Ray Stevens: CabaRay concerts return in 2 weeks

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Well, we're getting more and more close to the CabaRay showroom opening for the 2023 concert season. A couple of days ago Ray uploaded a video tour of the showroom. The video was filmed in the early days of the CabaRay when he used a white piano on stage (he's long since returned to the red piano he popularized in Branson, Missouri in the 1990s) but the video works so well as a publicity piece that it was uploaded onto his Facebook page a few days ago. The Facebook upload is titled 'Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom Explanation' whereas the other video is titled 'Ray Stevens CabaRay tour'. In each video clip Ray shows the interior of the showroom and speaks of it's inspiration and the reasons it was built.  

I'm sure a lot of Ray's fans that had, for years, wondered if he'd put on concerts again have long since become aware of the CabaRay. It's west of Nashville in an area called Bellevue. It had it's grand opening in 2018 and so it's been part of that region for 5 years. If you're familiar with the region then you'll probably know exactly where the showroom is. When you're on the highway near the showroom's location you're going to be able to see it from your vehicle...as it sits on top of a hill...and if you're driving in the area, especially after sunset, the big red letters of the CabaRay are lit up so bright that it's impossible not to see it. Once you get onto the road where the showroom is you'll see more detail such as the marquee sign that shows the time of the concerts each Saturday. 

The showroom doors open at 5:30pm and the concert begins at 7:30pm. There's a piano bar which is where a lot of the fans gather prior to the concert. There is also a gift shop and there are all kinds of paintings and illustrations hanging on the walls that fans can look at as they await the main floor to open. The main floor is where fans who purchased floor level seats sit at, of course, but at the CabaRay it doubles as the area where the pre-ordered dinner is served. Yes, in case this showroom is brand new to you and you're reading about it for the first time, the CabaRay serves an optional dinner, now, a policy that began a couple of seasons ago. The dinner is no longer automatically included with the price of floor level seating as it had been in the first couple of seasons (2018, 2019). 

If you're wanting a fine dining-type of dinner prior to the concert you can elect to add the dinner price to your concert ticket. Some fans, I strongly assume, wanted the opportunity to sit on the main floor without having to include a dinner and so a couple of seasons ago Ray came up with the idea to have the dinner optional. There are balcony seats...and in the history of the CabaRay no dinner has never been served up there, for obvious reasons, but the staff do provide beverages for fans who like to sit up in the balcony. It's theater style seating in the balcony...there's no room for plates, utensils, food, and all that comes with a dinner when you're sitting in a seat up in a balcony. The 2023 concert season at the CabaRay begins on March 11th...just 2 weeks from today! All the information can be found when you click HERE. 

Here's a video tour of the showroom. Ray explains the red leather booths and discusses the record producers who are immortalized on the walls. 

Ray Stevens 1992 performance: "Mississippi Squirrel Revival"...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! A couple of days ago Ray uploaded a performance he gave of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" from his former theatre in Branson, Missouri. The performance is from 1992. Ray taped a complete concert at his former theatre in 1992 and split it in half and sold it in two separate VHS tapes: Ray Stevens Live! and More Ray Stevens Live!. Those VHS tapes were released in 1993. The performance of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" appears on More Ray Stevens Live!. Ray never released that particular VHS through television direct marketing...it was only sold at his theatre's gift shop and through his former fan club...so it wasn't as widely known as Ray Stevens Live! at the time. You'll see not only Ray perform the song but you'll see the big video screen above the stage playing snippets of the music video. This video screen and the insertion of music video content is what Ray said inspired him to begin releasing VHS tapes of his songs. In the beginning there was a VHS release only sold at his theatre called Ray Stevens Video Hits. This led to the extended edition, in 1992, of Comedy Video Classics which became a blockbuster VHS for two years in the Home Video market. The 1992 release featured five of the music videos from the Video Hits release with three all new music video productions bringing the overall total to eight music videos. One of those newest music video productions for Comedy Video Classics was "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and you'll see it playing as Ray sings the song at his former Branson, Missouri theatre...

