All contemporary photos by Alan Mercer
taken in Arlington, Texas
Active since 1962, Eddy Raven has recorded for several record labels, including Elektra, RCA, Universal, and Capitol Records. His greatest commercial success came between 1984 and 1990, during which time he achieved six number-one singles on Hot Country Songs.
Eddy has a total of eighteen top-ten hits on that chart. In addition to his own work, he has written singles for Don Gibson, Randy Cornor, Jeannie C. Riley, and The Oak Ridge Boys among others. Eddy Raven's music is defined by mainstream country, country pop, Cajun music, and reggae.
Numerous influences make his music almost indescribable: the Cajun sounds of his native Louisiana, the blues influence from working with Johnny Winter, the rock & roll of his idol, Elvis Presley, and the pure country of the Grand Ole Opry. Befriended by Jimmy C. Newman, Eddy Raven made the first of many trips to Nashville in 1970.
Signed to a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose, he wrote songs for Don Gibson and Roy Acuff, among others, and started making records himself in 1974. Despite the acclaim of his peers, Eddy didn't actually earn a hit record as a recording artist until 1981, with the release of his ‘Desperate Dreams’ album.
The Oak Ridge Boys earned a hit at that time with his song ‘Thank God for Kids,’ and Eddy came out of his forced vacation strong, signing with RCA and gaining his first number one single with ‘I Got Mexico.’ For the next half-dozen years, he remained a consistent staple of country radio: frequently adventurous, always listenable.
Eddy Raven, who’s birth name is Edward Garvin Futch, began playing music when he was a child in Lafayette, Louisiana, joining a garage rock band when he was 13 years old. Three years later, his family moved to Georgia, where he landed a job working in a radio station. He also managed to cut his own song, "Once a Fool," for the local independent label Cosmo.
The record was released under the name "Eddy Raven," and Edward Futch used that moniker as his stage name from that day forward. In 1963, the family moved back to Lafayette, and he began working in a record shop called La Louisianne. The store's owner had a label of the same name, and Eddy cut several records for the label, including his 1969 debut album, ‘That Cajun Country Sound.’
Jimmy C. Newman happened to hear ‘That Cajun Country Sound’ and was impressed enough to land Eddy a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose. Following the record's release, he began singing for Jimmie Davis' band. By 1971, other artists had begun recording Raven's songs. Soon, Eddy had gained a reputation as a songwriter and a performer within Nashville, and once Don Gant of Acuff-Rose became an A&R man for ABC Records, Eddy had a record deal of his own in 1974. For the next two years, he had a series of minor hits for the label.
Later in 1981, he signed with Elektra, where he had his first big hit with the number 13 ‘I Should've Called.’ After spending 1983 resolving legal and managerial problems, Eddy Raven signed with RCA Records, releasing ‘I Got Mexico’ in the spring of 1984. The single was a big hit, becoming not only his first Top Ten single, but his first number one hit. For the remainder of the decade, he had a string of Top Ten hits for the label. He left RCA for Universal in 1989, and he had two number one singles for the label. ‘Right for the Flight,’ his 1991 album for Capitol, was his last for a major label.
Starting with 1994's ‘Wild Eyed and Crazy,’ he recorded for independent labels, and over the next decade he cut records relatively steadily – ‘Cookin' Cajun,’ a duet album with Jo-El Sonnier, came out in 1996, ‘Living in Black and White’ appeared in 2001, ‘Knowin' How to Live’ was released in 2005 -- and he still tours into the 2019. In 2017, he returned to recording with ‘All Grassed Up,’ a collaboration with Carolina Road.
I met with Eddy in Arlington, Texas in the late afternoon before an evening performance. He drove up in a rented car after flying in from Nashville, and I took a handful of photos of him sitting in the hatchback area of the car. You will rarely meet a more affable guy. I could have talked about his music all day.
Alan Mercer: I’m so glad you come to perform in Texas often.
Eddy Raven: I’m always here. I feel like I belong here. I have a lot of friends who live in Texas and the people, they really love the music. To me, it’s all about the music. It always has been.
AM: I believe that because you got started so young.
ER: I was fortunate enough to sign with Acuff-Rose and Don Gant. When you have a guy like Don Gant, who went on to be a great producer, with Jimmy Buffett, Delbert McClinton, me, Roy Orbison and many others. I’ve been so lucky to be around the guys who thought the way I did about the music.
AM: You’ve been doing this for 59 years.
ER: Probably, my first record came out in 1960. I cut a record at a radio station and some guys in Brunswick, Georgia put it out. I had a little radio show when we were living in Baxley, Georgia. We played it a few times.
AM: Hey! That was your first hit!
ER: I don’t think we even sold any records, but ten or twelve years ago, somebody in Britain put the two songs on an album and called it Rockabilly, which it kind of was.
AM: You really are not a typical Country Music Artist. Your music encompasses several genres.
ER: Well, coming up in Louisiana I had the chance to work with a lot of great players. I worked in a band called the Swing Kings. We had five horns and a Hammond B3 with a 50-watt Leslie. I cut a lot of records in Louisiana for some different artists. I had a strong Cajun influence.
AM: You also have the Zydeco influence.
ER: Buckwheat Zydeco was a good friend of mine. His real name was Stanley Dural. I brought him in on an album and he played the Hammond accordion. He was such a good guy. He is on my song, ‘New Orleans Is A Mighty Good Town.’ Charlie McCoy is going to record it now and he wants me to sing with him on the record.
