Ray Stevens • Songwriter Session, 2014
Songwriter Sessions
•
52m
Ray Stevens performs and tells the stories behind some of his biggest hits, including “Guitarzan,” “Everything is Beautiful,” “Mr. Businessman,” and “The Streak,” during a 2014 Songwriter Session at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Country Music Hall of Fame member also performs snippets of some of his topical and humorous hits, including “Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving, Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills,” and “Ahab the Arab.” In a more sentimental segment, Stevens shares “Be Your Own Best Friend” and “Just for the Hell of It” (one of several Ray Stevens songs on the soundtrack to 1981 film “The Cannonball Run”), and “Nashville.”
“I’m a crisis writer—I wrote many of my songs the night before the session,” Stevens says during the performance and interview, before turning his attention to the string section, horns, background vocalists, and rhythm section he’d hired a few days earlier to accompany this performance. “. . . This whole arrangement deal was a crisis.” With the help of arranger Bergen White, Stevens had stayed up nights to prepare charts for the musicians.
In a brief interview, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum senior historian John Rumble asks about Stevens’s start in the music business, his creative process, and the elements essential to a hit song.
FOR MORE
Find out more about our public programming: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/plan-your-visit/exhibits-activities/public-programs/
FOLLOW THE MUSEUM
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/OfficialCMHOF/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countrymusichof/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/countrymusichof
Up Next in Songwriter Sessions
-
Will Hoge • Songwriter Session, 2015
Will Hoge shares live performances of his songs—including tracks from his 2015 album “Small Town Dreams”—and answers questions from members of the audience during this 2015 Songwriter Session at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Hoge opens off-mic with “Small Town Dreams” track “Growing...
-
Richard Thompson • Songwriter Session...
Richard Thompson—singer, songwriter, guitarist, and founding member of the folk-rock band Fairport Convention—shares a nearly hourlong performance and question-and-answer session with an audience at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum during a 2012 Songwriter Session.
Beyond Fairport Conv...
-
Tony Arata • Songwriter Session, 2017
Songwriter Tony Arata—who wrote Garth Brooks's hit "The Dance," along with songs recorded by Patty Loveless, Lee Roy Parnell, and many others—sings, shares the stories behind his songs, and answers audience questions during a Songwriter Session at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Arata...
