Hello all of you Ray Stevens fans!!! I am almost certain that you've all heard the brand new single from Ray titled "Savannah" by now. It was released this past Thursday (February 12th) and I've listened to it multiple times so far. I have it in my online music library as well as an audio on YouTube. It's a wonderful performance vocally and musically...a salute to the city of Savannah, Georgia. The overall feel of the song is upbeat and it clocks in at just under 3 minutes so by the time you catch yourself singing or humming along the song is nearly over.
When you listen to the song's lyrics don't be surprised if you're thinking that there's a double meaning and that he's singing about a woman...the thought crossed my mind the very first time I heard the song and I thought to myself that there might be some sort of a twist ending. However, there's no evidence that the lyrics have a double meaning and so it remains a salute to the Georgia town. There's a line in the song where Ray mentions every town has a church and every town has a jail...and each serve a purpose. It's a clever line within the context of the recording. As I started off saying this is a wonderful music and vocal performance but that's to be expected when it comes to Ray Stevens. The twinkling piano and horn section makes me think of smooth jazz but there's also Dixieland to consider or perhaps Big Band but whatever the music arrangement and feel actually happen to be it's great to hear.
There isn't a physical copy of the single available but there's a publicity photo of the song that appears on the various social media sites. The photo as seen above captures imagery of the town...a visual tie-in to the audio recording...and until a full album comes along in April the above visual promo of "Savannah" will continue to show up online. The album that this song will be placed on will be titled Favorites Old and New. The new album will hit on April 10th. You can listen to "Savannah" on YouTube by clicking HERE.
As I begin writing this blog entry we're an hour and fifteen minutes away from the start of Super Bowl LIX which is roman numeral talk for Super Bowl 59. The game is being played in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Superdome and so I thought it would a perfect tie-in to hype/promote the 2007 Ray Stevens tribute to the culture and music of New Orleans. It come in the form of the album New Orleans Moon. Ray, as is the norm, was the album's producer and music arranger. When you look on the back of the album you'll see that some of the songs feature credits specifically attributed to Ray on the songs "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", and half of the two song medley featuring a snippet of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee". They're listed as PD/Arrangement which means the songs are in the public domain. Ray would later record a full version of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" for a gospel album nearly a decade later. Ray wrote the opening instrumental track which runs 1 minute, 8 seconds titled "Prelude to Way Down Yonder in New Orleans". The remainder of the album is vocal. Ray co-wrote which Chuck Redden the title track, "New Orleans Moon". The album, for those that weren't following Ray's career at the time, was sort of like the peak of his celebration of the music and culture of that particular area of Louisiana. It had began rather unofficially in 2005 during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Ray performed on some local fund raisers in the hurricane's aftermath and mentioned in news reports that he'd lost some property due to the hurricane and the flooding. Ray, Buddy Kalb, and Chuck Redden had written a satirical song titled "The New Battle of New Orleans" which was released as a single-only in 2005. It was a parody of the classic Johnny Horton recording, "The Battle of New Orleans".
Chuck was the main writer of the parody and it contains a lot of lyrics some may find confrontational or controversial. Ray and Buddy Kalb made some slight variations to the song which means that some lyrics were omitted and new lyrics added. The single received some publicity but it set in motion what ultimately became 2007's New Orleans Moon. In the meantime the 2005 single has since became a rarity. The 2007 album is a serious release and so the 2005 single wasn't placed on the album. In the title track Ray does a vocal impression of Louis Armstrong near the end of the song. In the song Armstrong is referenced to as Satchmo, his nickname. The album does feature Ray's version of the Johnny Horton classic, "The Battle of New Orleans", by the way. Some of the other songs on the album are "Louisiana", "Louisiana Man", "New Orleans", and "Basin Street Blues".
Here's Ray Stevens singing "New Orleans Moon" from an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television series. Keep in mind that you can go to YouTube and listen to the entire album, too.
