Hello fans of Ray Stevens!!! As we wind down women's history month and as we wind down the examination of love songs and comedy songs that Ray has sung that fit the theme of this limited blog series during women's history month we begin with 1981 and the release of the fabulous album titled One More Last Chance. This album is chock full of love songs...everything from full-on passionate pleas of longing to heartache and heartbreak. It's a ballad heavy album and the title track features a neat combination of steel guitar and electric guitar trading solo's within the song. It starts out with an electric guitar but eventually you'll hear the steel guitar. "One More Last Chance" is a song about a broken relationship and how the guy realizes his mistakes/faults and begs forgiveness. The woman has apparently taken him back time and time again and given him one last chance each time but now, as he says, he wants her to give him just "One More Last Chance". The album's title track was the second single release from the album. The first single had actually hit several months before the album was released. Late in 1980 "Night Games" emerged. The bouncy song is like a page right out of any night club all over the country. In 1980, when the topic of bar rooms was brought up, what would immediately come to mind is the movie, Urban Cowboy, and the bar/nightclub featured in the movie was called Gilley's. The bar was a business venture between country singer Mickey Gilley and a businessman named Sherwood Cryer. It was located in Pasadena, Texas and was in operation from 1970 until it literally burned to the ground in 1990. The album cover shows Ray in the clothing that most, if not all, country music and aspiring country music singers as well as fans were wearing in the aftermath of the 1980 movie. The bar and movie popularized the mechanical bull, too.
"Night Games", as mentioned, fits into that era as we hear about a single's bar where we're told the story of two strangers hoping to find romance. The thing that happens, however, is the two have a one night stand and they wake up to find they're not compatible and feel just as strange to one another as the moment they met the night before. Elsewhere on the album is his up-tempo rendition of "Pretend" plus we have a big ballad titled "Certain Songs". Heartbreak is the subject in the ballad "Just About Love". A tale of a couple with opposite personalities and backgrounds is told in "Melissa". We're not told why the woman is no longer in the relationship, however, but from Ray's singing we're informed that he's missing her. In a ballad-heavy album "Pretend" is the only song that's really super charged up-tempo. "Night Games" is a bouncy sing-a-long whereas "Let's Do It Right This Time" and "One More Last Chance" are a combination between ballad and mid-tempo.
In 1982, from the Don't Laugh Now album, Ray returns to a more balanced approach of up-tempo and ballad recordings. The album kicks off with the rocking "Such a Night". The retro feel of the music arrangement might be the reason the album's title is written in a '50s neon design.
The album, produced by Ray Stevens and Bob Montgomery, is fun to listen to as are so many of Ray's albums. "Such a Night", "Take That Girl Away", "Oh, Leo Lady", and practically the entire album is devoted to love songs as well. The two songs that were issued as single releases were "Written Down in My Heart", a ballad, and the gospel-flavored "Where The Sun Don't Shine". The cleverest song, "Oh, Leo Lady", takes the sound of yodeling as in oh-lee-oh-lady-hoo but transform it into a love song using astrology. In the song Ray sings about being in love with a Leo in spite of his horoscope saying that a Leo isn't part of his destiny. It's the only song, that I'm aware of, that uses astrology as a backdrop and incorporates Leo, Gemini, Pisces, Jupiter, Scorpio, etc. into the lyrics. The album's title track is a slow ballad that visits the theme of unrequited love. In the song Ray sings about a guy that's in love with a woman and he tells her how much he loves her and for how long he's had feelings for her. He asks that she "Don't Laugh Now" given how she's always seen him as a friend and nothing more. "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" is a song about two people from different backgrounds finding one another. He's a country kid who worked as a lifeguard inside a ritzy country club. He falls for a woman named Mary Lou Pickett. Her father happened to own a mill in town and he raised his family in an eight column house.
