Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville Performance: "All The Way"

Hello once again Ray Stevens fans!! Several days ago Ray's performance of "Strangers in the Night" was uploaded to YouTube. The song, originally by Frank Sinatra, is part of Ray's Sinatra salute album from 2008, Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?. The album's comical title is a reference to Ray's image with the general public...a public that continually thinks of him as a singer of comedy/novelty songs and nothing else. Originally released on Ray's Clyde Records label Curb Records distributed the album the following year. As you can see, Ray is dressed in the pop crooner attire typical for the time period of most of these Sinatra songs. In fact, I believe it was Sinatra that started the pop culture trend of wearing a Fedora but, of course, that's just an assumption. As I've mentioned in many former blog entries when discussion centers around this album I like to point out the clothing and the art design. It features a duplication of Ray's signature. The microphone hanging down from a ceiling also adds to the atmosphere. Ray could've easily did half a dozen or so album cover concepts but this is the one he chose. In this performance from Ray's CabaRay Nashville television series you'll be treated to his rendition of "All the Way". Ray uploaded this performance last year on his Facebook page but it hadn't been on YouTube until now. If you follow Ray on social media, as I do, you'll notice that some videos are uploaded on YouTube and then months later they show up on Facebook...or the reverse happens. Also, other social media platforms eventually receive Ray's video uploads, too. My guess is there's research showing that some of Ray's fans virtually congregate at specific social media platforms and, therefore, may not be aware of a video upload if they only visit one or two platforms regularly. Like practically everything in life people have their preferred TV stations, radio stations, types of clothes, types of music, car manufacture or make, favorite food and beverages, and this extends to social media platforms, too. As far as audio content most people prefer Spotify...but yet there's Itunes, Facebook, and YouTube as well. The same holds true for video content, too. So, then, here's the YouTube upload of Ray's rendition of "All the Way"...you'll love it...

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville Performance: "Strangers in the Night"

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! Have you seen the most recent YouTube upload of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville? I'll be writing a blog entry about that episode when I get home from work later tonight but for now I'm writing about a performance of "Strangers in the Night" at the CabaRay showroom by Ray Stevens. Ray recorded a salute to the songs of Frank Sinatra and titled it Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?. It was released on Ray's own Clyde Records in 2008 and then it was distributed later by Curb Records. The CD contains numerous Sinatra standards and several songs that other pop artists popularized but just happened to have also been recorded by Sinatra in his career. One of those songs is "Young at Heart". That song was recorded by dozens of pop artists...I first heard of it through a Bing Crosby recording and I also know Jimmy Durante sang it, too. I was not aware of it's connection to Frank Sinatra until this CD came along and I did some research on the song itself. 

Ray also recorded "All The Way", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "High Hopes", "That's Life", "Witchcraft", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Night and Day", "The Tender Trap"...and, as mentioned, "Strangers in the Night". It's a 10 track album. Some may wonder why Ray didn't also do renditions of "New York, New York", "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)", "A Very Good Year", "My Way", or "Love and Marriage". I wondered the same thing myself back when the CD was released and my guess then, as now, is those particular songs are just too well established (music arrangements) in the general public's mind that it would appear nearly impossible to change the presentation of those particular songs. "New York, New York" has that world famous intro that it's impossible to hear the song without that kick off...the same holds true for the intro to "Love and Marriage". I assume Ray could've come up with different instrumentation for that song if he would've chosen to to a rendition of it but it's tied to the sitcom, Married...With Children, so much now that to change the arrangement would more or less baffle some people who probably think Sinatra recorded the song specifically for that sitcom. But here's the legendary Ray Stevens singing "Strangers in the Night"...if you don't have the Sinatra salute CD you can look it up on YouTube or online music sites.   

Ray Stevens: Slow Dance unique Play Totals...

Well, well, it's me once again!! In my previous blog entry I included the YouTube play totals, as of today, of Ray's Great Country Ballads digital album. I embedded Ray's recording of "Sweet Dreams" because it was the lowest played audio track in the thousand play range. It was sitting with 1,146 plays. "City Lights", at 1,198 plays, as you can see only needs two unique plays to reach the nice, rounded number 1,200. I made the remark in my last blog entry that Great Country Ballads is the digital album with the most audio tracks (8) at 1,000 plays or more. I'm going to make a slight correction...this accomplishment is tied with Slow Dance, the digital album released back in April. In fact, Slow Dance has a chance of moving ahead and claiming the most audio tracks with 1,000 plays or more considering "Answer Me", as of this writing, is sitting with 980 YouTube plays. If it reaches 1,000 plays then, of course, Slow Dance will take the lead. 

