Quick Facts

Ray Stevens is a singer and songwriter from the United States who specializes in country and pop music. Ray Stevens is also a stand-up comic. Grammy-winning albums like “Everything Is Beautiful” and “Misty,” as well as humorous hits like “Gitarzan” and “The Streak,” have made him a household name.

How much is the Net Worth of Ray Stevens?

Moving on, his net worth is estimated to be in the $15 million range. Ray Stevens makes money from his music productions, shows, and other activities.

Childhood and Early Years of Ray Steven

Harold Ray Ragsdale, Ray Stevens’ full name, was born on January 24, 1939. He is 82 years old and hails from Clarkdale, Georgia, in the United States, a little cotton mill town twenty miles north of Atlanta. He enrolled at Georgia State University as a music major after graduating from high school.

His mother’s name is Frances Stephens Ragsdale, and his father’s name is Willis Harold Ragsdale. He also has a brother, John Ragsdale, who is a writer and actor.

Professional Life and Career

His Professional Career Began

The radio and the jukebox at the town swimming pool, where he and most other kids spent their summers, were early influences for Ray Stevens. Radio stations back then were quite broad, playing music in a wide range of styles. This, combined with the songs played on the jukebox, allowed him to be exposed to a diverse range of music.

He discovered his passion for music when he was seven years old and began taking piano lessons. He had acquired many of the great Southern musical influences by the time he was a teenager in Albany, Georgia. From country to rhythm and blues, he covered it all. He started singing and playing piano in a band called the Barons when he was fifteen years old, and they performed all over the neighborhood for the American Legion, the Elks, private parties, and anything else.

During the teenage years

Similarly, he relocated to Atlanta at the age of seventeen, when he met Bill Lowery, a radio personality and Georgia Tech football broadcaster. He went to Nashville for the first time in 1957, while still in high school, and recorded his first song, Silver Bracelet. At the now-historic RCA “B” studio, he did so. He met Chet Atkins, RCA’s chief of A&R, during this tour. The two became buddies for life. In Atlanta, his first single was a hit.

He left Prep Records and went to Capitol shortly after that. Capitol is the label’s parent company. In 1958, he recorded some tunes for Capitol Records. Bill Lowery founded the National Recording Corporation during this time (NRC). NRC had a small studio that wasn’t quite cutting-edge, but it served as a place to play and record. Ray, Jerry Reed, and Joe South, among others, pestered the engineer on a daily basis, pleading with him to let them record.

1960-1970

He afterwards returned to Atlanta to complete his high school education. He then enrolled at Georgia State University, where he majored in classical piano and music theory. Jeremiah Peabody’s Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills was the title of a song he recorded in 1961 when he dropped out of school during his junior year. On the pop charts, the song reached #35. His diverse variety of abilities won him a job at Mercury Records in Nashville at the time.

Furthermore, he arrived in Music City on January 2, 1962, and in his first year alone, he worked on uncountable sessions as a pianist, arranger, and vocalist. Ahab the Arab was recorded at one of the sessions. In the year 1962, this song reached #5 on the pop charts.

He used to sing with the Jordanaires on various occasions. Also, he played on an Elvis Presley session, which was the only Elvis Presley session he had ever played on. He also collaborated with Charlie McCoy on trumpet. After a few years, he released Way Down, Elvis’ final success before his death.

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He also recorded Harry the Hairy Ape and Santa Claus is Watching You at Mercury. His records began to fade after that. He spent much of his time in the studio working on other people’s music rather than working on his own. Ray soon departed Mercury for Monument Records. He was the producer in charge of discovering new talent there. A young Dolly Parton was one of the new artists.

In 1969, the jungle band comedy Gitarzan catapulted him back into the top ten of the music charts. On the country front, he recognized a young Nashville songwriter’s promise and became the first musician to record Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down. Later that year, he returned to the pop charts with a remake of the classic Coaster Pop/R&B smash, Along Came Jones.

In 1970, he also joined Barnaby Records. Andy Williams, the vocalist, owns the label. He became Barnaby’s first contemporary artist after appearing on Williams’ television variety show. Ray got the opportunity to host the NBC replacement for Andy Williams’ Show in the summer of 1970.

He also required a popular song for the show, which he found with Everything is Beautiful. Everything is Beautiful was the result of three days in his basement, surrounded by crumpled paper, at his piano. This song was also his first #1 pop success, earning him a Grammy nomination for Male Vocalist of the Year.

1970-1980

He continued to release music over the next few years, ranging from church to humor. Then, on a flight to Los Angeles in 1974, he came across an article about a new phenomenon among college students known as streaking. He felt inspired, so he jotted down some ideas. Later, he decided to write a song about it. The Streak was the outcome of this, and it was also his second #1 pop hit.