In 1983 Ray left the RCA label (signed with them in the latter half of 1979) and signed what turned out to be a one album deal with Mercury Records. He'd been on that label in his past. He recorded for them from 1961 until 1965. The results of the newest partnership began showing up in the latter half of 1983. A series of single releases emerged as well as the album, Me.
In hindsight there wasn't a lot of publicity surrounding the album. The album contains 10 songs and it features a combination of up-tempo, mid-tempo, and ballads. In recent years through social media several songs from the album have been discovered by fans...one, in particular, is the fun "Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee". The song should have been used for Nashville tourism or Tennessee Tourism but it never was. The single releases happened to be "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out", "Mary Lou Nights", and "My Dad". The latter, written by Dale Gonyea, is a salute to fathers. Although it has the eye catching title of "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out" it's a serious recording about mental stress and the anguish that being in love, or losing love, will bring. "Game Show Love" is my all-time favorite from the album. Through the incorporation of game show titles and catch-phrases we hear a song about how a woman was never serious about a relationship and all she did was string him along. The opening line in the song's chorus: 'love, is just a game to you...'. In "Yolanda" we hear a song about a guy's desire for a Spanish woman and in spite of his not being able to speak the language he nevertheless can't get her off of his mind. Have you ever heard a song about an anniversary of a break-up? In "Special Anniversary", a phrase we don't hear until the end of the song, Ray sings about seeing a woman that he used to love and wonders if his running into her is just a coincidence given that it had been exactly one year since the two broke up. It was a fantastic album and much, if not all, of the brief publicity for the album and it's songs arrived in the first couple of months in 1984. However, the Me album was ultimately overlooked and overshadowed by some big changes that took place in Ray's career in 1984. Seen below is Ray performing "My Dad" from an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television series.
Ray left Mercury Records and signed with MCA Records. Although the entire terms of the recording contract will never be public it was reported in country music media that he was signed as a comedy act. It was the first time in his career where he shifted his full attention to comedy and the first time he fully embraced being marketed as a comedy performer. His first five albums for the label were all comedy and the first four were huge record sellers. The 1984 debut, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, contained what became an immediate classic... "It's Me Again, Margaret". This comedy song, in case you hadn't heard it, is about a prank caller named Willard McBain who calls up his victim, Margaret. In a series of phone calls he embarrasses the woman until she finally gets the police involved. They eavesdrop and hear Willard's latest verbal assault and he's arrested. There were some other songs on that album dealing with women. "Happy Hour is the Saddest Time of the Day" is a nutty comedy song about a pair of alcoholics. She's sobered up and left him which is why Happy Hour is a sad time for him. "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" is the album's opening track. This is a very funny song, if you listen to it carefully, but it's performed seriously with an up-tempo bluegrass flavored arrangement.
This concludes my look at love songs (both non-comical and comical) from Ray Stevens. Now, don't let this overview lead you to think he's not recorded much more than what I've covered in this 5-part series. He's recorded more since 1984. In 1985, for example, there was "Punk Country Love" and then there was "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" in 1986. In 1987 there was "The Flies of Texas", which in spite of it's title, is a love song about a guy who thinks he's marrying into money only to learn that his potential father-in-law owns a fleet of garbage trucks. "The Three Legged Man" tells the wild story of a guy who steals a woman away from another man. The other man happens to have a wooden leg and he steals it, too. So, now, he's a guy with three legs with a woman who has two legs and they're being chased by a one legged man.