Ray's updated rendition of "Answer Me" from Slow Dance has gotten 980 YouTube plays. Interestingly the 1967 recording from Ray, known as "Answer Me, My Love", sits just under 800 YouTube plays...with 799. Now, isn't that some sort of neat or what?? 😮   

It's worth pointing out that Slow Dance has made the most appearances on the Amazon Best Selling New Releases Top-100 list. If you search New Releases + Digital Music + Country and look over the Top-100 you'll find Slow Dance there, as of this writing, at number 55. Although the digital album's been out since April and no longer a "new release" I'm not complaining...it's fun seeing Ray Stevens among the Top-100. The letter, K, refers to plays in the thousands. An audio track at 1.4 means that the play count is somewhere between 1,400 and 1,499.

1. Only You and You Alone  (9.3K audio plays)

2. Unforgettable  (3.6K audio plays)

3. Make Believe / It's Only Make Believe  (3.4K audio plays)

4. Slow Dancing  (2.7K audio plays)

5. The Great Pretender  (1.8K audio plays)

6. Dream  (1.6K audio plays)

7. I'll See You in My Dreams  (1.4K audio plays)

8. What a Wonderful World  (1.2K audio plays)

9. Answer Me  (980 audio plays)

10. Stardust  (927 audio plays)

11. This is All I Ask  (695 audio plays)

12. As Usual  (642 audio plays)

Ray Stevens audio: "Deep Purple"...

The subject of cover songs has become something synonymous this year for Ray Stevens. The release of four digital albums this year showcases Ray Stevens doing his renditions of a wide variety of songs from the pop and country formats. Great Country Ballads (released in February), Melancholy Fescue (released in March), Slow Dance (released in April), and Nouveau Retro (released in May) showcase some of the most iconic songs of the 20th century. In fact, there will be a forthcoming box set called Iconic Songs of the 20th Century...it will feature CD copies of the four digital albums. That box set is suppose to be released, as far as I know, on July 23rd...so we're a little less than 2 weeks away from it's release. On the Nouveau Retro digital album there's an updated rendition of "Young Love" which Ray previously recorded in 1975 on his Misty album. When the song was released as a single late in 1975 the B-side happened to be "Deep Purple". 

The "Young Love" single was a slightly bigger chart hit than historians would have you believe. Almost all historians cite the Billboard Hot 100 (pop chart) performance. They ignore it's appearance on country music-oriented singles charts. It charted pop and country for Ray Stevens beginning in January 1976. It made the Top-50 on Billboard's country single chart early in 1976 in both America and Canada and it reached the Top-40 on Cashbox's Top-100 country single chart in late February 1976. It was charted in Cashbox for 8 weeks. 

I've always loved Ray's take on "Deep Purple". The song originated in the Tin Pan Alley years...the music was written by Peter DeRose in 1933. Lyrics for the song came along from Mitchell Parish in 1938. The song is traditionally performed in a big-band style with a crooning vocalist. Ray transformed the song into a rollicking sing-a-long with a bluegrass flavor...as a tie in to the title track of his 1975 Misty album. Two songs from that album, "Young Love" and "Indian Love Call", were updated by Ray and placed on the Nouveau Retro digital album this year. I would've loved to have heard an updated rendition of "Deep Purple" as well...but here's the 1975 recording of the song...a fabulous performance. I personally love hearing the booming, upfront music...those steel guitar and fiddle solos...the entire production is fabulous.  

Ray Stevens sings "No, Not Much"...

Among the 12 songs found on the Ray Stevens Nouveau Retro album is "No, Not Much". This pop song, published in 1955, sold millions of copies for The Four Lads throughout 1956. It was a time when pop crooners were still finding space on the Hot 100 along side the brand new format, rock and roll. In a recent interview Ray remarked that one of the various reasons he decided to do these four digital albums is because he felt, with the passage of time, that a lot of contemporary recording artists and record companies over the years have had little interest in preserving the iconic recordings of the past...and by that it's perhaps taken to mean that there's not a whole lot of recording artists or record company executives willing or wanting to keep those songs alive and introduce them to current consumers. 