He was nominated for his second Grammy Award in 1975. It was for the song Misty, a reworking of the Erroll Gardner/Johnny Burke classic, in the Best Arrangement category. His band for an impending television appearance started clowning around with Misty using a banjo, fiddle, and steel guitar one day while rehearsing in the studio. He summoned his engineer to record the arrangement since it sounded nice.

One of his final hits for Barnaby Records was this tune. Barnaby was on the verge of shutting down when he signed with Warner Brothers. He recorded In the Mood and I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow while at Warner Brothers.

1980-2000

He was signed to RCA Records from 1979 through 1984. Shriner’s Convention, which was inspired by a real-life encounter in a hotel packed with Shriners, was his biggest hit at the time. The Mississippi Squirrel Revival and It’s Me Again Margaret were hits for him after signing with MCA Records in 1984. Until 1990, he continued to record for MCA. He went on to sign with Curb Records after that.

Later, in 1991, he opened the Ray Stevens Theatre in Branson, Missouri, which seats 2,000 people. Then, from 1991 to 1993, he performed twice a day, six days a week for 1,600,000 fans during the tourist season. Moving forward to 2004, he relaunched the show for a second season. Then, in 2006, he sold the theatre and permanently shut down the show.

To liven up the stage presentation, Elvis created music videos of several of his biggest singles during his time in Branson. Those tapes were so well received that he decided to distribute them in 1992 under his own label, Clyde Records, Inc., and sell them through a mail-order and television ad campaign.

Furthermore, Comedy Video Classics was a huge hit, selling over two million copies. Ray Stevens Live! was released in 1995. It’s a Branson show video that has sold over a million copies. Get Serious, a full-length film, was released later in 1995. MCA Records released the film to retail channels in late 1996, earning it platinum status thanks to television advertising.

Beginning in the year 2000,

He decided to record completely for his own label, Clyde Records, Inc., in 2007. He transformed the company from a direct-to-consumer label to a full-service label that would make releases available in stores and online. It also gives him control over the release schedule for new recordings. Clyde Records’ debut release is New Orleans Moon. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans, Saint James Infirmary, and Randy Newman’s Louisiana are among the many outstanding songs on the CD.

In April 2010, he published We The People, a CD/DVD bundle. It included music tracks and videos about political and patriotic topics. In early 2011, he recorded and released Spirit of 76, a CD with more songs on patriotic and political satire themes, as a result of its success. Then he launched Internet Video Hits, a DVD containing ten videos created specifically for the online that have received over 20,000,000 unique internet views.

Following the year 2010,

He also wrote a book called Let’s Get Political, which he published. It leverages the titles of the songs from the two CDs mentioned above to allow him to expound on those topics in 34 articles. Some of these writings have appeared in major publications and on well-known websites such as Fox News Channel.

In 2012, he created the “Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music,” Labor of Love. He spent nearly two years in the studio, recording what he describes as “the songs that made me who I am today.” He also researched and produced comprehensive liner notes for all of the songs, which he included in the “owner’s handbook” of the project, along with a “History of Comedy Music” essay written by Don Cusic and the writer/publisher credits.

He also released “Ray Stevens’ Nashville” in 2015. It is a memoir about his career in the music industry. He went to a number of Barnes & Noble book signings. His 30 minute TV show of the same name debuted on RFD-TV later that year.

Following 2015,

He opened his Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom in Nashville in January 2018, to acclaim. The music venue features a 700-seat Vegas-style dinner theatre where fans can expect to be pleasantly delighted by Ray in full concert while also receiving excellent food and beverage service.

Stevens also has time for his Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville TV show, which he hosts and produces. It’s a 30-minute weekly music/talk show filmed on the CabaRay stage that airs on PBS and RFD-TV. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame for the first time in 2019. Stevens was also inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame on August 21st of this year.

He has sold over 40 million CDs over the course of his career and maintains daily office activities at his Music. He also wrote the pop classic Everything Is Beautiful, the thought-provoking Mr. Businessman, and the Grammy Award-winning Misty arrangement.

In addition, he has mimicked everything from Tarzan films to current crazes, and he has developed his own genre of comic masterpieces. Pop, country, rock, bluegrass, and humor are among his musical genres. He’s also used audio recordings, music videos, television presentations, concert stages, and the written word to entertain people. In addition, in 2020, he will perform at Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom in Nashville, Tennessee.

Personal Life of Ray Stevens

Penny Jackson, Ray Stevens’ wife, is a married guy. Suzi Ragsdale and Timi Jones, the couple’s two children, were born to them. They are both daughters. In addition, he was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 but was able to recover following a successful operation.

Social Media

Ray Stevens may be found on a variety of social media channels. He started using Twitter in April 2009 and now has over 7.2 thousand followers. Similarly, as of April 2020, he has 30.9k Instagram followers and 968 posts. He also has a 328k-follower Facebook page. He also has a 179k-subscriber Youtube channel with the same name.

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