Oh yes...perhaps the most popular or the second most popular woman from a Ray Stevens recording is Ethel. The woman that kept seeing a streaker in Ray's 1974 million selling single, "The Streak". The catchphrase, well one of them, even appears on the album cover. Throughout the recording Ray's eyewitness character continually warns Ethel not to look but it's always too late. Ray wrote and recorded a rough draft of the song shortly after reading about the fad of streaking prior to it becoming a national fad, most often happening on college campuses. Ray didn't immediately release the song but once streaking became a huge news item, perhaps reaching it's peak at the Oscar ceremony, Ray decided to put the finishing touches on his song and record it. When he released the song on Barnaby Records there were already at least a dozen or more novelty songs about streaking available. Ray has always felt that the reason his recording out performed the other songs is due to his having the concept of the song partially written weeks before streaking became a cultural phenomenon. He owed the song's success to having had the time to focus on it rather than cobbling together lyrics seemingly at random just to cash in on the fad. The single sold millions of copies worldwide. The sales figure that's often cited is more than 5,000,000 copies sold. It not only reached the top of the Hot 100 pop chart here in America but it crossed over and become a Top-5 hit in country music and a number one hit in the United Kingdom. In America the song was at number one for three weeks. It had a meteoric rise to the top...once it hit the Hot 100 it was sitting at number one within a month's time. The single reaches it's golden anniversary this year but for this occasion it's okay if Ethel takes a look and celebrates the milestone. Although the 1974 Boogity Boogity album is officially a comedy release it did contain at least one love song. It happens to be the album closer, "Just So Proud To Be Here". Ray also includes his rendition of "Don't Boogie Woogie", a rocking piano pounding performance that sounds a lot like Jerry Lee Lewis and ironically Jerry Lee Lewis would in fact record that song...one year after Ray. Here's an audio track of "Just So Proud To Be Here". I don't know if Ray chose to write a song with this as a title because of his friendship with Minnie Pearl or not. If you'd ever seen Minnie in performance she'd holler out her opening "How-dee!" and follow it with "I'm just so proud to be here...".
In 1975, still with Barnaby Records, Ray issued the single, "Misty". Now, technically, the name of the song is a woman's name but the song is actually about emotional feelings. If you've never heard the song before it's about how misty-eyed a man gets the moment the love of his life is near him. So, yes, it's still a love song but it isn't about a woman named Misty. Ray won a Grammy early in 1976 in the category of Best Music Arrangement for his recording of "Misty". Elsewhere on the Misty album there are plenty of love songs. One of the greatest on the album is his version of "Lady of Spain". There's also the delightful "Sunshine", a song that's arranged and sang with such vocal happiness that you're bound to smile throughout as you listen to it. On the opposite end of the up-tempo productions we have the sensual vibe that exists throughout his performance of "Take Care of Business". That song, from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr., uses a phrase heard throughout Ray's 1968 single, "Mr. Businessman". Layng was a writer at Ray's publishing company and if I recall correctly the songwriter chose "Take Care of Business" as a title because he felt it might grab Ray's attention to the point of his possibly recording the love ballad...or he used that title because "Mr. Businessman" happened to be one of Layng's favorite Ray Stevens songs. It's one or the other. Ray's marvelous ballad renditions of "Indian Love Call" and "Young Love" are on the 1975 album as well.
In 1976 Ray exited Barnaby Records and signed on with Warner Brothers records. His debut album for the label, seen above, is titled Just For the Record. It's a glorious album chock full of up-tempo, mid-tempo, and ballad performances. In the category of love songs this album has plenty. His rousing rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" was the album's debut single and it was followed by another love song, "Honky Tonk Waltz". A savory ballad found on here is "Once in Awhile" whereas "Cornball" is a bouncy sing-a-long kind of song where Ray sings about a guy that no matter how hard he tries he can't seem to impress the woman but he's so desperate that he feels the need to remind her that he'll always be available if she ever gets lonely. I tend to use the word, glorious, a lot when describing specific Ray Stevens recordings. I'll use that word again.. "Gimme a Smile" is a glorious love song about a strained relationship that's reached a breaking point and Ray asks for forgiveness and a smile.
So far I've touched on quite a few Ray Stevens recordings that fall into the category of a love song or those that contain women's names in the song titles in these first three blog entries focusing on Ray singing about women. In part 4 I'll be spotlighting some recordings of Ray during the years 1977, 1978, and 1980 as women's history month continues.