In my way of thinking Ray felt a call to rectify this and so he began recording, and recording, and recording...until he'd recorded at least four albums worth of songs. Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, Slow Dance, and Nouveau Retro are the end result...four digital albums filled mostly with songs that were rescued from the brink of prolonged obscurity. But wait...these songs aren't all that obscure...each of them had some sort of impact or commercial success in their initial time period. The songs shouldn't be that obscure if you're knowledgeable in recorded music history, either. "No, Not Much" is a clever song...it builds on irony. The lyrics tell of a man who tries to convince himself the opposite of how he truly feels but then openly wonders if he's believing all he's telling himself... "No, Not Much" he replies. 

Ray Stevens: "Slow Dance" returns to the Amazon Top-100...

Well, how in the world is everyone doing on this July 6th?? It's officially the start of a brand new week after an extended Fourth of July which stretched into Monday due to the 4th falling on a Sunday this year. I wrote numerous blog entries over the extended holiday and for my first blog entry post-July 4th I'm bringing news of Slow Dance making a return to the Amazon Top-100 Country New Releases list. This marks the second time that Slow Dance has returned to the Country Top-100 on Amazon since it's original appearances back in April. The highest position it achieved on the New Releases list when the digital album was brand new happened to be within the Top-20 at 18. Slow Dance returned to the Top-100 exactly one month ago at number 33...today it's sitting at 36. I didn't write a blog entry about it making a return to the Top-100 back on June 6th because I was in the middle of writing blog entries about a novelty song that Ray released on June 4th...and I felt writing a blog entry about a digital album of his serious recordings would clash with, and break-up, the comical mood that my recent string of writings surrounding his comedy song had established. 

The Amazon lists are updated every hour and so by the time this blog is published and available it may rank higher or lower than where it currently is...but as of this writing it's at 36. The songs on Slow Dance are pop standards done with brand new arrangements by Ray Stevens. This album and the other three in the covers series (Great Country Ballads, Melancholy Fescue, and Nouveau Retro) are much of a music arranger's delight as they are perhaps a recording artist's delight. On Slow Dance we hear 12 songs brought back and arranged completely different. Some of the songs Ray recorded for this album are "Stardust", "Unforgettable", "Slow Dancing", and "Only You and You Alone". Yesterday on Ray's social media "Only You and You Alone" made an appearance in a Facebook post promoting Slow Dance. I don't know if the publicity of that one Facebook post caused Slow Dance to make this return to Amazon's Top-100 or not...I just know it returned and I decided to compose a blog entry about it. Here's the Ray Stevens rendition of "Slow Dancing"...

Ray Stevens: July 23rd Box Set Release...

It's me once again!! Blogger's fixed the image problem from the other day. In my last couple of blog entries I was unable to post images...I could still post video clips but whenever I'd go to post an image I'd get an error message. I'm glad that the image feature has returned!! That's an image of the Country Music Hall of Fame plaque unveiled in 2019 when Ray was elected. If you're familiar with the official webpage of Ray Stevens or you visit the contact area of Ray's social media you'll probably be familiar with his newsletter. Anyone that signs up to receive their newsletter typically gets e-mail alerts about the latest happenings in Ray's career. Yes, even in the day of the internet, they realize that not all fans have the time to do internet searches, etc. and so they offer a free newsletter re-cap. All anyone has to do is sign up for it. I received their latest newsletter in my e-mail inbox today...the box set I've been mentioning since February, Iconic Songs of the 20th Century, is being pushed back to July 23rd. The original release date was scheduled for June 21st. The newsletter states that the box set will be an exclusive to the gift shop at the CabaRay and it'll also be available at Ray's web-store. The newsletter contained a photo of the upcoming box set and I'll be posting an image of it in a future blog entry. This blog entry is more or less being composed to highlight the change in release date for the Iconic Songs of the 20th Century box set. The four digital albums that Ray has released will be issued in CD format for that box set. A lot of fans want CD copies of the music. 

The newsletter also revealed some upcoming secondary releases...which includes a brand new comedy song soon to be released digitally and a brand new comedy album this fall. This bit of news may be of relief to those wondering if Ray had decided to by-pass comedy entirely in favor of recording and arranging classic country and pop songs. When Ray decides to release this information from the newsletter about the brand new song and the upcoming comedy album to the general public through his social media then I'll write a blog about it. 

Ray Stevens: Nouveau Retro is Right Around the Corner...