AM: You worked with all these legends like Dr. John and Edgar and Johnny Winter!
ER: I was the only one with a record deal at the time. I guess Dr. John had a recording contract in New Orleans and he would record in Lafayette. I also worked with Allen Toussaint and Aaron Neville.
AM: Isn’t your first record called ‘That Cajun Country Sound?’
ER: Yes, that was my first real record for a real record company. My hero was a guy named Bobby Charles. Do you know who he is?
AM: I do. He’s a songwriter.
ER: He was a great songwriter who lived down the road from me. Not far at all. He took me under his wing. He wrote songs like ‘See You Later Alligator,’ ‘Walking To New Orleans.’ ‘I’m Just A Jealous Kind’ and many more.
AM: Oh yeah, I love those songs.
ER: He was appreciated but most people didn’t realize how great he was like I did. He asked me about this song I was working on and I told him it wasn’t quite finished, so he told me to finish it because he needed one more song to record. The song was called ‘Big Boys Cry’ and it sold over a quarter of a million copies.
AM: Wow! That is awesome!
ER: Then, we got a phone call a few years ago and the lady on the other end wanted to know if I was the same Eddy Raven who wrote that song and was I the only writer and did I own the publishing. We said yes to all. My wife, Sheila asked her what this was all about, and she said, “You don’t know? Elvis Costello is recording ‘Big Boys Cry’ and releasing it world-wide. (Laughter) A song I wrote in 1965! I also have a song called ‘Kidnapper’ that I wrote in 1973 and we get royalties on that. My life has been unreal.
AM: I am loving your latest album, ‘All Grassed Up’ with the Carolina Road band. I love hearing your classics re-imagined.
ER: Thank you, we had a couple people who had done some of them before, so when Lorraine Jordan came to town and wanted to record with different Bluegrass and Country acts, I said I would do it. We did ‘I Got Mexico’ and it did really good for her. Then she wanted to do a whole album, so she sent me a list of songs and it was such a fun project.
AM: You can tell. You can hear the fun when you listen to it.
ER: My throat was soar and I had to fight through it, but we did, and it worked. The Bluegrass players are so good. That really impressed me. I enjoyed working on this project.
AM: Do you still write a lot of songs?
ER: Not like I used to. I’ve saved some things up that Toby Keith and I have to do. I’ve got to get back to it.
AM: It seems like you wouldn’t be writing as much as you once did.
ER: I didn’t understand that years ago. I wrote a lot of songs for Don Gibson. I asked him once if he had anything he wanted to write. I said I’d be glad to help. He told me, “No Eddy, I don’t have as much of the vinegar left. I ain’t got the fire in the stomach. As long as you write, I’m not going to do it because I love what you do.”
AM: Are you a versatile songwriter? It seems like you can write with anyone.
ER: I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to write with so many different people.
AM: Is ‘Thank God For Kids’ your biggest selling song?
ER: That probably is. Also ‘I Got Mexico,’ that was huge and ‘Who Do You Know in California.’ ‘Thank God For Kids’ has been recorded so many times by so many different people. The Oaks killed it, John Rich did it, Kenny Chesney did it, and probably a hundred other people have recorded that song.
AM: I’ve heard it on commercials too.
ER: Churches and organizations have used it. We gave some children’s hospitals access to use the song for gratis. It’s just been a big, big song., so yeah, that’s the biggest song I’ve ever written. It’s by far, the most successful.
AM: What was the writing process for that song?
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ER: I was coming back from playing a show in the Smokies and Johnny Duncan hitched a ride with us. We pulled into a rest area and there was a bunch of kids playing around on a slide. Johnny said, “Look at those kids. I used to have that kind of energy.” Then I said, “Yeah, Thank God for kids.” He said, “That’s a song! Write that down.” So, I wrote it down on a grocery bag from either Winn-Dixie or Piggly Wiggly. I never can remember that. (Laughter)
AM: That’s great!
ER: So anyway, I got home and put the song title on a pile of song ideas and forgot about it. Then one day I was working on a writing project and my son, who was around four at the time, asked if he could help me write a song. He got his little plastic guitar down and pulled up next to me and squeaked the mike, so I asked him what he wanted to write about. He said Big Bird. Who else do you want to write about? He said Mickey Mouse. So, I said, well, let’s start and about that time Sesame Street came on the TV and off he left. Well, I looked over at that stack of white papers that had one brown piece of paper, so I pulled it out and it said thank God for kids. Fifteen minutes later, it was a song.
AM: I LOVE that story!
ER: Don Gant and I cut it at ABC Records and they were not happy with it. They told us it wasn’t the kind of music the American public wanted. I knew it was a hit because I performed it in live shows. The same thing happened when I did ‘I Should’ve Called.’ The crowds went crazy.
AM: That’s the song George Jones recorded.
ER: He did a great job with that. I got a call one day and the voice on the phone said, “Eddy, this is George.” I said, “George who?” He said, “The Possum!” (Laughter) I was only joking. I had known him awhile. He called to tell me he cut one of my old songs. I told him that was great! I got to sing it with him once on his last show in Vegas. It was tremendous. I enjoyed it so much.
AM: What a wonderful memory for you.
ER: I got a great photo of him at his 80th birthday party. He was just a neat guy. I’ve had so many friends like Waylon and Johnny Cash. I’ve been lucky, like I said.
To learn more about Eddy Raven visit his web site http://eddyraven.com/