Hello all fans of Ray Stevens!! As some of us predicted there was indeed a premiere of sorts from Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore today. Country music website, The Boot, as of this writing is the exclusive home of the audio track for "Coco Cabana Band". The audio track, I assume, will eventually make it's way to YouTube once the exclusivity with The Boot comes to an end. When you click the link to The Boot you'll discover that the audio track will eventually be publicly listed on YouTube but as of now it's only available on their website...you can hear the audio track by clicking HERE. "Coco Cabana Band" features a heavy dose of Ray's monkey and ape shrieks...much like what you hear on "Gitarzan"...and there's a welcome addition of scat singing. Most refer to this as scatting but I've always referred to it as scat singing...where you vocally mimic music instruments or you use the mouth to create a rhythmic accompaniment where conventional music instrumentation would be. The song tells the story of a group of monkeys from the Congo who find their way to Gulf Shores, Alabama and form the "Coco Cabana Band". Who is in the band you may be asking yourselves? There's a gorilla, a baboon, a chimpanzee, a monkey, and an orangutan. In a novelty like this the allure isn't so much the storyline, although a storyline is important, but the tropical flavored island music and Ray's scat singing take center stage in this performance and once you hear the song in the link I provided you'll pick up on that right away. Once "Coco Cabana Band" is placed on YouTube as an audio track I'll be embedding it in a future blog entry. The exclusive premiere on The Boot may last a couple of hours before the audio track shows up on YouTube. In addition to this audio track premiere don't forget there's suppose to be a music video emerge of "Hoochie Coochie Dancer"...don't know if it'll happen later today or tomorrow when the official Pre-order phase wraps up and Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore officially goes on sale. If the video hits YouTube at some point today, well of course, I'll be promoting it in a blog entry!! "Hoochie Coochie Dancer" and "Coco Cabana Band" are the first two tracks on Ray's upcoming comedy album.
Well here it is 2019 and for my first blog post of the year I'm including a video clip from 2007...it's an interview of Ray Stevens by Ralph Emery and it took place on Ralph's television series at the time, Ralph Emery Live!. The series aired on RFD-TV for a number of years but there weren't a whole lot of episodes produced if I recall correctly. The series ran on RFD before it became part of our regular line-up of channels and so I'd never actually seen a complete episode. There's a call-in feature which is something that I've never really been a fan of. I prefer listening to the host and guest talk without the insertion of callers because 90 percent of the time they ask routine questions that no recording artist would have the answer to. One of the most asked by callers is "when are you going to be in ______ ??". You can fill in the blank with whatever town, city, or state you can think of. Artists do not make up their itinerary...this is left up to people known as road managers, or, they're simply referred to as the artist manager, in general. There is usually someone hired to book concert dates/personal appearances for the artist in addition to having someone or more likely an organization hired to publicize the artist, etc. etc.
Even though Ray likes to keep things "in-house", based on commentary I've read or heard from him in interviews, sometimes there's a need to go outside the inner circle and hire people that specialize in publicity and marketing and he'll do that if he feels it necessary. What all of that boils down to is most artists do not know where they're going to be appearing next until an itinerary becomes available (tour dates) and that held true for Ray whenever he went on the road...meaning that he didn't know, beforehand, where he was going to appear until it was part of a tour stop. Nevertheless callers who get the chance to speak to a recording artist will ultimately want to know if or when that artist will be appearing nearby but occasionally a caller will ask something detailed and reflective of their love of Ray's songs. The call-in's aren't featured in the video clip, though.
Those reading this and wondering if Ray is going to go on tour or anything in 2019 need only to remember that he now has his CabaRay showroom to perform in and so the fans will have to travel to Nashville to see him in person just as they traveled to Branson in the early 1990s when he was there.
The 2007 interview clip, though, doesn't feature any callers and it features several performances by Ray...one being "Ruby Falls"...a single-only release that year which it never made it's way onto any CD until fairly recently...the Bozo's Back Again project in 2011. It's the album's closing song. The video clip is 38 minutes in length. Given there's hardly any commercials in the video clip nor is there any call-in's from viewers the presentation is shorter than originally seen in 2007.
One of those that called the show back in 2007 uploaded their interaction with Ray and Ralph onto YouTube several years ago. This caller is more of an exception to the rule as he asked a question only the most dedicated of fans would wonder about...the caller asked...well, watch the video for yourselves...Ray appeared thrilled that someone knew something so obscure about his recording career...