Can you feel the excitement building as well?? Only one day left until Nouveau Retro is upon us on May 21st. If you follow Ray on his social media accounts, as I'm sure most of you do, then you're aware of the audio snippet he released yesterday on his Facebook page. The audio snippet is of "April in Paris". The brief audio leaves you wanting to hear the entire recording. The song's been recorded by many recording artists over the decades. Count Basie, for example, issued an instrumental version. Doris Day recorded a ballad version while Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong did jazz/upbeat renditions. Ray, based on the audio snippet, keeps a mellow feel, instrumentally, but his vocalization is mid-tempo by comparison. It's hard to tell if the entire performance will sound like that or if this is just part of something larger...something like starting a song out like a ballad and then mid-way through accelerating the tempo. This is why I'm anxious not only to hear "April in Paris" in it's entirety but I'm also anxious to hear the rest of the album, too. Is it May 21st yet? Well, in 12 hours from now it'll be Midnight...so we got half a day left until Nouveau Retro! Ray put up a promotional banner on his Facebook page and I'm closing this blog entry with that banner...this is just a banner...it isn't a link to another webpage. Once the digital album is released I'll be pasting a link to it in a future blog entry.

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Stardust"...

Hello all the fans of Ray Stevens!! Some of you no doubt have purchased Slow Dance or have listened to the audio clips on YouTube. I'm embedding Ray's rendition of "Stardust" in this blog entry. In some of my previous blog entries I wrote about the history of "Stardust" and mentioned the music was composed by Hoagy Carmichael in 1927. Lyrics for the song came from Mitchell Parish a couple of years later. I'm sure some of you have heard bits and pieces of "Stardust" all your lives...the melody is very familiar so I'm certain once you hear it you'll say to yourselves 'oh, that's Stardust!!!'. As I remarked in my review of Slow Dance this is one of the songs that Ray lets loose with a high note and it'll arrive when you're not expecting it, perhaps. Ray puts everything into this song and to all of the songs on this digital album.    

Slow Dance, at this hour, is still among the Top-100 digital albums on the Country New Releases list over on Amazon. Great Country Ballads also remains in the same Top-100 as Slow Dance. I'll be sharing more audio clips as the days go by. I, along with the rest of you, don't know if Ray will be doing anymore interviews...he could hold off on doing them until June when the CD box set is released but then again he could participate in an interview next week and we'll all love to hear what he has to say. Some of the interviews that I recently shared in my blog entries were mostly about his digital album released last month, Melancholy Fescue.   

Ray Stevens: Two Days until "Slow Dance"...

As mentioned in my April 15th blog entry, Slow Dance is fast approaching. Now we're just two days until the release of the digital album. This is the third of four new digital albums Ray's been releasing this year and like the previous two this one includes 12 songs. The first release concentrated on country music songs, the second release concentrated mostly on pop/rock and roll songs re-arranged in a bluegrass delivery, this third release will concentrate on pop music standards...and based on a brief audio clip of "Unforgettable" the music arrangement was different but the tempo remained the same...but that's based only on a brief audio clip posted on his Facebook page. The photos of Ray on the previous two releases originated in his CabaRay showroom. The photo that appears on the Slow Dance release resembles the kind of dance that closes out each episode of his CabaRay Nashville television show. It may have been taken during the recording of an episode...with her back to the camera it's hard to tell who it is...it may be the show's syndicator or someone within the show's production staff. The reason the television show closes with Ray dancing with a member of the audience, if I recall correctly, is in reference to his years in high school performing at sock hops and other dances. The concerts would always end with a slow dance and I think that's why he incorporated a slow dance at the end of each episode of his television show...as a way of bringing each episode to a close. Ray often remarked that he and the band would end their high school concerts with the song "Goodnight Sweetheart" during the slow dance. That particular song isn't on this 12 song collection, though. However, these are...

1. Only You and You Alone

2. Unforgettable

3. Make Believe / It's Only Make Believe

4. The Great Pretender

5. I'll See You in My Dreams

6. Slow Dancing

7. Answer Me

8. Stardust

9. As Usual

10. Dream

11. This Is All I Ask

12. What a Wonderful World

In a previous blog entry I wondered if "Answer Me" is the same song as "Answer Me, My Love" or if it'll be an entirely different song. Ray recorded a song called "Answer Me, My Love" in 1967 and it remained as a single-only until the mid 1990s when it appeared on a CD release from Varese Sarabande. I'm almost certain that "Answer Me" on this upcoming digital album will be the same song Ray recorded back then...but modernized. I'm anxious to hear how he'll sing "It's Only Make Believe" which will be part of a medley, Track 3 on the album. I'm also curious if he'll attempt a Louis Armstrong impression for "What a Wonderful World" or if he'll sing it in his own voice. It'll be around this time two days from now I'll more than likely be listening to Slow Dance in my online music library. 

