Ray Stevens just thinks funny. His humor is keenly observant and rich in nuance. His style is unaffected and unpretentious which for the past fifty years has allowed for entertainment that is both witty and guileless. From his multi-million selling comedy hit, “The Streak” to the socially aware “Mr. Businessman” to his Grammy award winning pop standard “Everything Is Beautiful” his talent has touched so many. Not only a singer and composer, Ray has also produced, arranged and played on the recordings of some of Nashville’s most legendary performers.

Ray Stevens was born Harold Ray Ragsdale in Clarkdale, Georgia on January 24, 1939. Clarkdale was a small cotton mill town twenty miles north of Atlanta. Ray’s early influences came from the radio and the jukebox at the village swimming pool where Ray and most kids spent their summers. In those days radio stations were diverse and played music of all different styles and that, along with the records that the jukebox played exposed Ray to an eclectic selection of music.

As a seven year old taking piano lessons Ray had a realization, and in his own words, “It all made sense.” From that time on music was his life. By the time he was a teenager in Albany, Georgia, he had absorbed many of the great Southern musical influences, from country to rhythm and blues. At age fifteen he sang and played piano in a band, the Barons and they played all over the area for the American Legion, the Elks, private parties, anywhere.