Ray Stevens sings "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at Telethon...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I was aware of this video upload several weeks ago but I was waiting until Ray added it to his official YouTube channel before I embedded it. The video is from 1985 and it's Ray Stevens singing "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at a Cerebral Palsy telethon. I looked up the telethon and couldn't find too much about it...as you'll see in the video clip Ray's singing at the Grand Ole Opry. There's a series of telephone numbers...of course they've long since been disconnected. The only thing I've been able to find out is there was a Cerebral Palsy telethon that took place in 1985...airing in the latter part of January...called Weekend with the Stars Telethon. The telethon ran 21 hours. I am making the assumption that Ray's performance comes from that particular telethon. National telethons almost always have cut-away location segments from other parts of the country...and in the Nashville segment Ray Stevens was featured. Now, if this performance does indeed come from that January 1985 telethon, then "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" was in it's early stages of single availability. It was issued as a single late in December of 1984 after some country and pop disc jockeys began playing the song from Ray's album, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. It wasn't meant to be a single but it was becoming a top requested song...so much so that an official single was released and by the end of January 1985 it was on the national charts...it's a song that still remains part of Ray's set-list in his concerts to this day.

Ray Stevens: 1986 "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" performance...

Hello all once again!! Earlier today Ray Stevens uploaded a 1986 performance of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". It's from one of the various country music programs from the 1980s...I'll say it's from the Music City News Top Hits of the Year gala. The upload states that it's from 1986 and that particular awards organization always handed out their awards in recognition of the previous year. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" made it's debut on the country chart in January 1985...having been released as a single late in December 1984. The song comes from Ray's first album for MCA Records in 1984, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. MCA had previously issued "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" as a single but then word got back to Ray that "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" was being played as an album track on some country radio stations. That meant that disc jockeys, on their own, were playing the song from the album...no 45 single had been issued. When the song started to spread around MCA issued a commercial single late in December 1984 and by the middle part of January 1985 it was well on it's way to becoming a hit. 

In performance Ray tells us how the squirrel run up the pants leg of Harv Newland and in the screen cap on the left he visually acts out the lyrics. Ray looks as if a squirrel has just run up his pants leg during the performance and it's that sort of thing that endears Ray Stevens to his many fans, myself included. The song, written by Buddy and Carlene Kalb, would eventually peak in the Top-20 on the country charts. The song caused the album to attract sales...unheard of kinds of sales for a 'novelty album'. "It's Me Again, Margaret", released not too long after "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" peaked, added to the sales success...eventually He Thinks He's Ray Stevens climbed into the Top-10 of the Country Album chart was certified Gold and later, Platinum. "It's Me Again, Margaret", also on that album, wasn't a massive airplay hit and it didn't crack the country Top-50 but it's become a classic in Ray's career and along with "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" it's one of the reasons why He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (1984), Greatest Hits (1987), Get The Best of Ray Stevens (1987), His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits (1990), and the VHS Comedy Video Classics (1992), became enormous sales successes in their day. Those two songs appear on each of those projects. The song's writers appear in the "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" music video. The video emerged in 1992 along side several other music videos from Ray in the VHS Comedy Video Classics. The inspiration behind the video album came from his concerts in Branson, Missouri. Whenever he performed certain songs he'd have a big video screen hanging overhead with comical scenes airing as he was singing. The audiences responded favorably to seeing these video sequences and so he decided to put out a VHS of music videos and sell them. 

The purchasing of music videos was not the norm...music videos were only seen as promotional items to entice consumers into purchasing the album containing the song being promoted in the music video. There was never a thought that fans would actually purchase a music video...but yet Ray proved the experts wrong. When no major record label expressed any interest in releasing the VHS to retail stores in 1992 Ray decided to sell them on television and the rest is history. The VHS became hugely successful and Ray released numerous VHS and later, DVD products, consistently over the next 5 years. He continued issuing music video DVDs into the 2000's through his website. Since the creation of video hosting websites on the internet, specifically YouTube, Ray puts out his video content on his YouTube channel...millions upon millions of people have seen his video uploads since the channel began in 2009. The screen shot for the video clip below has Ray acting out the part where Harv shouts that something's got a hold of him... 