Ray Stevens sings "Witchcraft"...

Hello all...it's me once again!! Naturally I'm going to begin this blog entry wondering about the CabaRay re-opening last night. I hadn't seen anything on social media sites from last night...but I'll do some more in-depth looking around later. Ray Stevens released a salute to Frank Sinatra CD back in 2008 called Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?. It was released through his own label, Clyde Records, originally in June 2008 and was only available through his webstore. In February 2009 it was distributed to other on-line music stores. It was later picked up by Curb Records and released both as a CD and as an Mp3. In fact, if you search Amazon for the album and read the product details, it has both the CD and Mp3 credited to Curb Records. I have a review of the CD on Amazon. My review contains two photos of myself showing off the CD. Now, in addition to "High Hopes", "All the Way", "Strangers in the Night", and "I Get a Kick Out of You" Ray also recorded "Witchcraft" for the CD and in this video clip from his television series, Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville, you'll see him performing the song. In the beginning of the clip he mentions the CD that contains the song. 

Ray Stevens sings "My Melancholy Baby"...

If you're a longtime fan of Ray Stevens, as I have been, you're very familiar with his catalog of music. He's been recording since 1957 and releasing albums since 1962...and along the way not only has he recorded hundreds of novelty songs he also recorded just as many ballads. His pop standards album from 1975, Misty, featured Ray's renditions of pop songs of the past with new arrangements from Ray but "My Melancholy Baby" wasn't among them. It was his last studio album for Barnaby Records. "Misty", "Indian Love Call", and "Young Love" were issued as single releases.

In early 1976 "Mockingbird Hill" was issued as a single...but it competed with another single from Ray, "You Are So Beautiful", his debut single for Warner Brothers. Now, of course, the single Barnaby Records issued early in 1976 didn't get much promotion/publicity but "You Are So Beautiful" ended up hitting the Country Top-20 for Ray.

Yesterday on Ray's social media pages a performance by him from his summer 1970 television show emerged. "My Melancholy Baby" originated in 1912 and eventually became a pop music standard recorded either as an instrumental or a vocal. Some of the legendary names affiliated with the recording are Harry James, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Connie Francis, and Tommy Edwards. When Ray performed the song in 1970, if you do the math, it was 58 years old at the time...and if you do additional math you'll discover the song is 108 years old this year!  

Ray Stevens sings "All The Way"...

Hello all...a steamy Saturday afternoon here...several downpours are on the way. As a lot of you long time fans of Ray Stevens may happen to know he recorded a CD titled Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!? in 2008. The CD was released through his own label, Clyde, and originally was only sold through his website. A year later it was released to on-line stores.

Me and Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra CD..

The CD is available at Amazon and on Ray's website inside the store. The Amazon site offers the CD and the Mp3...both issued by Curb Records in 2011. Ray's web store offers the original 2008/2009 Clyde Records pressing, which is what I own. There is nothing different between the 2008 pressing and the 2011 pressing other than the recording label credit showing either Clyde Records or Curb Records. You can purchase the Ray Stevens sings Sinatra...Say What?!? CD by clicking HERE. Everything is 20 percent off through the end of this month at Ray's store...so if you're reading this and we're still in the month of June take advantage of the sale. I don't know if the sale is going to be extended through the month of July or not. "All The Way" is one of the songs found on this CD. It's track four of the ten track collection. Ray has performed several songs from this CD on his locally syndicated PBS series, CabaRay Nashville. He performed "That's Life", "Witchcraft", and "Strangers in the Night". When Ray released this 2008 CD there really wasn't any outlet outside of his website to promote his music. Ray hadn't discovered the potential of YouTube, yet, and so this was among a series of CD releases from Ray in the mid to late 2000s that were only familiar to the Ray Stevens fan base. Once he hit YouTube and made a presence for himself on the video hosting site he began promoting older releases. Since then he's balanced his presence on social media with a mixture of all new content and older works that originally slipped by without much publicity/hype...and as a result a lot of people discovered a whole lot of Ray Stevens content they otherwise wouldn't have known existed if not for YouTube. His official YouTube channel went on-line on July 13, 2009...and as of this writing all of his video uploads have received a combined unique view total of 119,514,841!! Yeah, yeah...someone out there will probably not be impressed and go "so what?" but that kind of attitude isn't welcome on this fan created Ray Stevens blog page.