Hello once again Ray Stevens fans!! We're on the eve of the annual tradition of setting our clocks ahead one hour at 2am. I don't if the State you live in participates in the clock changes (spring forward/fall back) or not but it's something we've done for decades. One of the main points of this limited blog series was to spotlight some of the songs Ray Stevens has recorded that deal with women. I originally wanted to pinpoint songs that feature a woman's name in the title but then I figured I'd also toss in some notice to songs that are about women, in general, and therefore those would fall into the love song category.
Although a casual music listener probably wouldn't think of love songs or deep, romantic ballads when they hear the name, Ray Stevens, but he's recorded and written a lot of love songs. Some of those love songs actually do involve a lot of mature, straightforward lyrics. The issue has almost always been that music listeners can't separate the funny man from the serious one and once he gained a reputation for comedy/novelty it was almost written in stone in the ears and minds of music listeners and music critics that Ray shouldn't be taken seriously. We all know that Ray was able to overcome the novelty/comedy image throughout much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. His recordings were very well done, immaculately produced, and arranged. Ray is his own music producer and music arranger and those talents continue to show up on his most recent recordings, too. I decided to use that particular pose of Ray because I feel it captures him deep in the performance. His eyes are open so you can't say he's lost in the feeling but it's a capture that captures a side of Ray Stevens that gets overlooked. So, then, in my second part of this mini-blog series devoted to women's history month we begin with a song Ray wrote and recorded in the late 1960s. The song originally appeared on his 1969 album, Have a Little Talk With Myself. "The Little Woman" celebrates the joy of domestic living and the pride one has in living a modest lifestyle. It also, as you'll find out when listening to the song, demonstrates the strength of a marriage. In the song's storyline Ray is approached by a woman who has perhaps a one night stand on her mind but he gently turns her down and states how much he loves his wife who's waiting on him at home. Ray explored this theme of domestic tranquility in a previous recording a year earlier in 1968 on the song, "The Great Escape". In that one he criticizes the hectic pace of working in the city and all that's one his mind is making the escape back to the tranquil suburbs and returning to his wife and their subdivided house. In the embed below it's the audio track of "The Little Woman".
In 1970 one of Ray's albums, Unreal, featured numerous love songs. One of them, in particular, dealt with the sad side of love. "Islands" tells the story of a couple who've drifted off into their own separate worlds. The woman has left the guy and the song is something of a lover's plea for her to return. Sad love songs tend to outnumber positive love songs on that 1970 album. A couple of other sad ones are "Night People", "Imitation of Life", and the war ballad "Loving You on Paper". The album had it's share of positive and inspiring songs, though, such as "Come Around", "Can We Get To That?", and "America, Communicate With Me". In the video clip below you'll hear Ray perform "Loving You On Paper" from a May 1971 episode of the BBC music series, In Concert.
In Ray's 1973 album, Nashville, there are all kinds of love songs on it. First off is the title track. "Nashville" isn't necessarily about a woman but it's a love song directed at the city of Nashville, Tennessee. In several interviews Ray mentioned that he wrote the song while touring Australia and was homesick. He missed being in Nashville and being with his family. Ray's take on "Never Ending Song of Love" is fabulous as is the love ballad "Love Me Longer". The album features the original recording of "You've Got the Music Inside" which he would re-record five years later. In the latter recording from 1978 he gave it a softer music arrangement to mirror his softer vocal performance.
As was the case in 1970 with the release of two albums Ray released two albums in 1973, too: Nashville and Losin' Streak. Some of the love songs on Losin' Streak were a re-recorded version of "Just One of Life's Little Tragedies" (originally recorded by Ray in 1963), "Idaho Wine", a mid-tempo recording of "Easy Loving", and a bluesy rendition of "Bye Bye Love". The Losin' Streak album isn't officially uploaded onto YouTube and neither is Have a Little Talk With Myself but if you manually search for songs from either of those two albums you'll come across the audio tracks. I'll follow up with part three later on this week.