Ray Stevens: The Buddy Kalb YouTube Channel...

Well, here I am, this is my third blog entry of the day! This time around I'm here to promote a new YouTube channel by Buddy Kalb, one of the songwriters, music video co-stars, and associates of Ray Stevens. As of this writing the channel has 16 subscribers. As most of you know it's rather easy to subscribe to a YouTube channel...simply click subscribe on the channel's home page. Some of the songs Buddy has written that Ray has recorded include: "The Dog Song", "I'll Be In Atlanta", "Red Hot Chili Cook-Off", "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" (Buddy and his wife, Carlene, wrote it), and "Let's Do It Right This Time"...just to name only five.

Ray and Buddy have written a lot of songs together, too. The first song of Buddy's that Ray recorded was "One and Only You" in 1976. Ray's recording can be found on the Warner Brothers album, Just For the Record, as well as the 1995 compilation, The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. Buddy penned "Frog Kissing" which was recorded as a vocal by Chet Atkins (with harmony vocals from Ray Stevens). Mel McDaniel recorded Buddy's song, "The Hustler", several years before Ray recorded it. Cristy Lane's 1980 album was named for Buddy's song, "Ask Me To Dance". Ray published the song but it wasn't released as a single. Jerry Reed had originally recorded Buddy's "Concrete Sailor" in the early 1980s...and Ray did a rendition of the song for his One for the Road CD in 2009. Ray's current YouTube video hit, "Quarantined", about COVID-19, is from the pen of Buddy Kalb.

When you visit Buddy's channel you'll see audio clips of songs that he wrote...many of which were recorded by Ray Stevens over the years. You'll also hear songs that Ray hasn't recorded...but may end up on some future Ray Stevens album perhaps. There's an audio clip of Buddy on a song called "M.D. The Monster Doctor"...I'm curious to hear what a song with that title sounds like. [I'm making my way to YouTube to take a listen...]

[I have returned!!] "M.D. The Monster Doctor" is a novelty in the classic sense of the word. It's issued as Big Buddy K on the Lowery label. When you listen to the song it sounds almost like Ray Stevens himself from that time period. The evil laugh is also memorable. The recording is from 1965. The song is about a wolfman and within the chorus of the song there's 'yeah, yeah, yeah' vocalizations in reference to The Beatles. You can find that audio clip and dozens more at Buddy Kalb's YouTube channel. You can visit it by clicking HERE. Once you're there don't forget to subscribe.

Here is an audio clip of Buddy singing "Melissa" in 2011 from a live songwriter's night...it had previously been recorded by Ray Stevens 30 years earlier in 1981 for his album, One More Last Chance...

Ray Stevens Specialty Items...

Hello all once more...this is one of those days where I'll be writing two blog entries about Ray Stevens in the same day...this first one is centering around some limited time items for sale focusing on two of Ray's recordings: "Shriner's Convention" and "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". The items are being sold through an online site HERE. The site is called Tee Spring which I'd never heard of before but the Ray Stevens items being offered for sale on this site are manufactured on demand and they're authorized by Ray and so this isn't some site offering bootleg, unauthorized items. I don't know how long Ray's association with this online company is going to be and so if any of you are interested in seeing the items and ultimately purchasing any of the products being offered for sale then visit the site in the above link. The type of items being sold for a limited time are T-shirts, a coffee mug, and posters. On the product page for clothing, for example, you'll have the opportunity to select the size (obviously!) as well as it's color and for the other items you'll get the chance to pick what color you prefer. The poster for "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", for example, can be purchased with a blue background (my choice!) or with a white or an orange background. The design of the posters mirror what appears on the T-shirts. There isn't a coffee mug for that song, though...only for "Shriner's Convention". As I'm sure a lot of you realize these are the kinds of unique items that will probably one day turn up for sale on other online sites and due to the unique nature of these authorized, yet obscure items, the sellers of these items will probably ask for a hefty price but my advice is take advantage of the reasonably priced items now before they're potentially offered for three or four times the amount elsewhere at some point in the future.