Ray Stevens: The Ralph Emery Show Interviews, June 1975...

Hello all!! Earlier today the remaining episodes of the Ralph Emery Show from June 1975 featuring Ray Stevens were uploaded onto YouTube. In a couple of previous blog entries I mentioned that once all the episodes make it on-line I'd put together a blog entry containing all five episodes.

June 23, 1975

June 24, 1975

June 25, 1975

June 26, 1975

June 27, 1975

I've listened to the June 25th episode and as soon as I publish this post I'll be listening to the June 26th and June 27th episodes. In the June 25th episode Ray speaks about the Misty album and throughout the hour Ralph plays Ray's recordings of "Young Love", "Indian Love Call", and "Lady of Spain". The first song of the hour is Donna Fargo's recording, "Hello Little Bluebird". Ralph mentions that the song was recorded at Ray's studio. Ralph and Ray get into a comical argument regarding the year Sonny James recorded "Young Love". Ralph says it's 1955 and Ray says 1957. The answer is in the middle...the song originated in 1956 and was first recorded by one of it's writers, Ric Cartey. Sonny James recorded his version in the latter half of 1956 and it became a hit in 1957 followed by the Tab Hunter version. Throughout the hour show from June 25th you'll hear recordings by the likes of Charley Pride, Connie Smith, Billy Walker, Johnny Carver, and even an instrumental by Sonny James. The final song of the June 25th episode is Ray's version of "Lady of Spain". Ray mentions the instrumentation used for the recording and how he excitedly hollers out the name of the saxophone player, Norman Ray, in the recording...

International single release, 1975

Ray Stevens sings "That's Life"...

Hello all...it's hard to believe that one year ago, well, a year ago yesterday (March 1st) my brother and I were in Nashville, Tennessee at the Ray Stevens CabaRay dinner theater. I have a week off later this month from work but I don't know if I'll return to Nashville later this month or wait until sometime in the summer. I get two weeks off each year but the company I work for doesn't allow employees to take both weeks consecutively...so I'll more than likely plan a visit to the CabaRay during my next vacation...but then again the last week of this month is when I've put in for my vacation so who knows...perhaps I may be able to squeeze in a trip to the CabaRay during the last Friday or Saturday of March...but plans such as those are up in the air. As of this writing, however, I'm leaning toward a CabaRay visit during my second vacation week in the summer. The upcoming series of concerts are set to get underway on March 14th and those weekend concerts (Thursday through Saturday and some months Friday and Saturday) will run throughout the year. I'm hoping some new episodes of his CabaRay Nashville television series will go into production this calendar year as well. I say that because of the fact that the series has returned to the RFD-TV airwaves (in addition to it's locally syndicated PBS airings) and eventually new episodes will be in demand. I'm sure new episodes will surface to meet that demand, though. As of this writing there have been 78 half hour episodes produced of the CabaRay Nashville series.

A performance from Ray at the CabaRay was uploaded onto YouTube recently. In the video clip he's performing "That's Life", one of Frank Sinatra's classic hits. Ray had recorded his version on Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?, a collection released in the summer of 2008 through his own Clyde Records label and as a result it was exclusively available on Ray's on-line store for nearly a year. In February of 2009 the CD saw wider distribution as it became available on Amazon and other on-line stores via Curb Records. The CD/Mp3 would eventually get re-issued by Curb Records in the fall of 2011.

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series, Part Twelve...

Studio album 12 in the career of Ray Stevens arrived in 1975 in the form of Misty. The LP contains 11 songs with 9 of them covers of mostly pop standards dating back well before 1955...with a few latter day pop songs thrown into the equation. The LP spawned four single releases...three of those releases became chart hits.