Anyone confused with the title of this blog entry? Well...a couple days ago I did my usual on-line search for everything Ray Stevens and I came across something that sparked my curiosity and so I did some on-line, in-depth searching to learn more about what I was seeing. What I was seeing happened to be a link to Amazon's Mp3 store in my search results for Ray Stevens. Once I opened the link I was stunned to see that Ray is a guest vocalist on a project by a jazz pianist named Beegie Adair. This project is called Grover's Hat Project and it was on pre-order when I came across it a couple of days ago. The product page at Amazon shown that it's release date is today. So, earlier this morning, I visited Amazon and sure enough the material is available for purchase instead of pre-order. The project features Beegie playing piano accompanied by guest vocalists. I'm nowhere near knowledgeable about jazz or it's artists and so I had never heard of her until Ray Stevens was linked to her name. Grover's Hat Project can be purchased HERE. She enlists an eclectic mix of country oriented performers as guest vocalists and the project features 14 recordings and then there's one peculiar bonus track...
Ray is a featured vocalist on a song titled "That's My Desire" and the download of the song is 99 cents. I'll be purchasing the song later this morning but that's not all...the bonus track is an alternate version of "That's My Desire" but it's performed comically by Ray Stevens rather than seriously as heard on track six. Once you click the Amazon link you'll be able to purchase each version of the song or you can purchase the entire digital album. What a way to open up a New Year...with never before available recordings by Ray Stevens!
Later this year a certain 45 single from Ray Stevens hits 41. The image of the single is off to the left...this particular image is the United Kingdom release of "Have a Little Talk With Myself". The single was released late in 1969 and it serves as a title track to one of Ray's most under-rated albums. The single in fact hit the country chart during the final week of 1969 and it reached it's peak during the first week of 1970. Yes, you read that correctly...this majestic, exquisite single about self-reflection, ego, and introspection was on the country music charts for just two weeks. The fact that it was on the country music chart in 1969 was a foreshadowing of Ray's eventual switch to the country music market. Prior to this single's release he had made his debut earlier in 1969 on the country chart with "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". It's just my opinion but I feel as if those two appearances on the country charts were a fluke...none of my research indicates that Monument Records sought out country radio support. The telling thing about Ray's future singles, though, were the cross genre flip-flopping that would occur. In a period of about 5 and a half to 6 years Ray Stevens singles would consistently chart pop, country, and Adult-Contemporary. Some of his singles would even cross the oceans and chart internationally during this 1969-1975 time period. Adult-Contemporary at the time was referred to as Easy-Listening or Middle of the Road. It was music aimed at adults who considered themselves fans of "pop music" but weren't necessarily fans of the younger, teenage-driven "Top-40" pop music.
As a Ray Stevens fan and nostalgia nut, looking back, I noticed that Ray's success relied almost entirely on the older, adult-driven market...but some of his songs would appeal to the mostly younger Top-40 set. A single released by Ray 40 years ago, namely "America, Communicate With Me", is a perfect example of the discrepancy between the various age groups and what one age group thought was great and what one age group didn't embrace as much. Among the Top-40 listeners the single did moderately well...almost reaching Top-40 status...but over in the radio formats aimed at the adults 35 and older the single reached the Top-15. Going by that statistic it goes a long way at explaining Ray's long-standing appeal and why it wasn't so difficult to market him as a country singer as time went on.
The Have a Little Talk With Myself album featured a couple of new songs but the bulk of the material was Ray's versions of contemporary pop hits by other artists. I wrote about this album in a previous blog entry called Have a Little Talk...about Ray!. You all can find it by exploring the archives on the right hand side of the screen.
A couple years ago Ray issued a CD where he covered the songs of Frank Sinatra. The CD was originally released in 2008 on his own label and sold exclusively through his own web-site and during concert stops. The actual title is Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What??. I purchased by copy at a merchandise table at one of his concerts. When I saw the CD I was stunned because at the time it wasn't being sold on his web-site and I'd wondered why...I then assumed that it must be an exclusive to concert goers but then it became available at his web-site store. Anyway, in 2009 the CD was released nationally but without any fanfare or promotion...I think it's a great CD salute. In an attempt, perhaps, to create a mood or an ambiance, Ray has the music come off like it's from a small, intimate session at some all-night lounge...complete with audience cheers and applause. Ray doesn't keep the same arrangements on every song, though, and the musical accompaniment is more along the jazz/R&B side than big band and swing. A couple of the songs are shortened, as well. The CD contains the following songs made famous by Sinatra...
I’ve Got You Under My Skin Night and Day I Get A Kick Out Of You All The Way High Hopes Witchcraft The Tender Trap Young At Heart Strangers In The Night That’s Life