Happy Birthday to Ray Stevens...

Happy Birthday wishes go out to Ray Stevens! On this day Ray Stevens turns 75...a diamond celebration of sorts. Diamonds are a singer's best friend. Throughout the decades many of his songs and music videos have become diamonds in their own right. One of those gems is a 1974 single titled "Everybody Needs a Rainbow". It's a great sing-a-long and I love the entire performance. The song happened to be written by Layng Martine, Jr. but it became one of Ray's hits during the year of "The Streak". I have the song on a vinyl single and on CD but it's never actually been a part of any secular Ray Stevens project. It made an appearance on an early '90s gospel compilation from Ray titled A Brighter Day that he issued on his own label, Clyde Records. There are suppose to be several new CD projects from Ray emerging this year...one of them is a much-anticipated bluegrass project. Another release that's been talked about is a gospel project. The project's have working titles already: Melancholy Fescue and Onward Christian Soldiers. I mentioned that they're working titles but I think those are the official titles of each CD. In addition to those upcoming releases that I can't wait to hear there is also a musical/play in the beginning stages centering around Ray's 1984 song "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". There's a Facebook page about it and based on what I've read it sounds like local playhouse and theater owners that may be looking for brand new musicals can contact Buddy Kalb and his associates to finalize an adaptation of the official musical/revue. If there's a local playhouse or theater in your area and you'd love to see a musical adaptation of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" check out the Facebook page. You can read all about it HERE. Credited songwriters for that particular single are Buddy Kalb and Carlene Kalb. Once at the site you'll see a piece of the production. Buddy takes center stage in the video. You'll no doubt recognize Buddy from any number of Ray's music videos. Buddy played Harv Newland in the 1992 official music video of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival".

Ray Stevens and the eBay Songbooks...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens...yesterday there happened to be an announcement of five song books being put up for sale by Ray's company on eBay. The books focus on just one song per copy but the allure of the items happen to be his signature and the fact that the books have his image on the cover. As mentioned there are five of these: 1968's "Mr. Businessman", 1969's "Gitarzan", 1970's "Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues", "Everything Is Beautiful", and 1984's "Mississippi Squirrel Revival".

The original asking price for each of the five books was $10.00 but once word got out on social media sites there have been multiple bids on several of the items and the selling price has accordingly gone up. I think most of it is due to having Ray's signature on each item but there's also the nostalgic factor and the images of Ray that appear on each book. The "Everything Is Beautiful" sheet music now has a price of $26.00 and 3 bids. The most popular item is the sheet music for one of his most enduring comical songs, 1984's "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". Even today the fans and the general public alike cite lyrics and catch-phrases from the song as evidenced in posts from social media sites. That particular sheet music book has the most bids so far with 11 and a price of $76.00!! 

At the moment there are 6 bids for "Mr. Businessman" and as a result the current price is $40.00. The prices, I assume, are going to continue to go up considering there's 6 days left to place a bid. Ray started an eBay page in the summer and I vaguely remember hearing about it at the time but it turned out to be something that wasn't publicized that much but these 5 song books are the first items he's offered for sale and you can see them HERE.

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 48...

We're here once again celebrating the career and music of Ray Stevens! I finished listening to the special about Ray Stevens that was aired on the KSAV internet radio program, Dave White Presents. In a previous blog entry I embedded the link to the program's podcast page. If visitors stop by the previous blog entry before this one and click the link I provided they'll more than likely have to search the show's podcast list for the entry that's marked February 11, 2013. For those reading this blog entry you can click this Mp3 Link. The interview is conducted by Wes Britton, one who I found out is the program's co-host. Dave White opens up the program speaking about what the show will be about. He plays 2011's "Obama Budget Plan" and then plays a couple of songs that Britton asks Ray about in the upcoming interview, 1960's "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon" and 1961's "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills".

