The Country Music All of Fame and Musume spotlights Ray Stevens on their podcast “Voices In The Hall”. Take a listen and make sure you follow the podcast on Spotify!
Peter on Episode 8: Ray Stevens
A Georgia boy raised on rock & roll, rhythm and blues, country music, and Atlanta Crackers baseball, Ray Stevens possesses a towering wit, atypical musicality, and a work ethic that drives him to make and market music at a time in life when his above-ground contemporaries favor rocking chairs to stages.
As a teen, Stevens was part of an Atlanta music-making scene that included Country Music Hall of Fame member Jerry Reed, and when he moved to Nashville he did so with the promise that he’d be allowed to record his own material and to make money playing on sessions for others. He did all of that, and much more, winning Grammy awards for performing and arranging, writing the standard “Everything is Beautiful,” recording with stars including Elvis Presley, and forging a reputation as one of Nashville’s singular musical talents.
Stevens is also a funny man. He could have been a comic, but instead chose to use his humor in service to songs that have elicited decades of chuckles and guffaws. He is a music video pioneer who envisioned ways to bring his funny stuff to small-screen fruition, and who used television advertising to bring melodic tales of a crazy squirrel, a Shriners’ convention, a swift streaker, and a watchful Santa into living rooms all over the country.
Sometimes the funny stuff obscures Stevens’s serious skills as a musician, but Stevens doesn’t seem to mind. He figures music as entertainment, figures himself as an entertainer, and figures he’s doing his job when folks are entertained.
At this point, he’s done his job so well and so long that he’s set to enter the Country Music Hall of Fame as a member of the Hall’s Class of 2019, alongside record executive Jerry Bradley and superstar duo Brooks & Dunn. In this edition of Voices in the Hall, Stevens talks about his path to country music’s rainbow’s end.
Congratulations for Ray getting into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I do have one question though. What took so long?
We love all of Ray Stevens music! My husband and I Saw him in concert at Myrtle Beach and loved it ! We bought his records in high school and college and later CDs. Our children and grandchildren are hooked on his music as he has such talent and variety and very entertaining. When our daughter and her family moved to A restricted area in Asia and later to Hong Kong as Baptist missionaries they took all of our CDs by Ray Stevens. When they get home sick they pull out the CDs! They are now ages 5,7,and 9. They loved Bridget the Midget! When they get to come home in 2 1/2 yrs and if Ray is still doing concerts, they want to attend one! That would be a dream come true for them and their parents!!!!!
What a God Given talent! Hope he is a Christian so we can listen to him sing in Heaven forever!,,
So glad we discovered his program on Educational TV station on Wednesday night at 9: 30 pm. Our children researched this in Hong Kong recently but will Cost them $4.50 per week.
Some of the best interviews of Ray Stevens are those in which he gets to talk at length or in greater detail about his experiences behind the scenes working with a who’s who of recording artists and the producers, writers, and musicians he’s come into contact with over the decades and this interview is one of those kind. Although I like hearing whatever interview Ray gives…most of them only touch upon whatever he’s currently doing in addition to questions revolving around his older songs…and there’s very few interviews that put the creation of music or the celebration of music front and center.
I believe that my birth date is same as Rays. 1-24