As mentioned, issued in 1975, "Misty" was the first single release. The single displayed Ray's arranging talents as he changed the slow, love ballad associated with Johnny Mathis into an uptempo, Bluegrass-infected arrangement. The main instrumentation on "Misty" was the banjo, fiddle, and the steel guitar accompanied by the piano and other instruments but by and large the banjo and steel guitar were the most prominent. The single features a lengthy, famous steel guitar solo in the middle of the song. The piano makes it's way into the solo but it's the steel guitar that dominates. As a single, "Misty" would reach the Top-5 on the Country chart and the Top-20 on the Hot 100. It's success was soon followed with the Misty album...which features a rather peculiar photo shoot of Ray decked out in a flashy white suit with a dark backdrop. I've often remarked that it looks as if he's taking in the applause from some concert or television appearance. I wish I knew the story behind this unique cover shot but I don't. There are two original songs on here to break up the flow of cover songs. "Sunshine", written by Ray and arranged in a Bluegrass flavor, is a catchy love song. Layng Martine supplies "Take Care of Business", a love ballad with heavy emphasis on love...it's one of the few songs in Ray's long career that you could describe as sultry or 'hot'. The title was probably inspired by a recurring line in Ray's 1968 hit "Mr. Businessman". Elsewhere on the album we have covers a plenty...one of the greatest is his take on "Deep Purple" which, near the end, features one of the highest notes he's ever delivered.

High notes and desire flood his version of "Indian Love Call" where instead of giving it an uptempo feeling, associated with Slim Whitman, he slows the delivery way down and turns it into a drawn out love ballad complete with doo-wop background vocals. He took his version to the Country Top-40 in the middle of 1975 and it reached the Top-70 on the Hot 100. If you order one of the DVD volumes of Pop! Goes the Country that I've written about in a few blog entries you'll be able to see Ray perform the song from the time period it was a hit. Ralph Emery, the show's host, comments that the song had been a hit for Slim Whitman as well as Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald but it had never been performed quite like the way Ray Stevens does it. The single became a fixture on several compilation albums through the latter half of the '70s and into the early '80s but then it became obscure. The thing that I've often found annoying by that practice is it prevents successive audiences of hearing certain songs from his career that were actual chart hits and with reduced availability the song(s) become less and less familiar...even though the familiarity should never go away within an artist's fan base. A Ray Stevens audience in 1989, for example, should have been as familiar with his current recordings as his older recordings. A fan of Ray's in 2012 should have some sort of basic knowledge about where Ray came from as well as his music path and various other things pertaining to him. Songs he recorded in 1975, for example, are as familiar to me as songs he did in 1968 or 1988 or 1973 or 1993 or 2002, etc., etc. However, this all-encompassing point of view obviously isn't shared with many record companies and so a lot of compilation albums released on Ray Stevens seemed to cater to specific time frames and it's perhaps decided that someone in 2012 may not care to hear something Ray recorded in 1970 or 1983 or 1991. "Indian Love Call" made a re-appearance in an early '90s compilation release and it appeared on later Mp3 digital releases but it's definitely one of those hit songs from Ray that's obscure now.

"Young Love", originally a huge hit for Sonny James and later, Tab Hunter, received the Ray Stevens treatment for the Misty album. "Young Love" became the third single release from the album in the latter half of 1975. Ray's version reached the Country Top-50 and on the Hot 100 pop chart it managed to crawl up several spaces where it peaked...one of his lowest charting Hot 100 finishes since the mid 1960's. Some of the other cover songs, not released as singles, but still just as great are "Over the Rainbow", "Cow Cow Boogie", and "Oh, Lonesome Me". The latter is the only cover song originating in country music from the pen of Don Gibson. 

Depending in what country you lived in at the time, Barnaby Records often issued singles seemingly at random...pushing songs that may have been album tracks or B-sides in America but issuing them overseas as A-sides. Judging by the picture sleeve, "Lady of Spain" is the A-side and "Mockingbird Hill" is the B-side. The picture of Ray comes from his 1973 Nashville album. "Mockingbird Hill" had been pushed as an A-side early in 1976. It was around this point in time that Ray and Barnaby Records parted ways. This was by far his longest-lasting home...having released his first singles for the label early in 1970. Several months after Ray's departure from the label, "Lady of Spain" Bubbled Under the Hot 100. Ray's departure from Barnaby in the early part of 1976 ended on a high note, actually. He won a Grammy in 1976 for Best Arrangement of the Year for his version of "Misty". There was no lengthy gap between single releases, though, and his debut single for the much larger Warner Brothers Records arrived soon after "Mockingbird Hill" had failed to reach the charts.