The interview, as you'll hear, kicks off with "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". The interview covers a gamut of topics and one that sticks out, simply because it's something rarely discussed in previous interviews with Ray Stevens, is the inner workings of music and the overall construction of music and it's connection with people. Ray speaks of his affiliation with manager Don Williams, the brother of Andy Williams, and briefly speaks of the summer 1970 television show. A few minutes is spent speaking about music formats, labeling and the ultimate typecasting of artists, and the by-gone era of what's often referred to as Top-40 radio where all music formats were played on the same radio station.

Britton asks about "The Streak" and Ray explains the inspiration of the song and then music videos are brought into the discussion but ironically there wasn't any reference made to his You Tube channel or the millions of views that his videos have obtained over the last several years. One of the last things spoke about is the Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music and the inspiration behind it and the consistent charge that novelty songs are long forgotten after their initial splash onto the marketplace. Britton closed the interview playing "Mr. Businessman".

Afterward, White was heard giving his opinions of Ray's style of humor and he actually played a song that I didn't think anybody but dedicated fans were aware of and yet he played it. It's not anything super obscure from the '50s or '60s. It's an album track from one of his MCA comedy albums in the late 1980's that I'm sure a good portion of fans are very familiar with if they happen to have a copy of the album it appeared on. It's one of the funniest songs on that particular release.

I've not gone into any great detail about the interview or relayed how Ray replied to each of the questions because I want you all to hear for yourselves when you click the link in the opening paragraph. I had originally assumed that the entire 90 minute program would feature nothing but Ray Stevens music with an interview sandwiched in between. The show's preview does indicate that another topic during the episode would be slot machines but I was assuming that this topic would've been shorter, in comparison to Ray's segment, but it appears that each topic, Ray Stevens and slot machines, were evenly divided.

Another million success for Ray Stevens...

Good Monday morning all Ray Stevens fans!! Over the weekend Ray Stevens was treated to another million...the music video, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", passed the million view mark on You Tube. The video, originally released in 1992 as part of Comedy Video Classics, was uploaded onto You Tube in July 2009. The unique views of the Mississippi Squirrel music video are 1,012,858 which of course enables it to become the third music video of Ray's to achieve at least 1,000,000 unique views. The first video to surpass a million views for Ray was "We The People"...and the second video to do so was "Come to the USA"...ironically, the third to achieve this accomplishment is one of the classics in his career...

"The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" came along in Ray's career in 1984 and was part of his debut MCA album that year, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens.

"Come to the USA" continues to be enormous on-line. Several weeks ago I commented on the video surpassing 5,000,000 views and now it's close to 5.1 million. The specific total of unique views to date is 5,089,164. By comparison, "We The People" has 4,311,711 unique views to date. Doing the math that's a difference of 777,453. That means over 700,000 more people have seen the illegal immigration music video, "Come to the USA". There's also an underlying belief that the video's tapped into an audience that up until 2010 had never knew of Ray Stevens before...and for a lot of people this video was their introduction to him. "We The People" can be applied with the same scenario...a lot of people who either never knew of Ray Stevens or weren't aware that he was still making music took notice when the "We The People" music video hit late in 2009.

Since then Ray's been a fixture at political fundraisers and other political events; appearing on politically-driven talk radio programs and television programs as well. When Ray returned to Branson, Missouri for a series of concerts in 2010 at the Welk Theater he did so with a political and patriotic theme. He still performs his signature hits and other notable songs while in concert but he often remarked in interviews that he felt the big reason why there seemed to be an increase of demand for personal appearances was because of the political music videos and he pointed out "We The People" and the other on-line music videos he released as evidence. In other words, with the videos getting such a strong positive reaction it was obvious that he'd have to perform them in concert for the people.