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...
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.
Hello Ray Stevens fans!! Several months ago I embedded a video of Ray's guest appearance on the final first-run episode of Larry's Country Diner. In that episode he performed several songs...and some of the songs he performed have never appeared on any album (yet) and I know that one of them marked it's debut television performance. Ray had previously sang several of the non-album songs on an episode of Huckabee which, in case you didn't know, is a talk show hosted by Mike Huckabee. There was, however, the inclusion of one song in particular that hadn't been performed by Ray on any TV appearance before or since. That song I'm referring to is "Cup Holders". Now, when I first heard this song awhile ago when audio tracks of Ray's appearance on Larry's Country Diner were uploaded to YouTube, I referred to the song as "Cup Holders" since that's one of the phrases heard several times in the song and he closes the song with those two words. However, based on the recent upload featuring Ray's performance from Larry's show, it's referred to as "You're the Cup Holder of My Life". I don't know if that's now the official title of the song or if it's what the uploader titled it on their own. I like either title...and I especially like the performance... see it for yourselves and I know you'll love it...
Now, of course, when you watch the video you may wonder where did all of the instrumentation and harmony vocals come from? Ray is singing to a music track as most of the recording artists did when they appeared on the show. There were some exceptions... like acoustic, Bluegrass-style performers who brought their instruments and band with them... but for the most part the solo performers sang to music tracks. I love the song and I love the music/arrangement. The line the harmony singers are singing is "free the hand, free the man".
Multi-tracking is a common practice in the recording industry and Ray's employed multi-tracking for many, many decades. I'd say long before it ever became commonplace in the music industry. Multi-tracking, as it applies here, is when all of the instrumentation is recorded on individual tracks. The lead vocalization and harmonies are also recorded on individual tracks. A record producer can then add all the music and vocals or take things away during the process...or decide to use the harmony or not use the harmony, etc. etc. Ray, as you probably are well aware, has long been his own record producer, music arranger, and is a musician, too...and many of his recordings are likes works of art. As a music arranger he constructs songs, instrumentally speaking, from scratch regardless of who the writer(s) happen to be. Practically every song Ray has recorded since the mid/late 1960s, whether we're speaking of the songs he wrote or the songs he didn't write but recorded, the actual music you hear is all in Ray's control. He decides what instruments are featured in each recording and what the tempo of the recording is going to be, etc. etc. Those are just the basic things a music arranger does.
I am hoping this song as well as the others that haven't appeared on an album yet will finally show up on an album! The last album he released was in the fall of 2021.
Hello out there on this Saturday afternoon!! Ray Stevens recently uploaded onto YouTube a promo video for his digital album, Slow Dance. This follows the video promo's he did for Melancholy Fescue and Great Country Ballads. He's posted these promo videos on Facebook but they hadn't been placed on YouTube until recently. The Slow Dance promo was uploaded on YouTube within the last half hour. A video promo for his fourth digital album of the year should be forthcoming and once it appears on YouTube I'll be sharing it here on this blog page. He makes mention of the fourth digital album in this promo but I'm sure he'll upload a video promo focusing exclusively on the fourth release. Slow Dance is the digital album that contains standards filled with romance, love songs more or less, and there's one song that deals with dancing...his lovely rendition of "Slow Dancing". Some of the other songs Ray covers on Slow Dance include "Unforgettable", "Only You and You Alone", "The Great Pretender", and a medley containing "Make Believe / It's Only Make Believe".
If I'm not mistaken, I'll have to look through my notes, but I seem to recall an episode of his television show, Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville, where he performed a song called "I Remember You". If I'm remembering correctly, once he finished with the performance, he mentioned it was going to be on an upcoming album of his called Slow Dance. As I was typing this I went through my notes and refreshed my memory. He performed "I Remember You" but according to my notes he didn't say it would be on any upcoming album. I had made that assumption on my own when I was taking notes. He'd also sang "Unforgettable" on his television show...and that song did end up appearing here on Slow Dance.
