlanta, as you can see from the photo, Ray had made a name for himself as co-host of a local radio sock hop. This radio series, co-hosted by Mary Dale Vansant, aired on WGPC radio beginning in 1955. It was a Saturday radio program called
The Record Hop. As you may have known or may have guessed by now the style of music that a young Ray Stevens (known as Ray Ragsdale) was originally exposed to was country, gospel, and all kinds of rhythm and blues. In addition he was also exposed to radio comedy/stand-up comedy, rock and roll, and with this love of music and comedy he'd say, decades later, was a big reason he loved The Coasters so much. Ray had come of age right when rock and roll was brand new...turning 18 in January 1957. He was a high school graduate the same year...a member of the Druid Hills Class of '57. Yes...it was the very same year he signed his first professional recording contract. It was with Prep Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records. As far as the music business/music industry is concerned the first two important figures in the career of a young Ray Stevens were Bill Lowery and Ken Nelson.
Ray had been using his birthname up until his meeting with Ken Nelson. Ray been known as Ray Ragsdale, locally, in the Albany and Atlanta area but it was through the suggestion of Ken Nelson that Ray should come up with a stage name. Harold Ragsdale perhaps sounded too mature of a name for a teenager and the last name, Ragsdale, didn't seem like it could be marketable. Ray decided to use the last name of his mother, Stephens, for his stage name. In interviews Ray remarked that Ken loved the name, 'Ray Stephens', but he says Ken suggested that the last name be spelled 'Stevens'. Prep Records released "Silver Bracelet" under the name of Ray Stevens in 1957...and it was reportedly a local hit in the Atlanta area. Ken released a few singles on Ray on the Capitol label in 1958 that attracted regional attention. Bill Lowery guided Ray through the next phase of his career...signing him to his own label, NRC. Ray, Jerry Reed, Joe South, Tommy Roe, and Billy Joe Royal were all under the guidance of Bill Lowery...most of them, if not all, shown up on The Georgia Jubilee music program. Bill was an Atlanta-based disc jockey who became a very successful music publisher and was completely independent from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Nashville. One wonders if Ray got his desires of being a publisher from seeing the financial successes of Bill Lowery's music publishing company and how important publishing rights are to a recording? Perhaps...but Ray didn't begin to delve into the music publishing side of the music industry until the late 1960s.
Ray happens to be, in my opinion, a music prodigy. He can play the piano and other keyboard instruments but he can also read and write music for other instruments...and this talent had him in demand for all kinds of recording sessions once he got into Nashville in the early 1960s. In the meantime, though, he professionally parted ways with Bill Lowery and began a professional relationship with Shelby Singleton at Mercury Records in 1961. It was at Mercury where Ray began a lengthy run as a session musician and music arranger...not only on his own recordings but for dozens of other recordings by other recording artists.
Ray had released a series of love ballads and rhythm and blues style songs in the late 1950s time period. He had also recorded some novlety songs... "Rang Dang Ding Dong" appeared on one side of his debut single in 1957 on Prep, "Silver Bracelet". In 1960, while at NRC, he recorded "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" which displayed not only his love for The Coasters style of music but it was gaining some exposure outside of the Atlanta, Georgia market. Ironically, the reporting of the novelty song's local success made it's way to the owners of the Sgt. Preston character...their lawyers sent NRC a letter and threatened a lawsuit if the song wasn't pulled off the market. Ray has always said that the near hit of that song inspired him to come up with another comedy recording and so, in 1961, he put out a novelty song on Mercury Records. The song is funny but what caused the most attention was it's title: "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills". This novelty song became Ray's first hit single...reaching the national Hot 100 chart in Billboard magazine. A year earlier "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" peaked on Billboard's Bubbling Under the Hot 100...and had it not been pulled off the market it could've become Ray's first hit. It was on Mercury Records, in 1962, that Ray had his biggest hit single to date...the comical "Ahab the Arab". It crossed over to the Rhythm and Blues chart as well.
Ray's musician side bigger emphasis during his Mercury (1961-1963) and, specifically, his Monument (1963-1970) years. Fred Foster became the next important figure in Ray's music career in 1963. Fred hired Ray to work in the Artist and Repertoire department, arrange the music for recording sessions, lead the sessions, and play on the sessions. So it is definitely no surprise that it was during the first half of the Monument era where Ray concentrated heavily on music arranging and session work. Mercury Records, however, continued to control his recordings and they released a series of love ballads and novelty songs on him while he was producing and arranging the songs of an assortment of recording artists. Ray either played on the sessions or did the music arranging on several Monument Records releases. He was also getting into the publishing business, too. Lowery Music had been the publishing company that controlled the bulk of Ray's recordings but this changed not too long after Ray joined Monument Records. Ray began his own Ahab Music Company and entered the music publishing business. Now, of course, nearly all of the titles published by his own company were his own recordings...or, later, songs written by writers who worked for his publishing company. While at Mercury Records and at Monument Records he worked with Dolly Parton, Patti Page, Brenda Lee, Dusty Springfield, and Brook Benton.
Monument began releasing singles on Ray in the latter half of 1965...and though all of the single releases were top quality and excellent their first big hit didn't arrive until 1968's "
Mr. Businessman". The single that preceded it, "
Unwind", reached the pop Hot 100. From 1968 to around 1984 Ray Stevens continued to balance his recordings between pop, country, and comedy...even recording a gospel album in 1972. He became associated with Andy Williams in 1969. Ray's recording of "
Gitarzan" became a million selling hit not only in America but it became a hit in several other countries which opened his career up, a little bit, internationally. He slowed down on participating in recording sessions in 1970 because, in his own words, his career become so successful that he didn't have the time to play on the recordings of other singers as the demands from his own career had skyrocketed tremendously since his move to Nashville in 1962. Andy Williams brought Ray to Barnaby Records in 1970. It was also in 1970 that he hosted a summer show for Andy Williams and that show's theme song, "
Everything is Beautiful", went on to win Ray a Grammy in 1971 in the category of Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. A recording of the song by gospel singer, Jake Hess, won a Grammy in a gospel category in 1971. While 1969's "
Gitarzan" brought Ray
some international recognition it was "
Everything is Beautiful" that brought him the widest international exposure to date...selling millions of copies...but the international reach would reach a fever pitch in 1974 with the release of the multi-million selling novelty, "
The Streak".
Ray's songs were bouncing from pop to country to adult-contemporary during the first five years of the '70s. His first appearance on the country music chart had arrived in 1969 with his version of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". Ray began marketing himself more and more country by the mid 1970s. Chet Atkins and Ralph Emery were two key figures in Ray's career once the country direction of his career began to take shape. Ray had charted country in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, and 1974 with specific single releases and he was a frequent guest on country music programming but it wasn't until 1975 when Ray's single releases began performing even more successfully with country audiences. "Misty", arranged in a Bluegrass style, won Ray a Grammy for Best Arrangement. Ray charted several more country hits as the 1970's ended: "Indian Love Call", "Young Love", "You Are So Beautiful", "Honky Tonk Waltz", "In the Mood", "Dixie Hummingbird", "Get Crazy With Me", and "Be Your Own Best Friend". On regional television commercials Ray was the spokesman for Flav-O-Rich dairy products. I added that tidbit to reinforce the country direction in Ray's career. In 1979 he charted pop for the final time with the novelty "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".
This brings to an end Part One. I'll write Part Two in a couple of hours!