2011 appears to be shaping up to be another whirlwind year...already this year Ray took part in a radio call-in tour, appeared at C-PAC, and appeared on several programs to promote his TSA music video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". A lot of this activity took place during much of late January through early March. A music video of the song became another on-line hit. As soon as Ray releases a new music video I'll embed it here on my blog page of course!

Ray Stevens on Larry's Country Diner

Howdy there all you fans of Ray Stevens! Well, I didn't have any advanced warning to promote an upcoming Ray Stevens appearance because I found out about it at the last minute. Ray appeared on the RFD-TV program, Larry's Country Diner, a program hosted by Larry Black. It's set inside a diner and it has a reality feel to it. Throughout an episode people walk around and cut in front of the camera, etc etc. It has an intimate feeling at the same time. Keith Bilbrey is the show's announcer and he remains on-camera throughout. A regular character is a woman named Nadine. Her appearances and interactions made the scene come off like a Hee-Haw sketch.

On Thursday's episode with Ray Stevens, the first episode of Season Two, it featured a couple of long-time friends and associates of Ray's who were seated at the same table in the diner. The two men were songwriter/record producer Norro Wilson and Ray's long-time songwriting and business partner, Buddy Kalb. The three of them sat at a table eating and conversing back and fourth with Larry and Keith for much of the show's first 3 or 4 minutes. Larry did a short interview with Buddy and Norro prior to turning the focus on Ray. Larry mentioned that he loved the song about the Squirrel going berserk in the church and for laughs he praised Buddy for using the town 'Spartanburg' in the song. Buddy said it was 'Pascagoula' and Ray quickly shot back that Buddy used the name of the town because it was the only thing that rhymed with 'hallelujah!' and everyone laughed.

After this segment, Ray sings "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at the keyboard. Larry and Ray talk about "Sgt. Preston the Yukon" and Ray talks about the story behind that song. Elsewhere in the episode Larry plays a vintage clip of Minnie Pearl and Rod Brasfield. Ray remarks that he once produced a recording on Minnie but the record label was too afraid to release it. The recording was of Minnie singing "Tutti Frutti". Ray performs the song, "Safe at Home". Elsewhere, Larry recites the opening verse of "Mr. Businessman" and Ray talks a little bit about the song and how it took him an hour to write it because the lyrics came flowing out of him real quick. He doesn't perform the song, though. Throughout the episode Larry often named off his favorite Ray Stevens songs. Ray told the story about "Misty" and Larry mentioned that it won an award. Ray specifies that it won a Grammy for Best Arrangement. The regular character, Nadine, becomes a factor in the episode and she gushes over Ray and gets a hug out of him as well. She mentions "We The People". He mentions O'Reilly's program and mentions that the music video is usually what gets played in bits and pieces on talk-shows that he's appeared on. He apologized at the start of the song in case he messes up the lyrics since he'd never sang it live before. He sang the opening verse and the chorus.

He remarked that he'd be appearing at a Tea Party later in Nashville in which he'd be singing the song in it's entirety and he thanked Larry for allowing him to use the opportunity to rehearse part of the song prior to the National Tea Party convention. The convention took place during the first weekend in February and so this episode had to have been taped at some point in late January because on the 15th of January that's when Ray appeared on The O'Reilly Factor. Larry brought up Get Serious, the direct-to-video movie that Ray starred in. Larry played the part of Virgil Dooright in the music video, "The Dooright Family". Larry asked Ray to sing "Turn Your Radio On". Ray and Larry discuss Ray's web-page and they talk about the backstage portion, simply called RayStevensBackstage.

All in all it was a wonderful appearance and I loved that Ray was featured off and on throughout the entire hour. If you all want to know more about Larry's show you can check out his web-site or his Facebook page. Search: Larry's Country Diner on the internet and you're bound to find the web-page.

Ray performed the following songs:

1. Mississippi Squirrel Revival
2. Safe at Home
3. We The People {partial performance}
4. Turn Your Radio On

If I'm not mistaken this episode will repeat Saturday night, March 6th, at 11pm Eastern time on RFD-TV.