Hello all once again!! As we wait in anticipation for the release of the brand new Ray Stevens album let's take a look at a love ballad that he recorded for his 1982 album, Don't Laugh Now. This album was released on RCA Records and it was a blend of mid-tempo songs, up-tempo songs, and ballads. I have it on vinyl and cassette tape. "Written Down In My Heart" was the album's first single release and it reached the Country Top-40. The song comes from the pen of a writer credited as W.T. Davidson. I looked him up and there's only a couple of songs credited to the writer...and it's Ray's song that was the biggest hit for the writer. Now, the website I looked at only focuses on single releases...so it's hard to tell if the writer had any album cuts by recording artists. An album cut, or album track, is what's referred to as a song that appears on an album but wasn't released commercially as a single.
The song, as you can tell if you're listening to it as you read, is a love ballad. It was released as a single in February 1982. RCA even released a gold color vinyl promo single...copies of it can sometimes be found on eBay and images of it can be found on websites that specialize in vinyl singles. The performance comes from Ray's appearance on Barbara Mandrell's television show, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters. I created a four panel collage of Ray's 1982 album. I feature an image of the vinyl, cassette, and an image of myself and my copy of the cassette. As mentioned I have Don't Laugh Now on vinyl, too, but reaching for the cassette is a lot simpler than having to sift through my stack of vinyl. Ray has a sensitivity or a softness in his vocal performance...there were several displays of this throughout the 1982 album and in several album's prior...but it reached it's peak on this 1982 album. It may have had to do with the overall production that drew out that kind of vocalization from Ray. It's anyone's guess.
When you take a look at the collage below you'll notice that there's more graphics/art work on the vinyl release. The neon '50s style rock and roll look with the splashy Don't Laugh Now written in that manner was something of a tie-in with the song's opening track...the bouncy rock and roll flavored "Such a Night". There are several rock and roll inspired performances on here...musically speaking of course...Ray remains calm and pleasant vocally. In addition to "Such a Night" there's "Always There" and "Take That Girl Away". The love ballads are "Written Down In My Heart", "Don't Laugh Now", "This Old Piano", "Oh, Leo Lady", and "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love". There is one mid-tempo song on here, "Country Boy, Country Club Girl", and then there's the album's second single, "Where The Sun Don't Shine", done in a hand clapping sing-a-long southern gospel arrangement which belies the fact it's a humorous song about a romantic break-up. The cassette tape, if you notice, lacks the '50s style neon look and places the album's title and song publicity underneath Ray's photo. I've got a cassette copy of his 1980 album, too...I've always been on the look out for a cassette version of his 1981 album to complete the RCA studio albums in cassette format. Bob Montgomery co-produced this album with Ray. Also, the album's keyboard player, Ron Oates, arranged "This Old Piano", "Written Down In My Heart", and "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love". Ray arranged the other seven songs on the album.
Late last night I posted a blog/review of the October 1975 appearance of Ray Stevens on Hee Haw. It happened to be the fifth episode of the 1975-1976 television season and more specifically it aired on October 11, 1975. As hard as it is to believe, it was just his third appearance on the program. He made his first two appearances in 1972. He appeared on the 1972-1973 season opener on September 16, 1972 (singing "Turn Your Radio On" and "Along Came Jones") and then a second appearance happened on November 25, 1972 (singing "Isn't It Lonely Together" and "Gitarzan"). Each of those performances had been taped in the summer of 1972.
Then, three years pass by, and finally in October 1975 Ray Stevens makes a third appearance and in the blog entry I posted prior to this one I detailed that episode so I won't go over what I already mentioned. In this blog entry I'm posting the video clips of his performances...we start with "Indian Love Call"...
Isn't that just the greatest??
Okay, now we have his big hit that year, "Misty"...
I love seeing classic clips of Ray Stevens!!! Hopefully you all do, too!
