March 17, 2024

Ray Stevens: Evergreen and more things like that...

Well, I couldn't let Saint Patrick's Day go by without at least composing a blog entry spotlighting not only this photo of Ray Stevens in green but shining the light on a music pot of gold...an audio pot of gold. A collection of recordings by Ray Stevens that capture the spirit of what most people over the many decades have come to identify Saint Patrick's Day with: drinking alcohol and throwing parties. The holiday is synonymous with the color, green. The Irish connection and the lore of leprechauns, shamrocks, pots of gold, and luck. Ray has never officially recorded Irish ballads or traditional Irish music. I haven't done any detailed research to find out why Saint Patrick's Day went from celebrating an actual Irish Saint named Patrick to a day that's long been tied to alcohol (public intoxication) and wild partying. Nevertheless, there are those who are authentically Irish who have no issue with the fun and craziness that surrounds the Irish holiday but there are those of Irish heritage that do not appreciate the 'image' of the Irish as intoxicated fools continuing to show up every year on March 17th. Some protest the stereotypical imagery associated with the holiday (shamrocks, leprechaun costumes, orange wigs and beards) but I believe the protests are coming from a loud vocal minority considering the holiday comes and goes each and every year with celebrations of Irish heritage (food, drinks, music, clothing) on the day marking the death of Saint Patrick (March 17th). My family's heritage (on my dad's side) is Irish-Scottish and I don't find anything offensive about how people choose to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. Whether you simply want to wear green, or, drink alcohol, or listen to various recording artist's do a rendition of "Danny Boy", no matter how you choose to celebrate, well, it's perfectly fine with me. 

What Ray Stevens songs do you think are in my personally selected pot of gold? I have a couple of songs in mind and the first one I'm spotlighting is Ray's rendition of "The Bricklayer's Song". Ray recorded this in 1993 on stage at his Branson, Missouri theater. It appears on his comedy album that year, Classic Ray Stevens. The song tells the story of an Irishman and his wild misadventures with a rope, a pulley, and a barrel of bricks. 


Ray performed "The Bricklayer's Song" on an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television series but the performance isn't isolated as a stand alone upload on YouTube (so far) and I've forgotten which episode contains that performance. There are nearly 80 half hour episodes of the series so far. I could go through my notes and check which episode he performed it on...hey, I just went and looked...Ray performed the song on the episode guest starring Leroy Van Dyke. If you visit YouTube and search 'Ray Stevens + Leroy Van Dyke', the full episode will appear in the search results. Along the same amusing lines as that song but this time the setting is a brewery we hear the story of Clancy who works at a brewery in Milwaukee. We're told he's worked there for years and loves his job...working overtime and even weekends. Clancy met his end, however, in the most unfortunate of ways. You will hear all about it in Ray's 1987 recording of "The Day That Clancy Drowned", from the pen of Sheb Wooley.


Have you ever heard the Ray Stevens recording of "Little Brown Jug"? He recorded it for his massive box set in 2012 titled The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The song originated in 1869 but became closely linked to Glenn Miller in 1939. The Prohibition Era in the United States (roughly 1920 - 1933) naturally caused a lot of songs/imagery of alcohol to become popular due to the Government imposed ban on all things alcohol related. Oh yes, bootlegging became fashionable even if it was against the law. This recording from Ray features modern instrumentation but it captures the spirit of the previous recordings of decades ago...and with practically everything Ray records there's a lot put into the production and his vocal performance gives the song it's essential cheery overtone...


One of the recordings from Ray Stevens that I think about on Saint Patrick's Day is his 1984 recording of "Happy Hour is the Saddest Time of the Day". It's a song on his comedy album that year, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. He performed it on a country music television show that year and during the performance he applies make-up in time with the music and eventually appears on camera, right in front of our eyes, as a sad clown which masks the hilarious, clever lyrics. The screen cap from the performance shows him in the clown make-up but it's fun to watch the performance and hear him sing about loss love and how happy hour brings sorrow instead of happiness... 

March 12, 2024

Ray Stevens: Singing about Women, Part 3

Oh yes...perhaps the most popular or the second most popular woman from a Ray Stevens recording is Ethel. The woman that kept seeing a streaker in Ray's 1974 million selling single, "The Streak". The catchphrase, well one of them, even appears on the album cover. Throughout the recording Ray's eyewitness character continually warns Ethel not to look but it's always too late. Ray wrote and recorded a rough draft of the song shortly after reading about the fad of streaking prior to it becoming a national fad, most often happening on college campuses. Ray didn't immediately release the song but once streaking became a huge news item, perhaps reaching it's peak at the Oscar ceremony, Ray decided to put the finishing touches on his song and record it. When he released the song on Barnaby Records there were already at least a dozen or more novelty songs about streaking available. Ray has always felt that the reason his recording out performed the other songs is due to his having the concept of the song partially written weeks before streaking became a cultural phenomenon. He owed the song's success to having had the time to focus on it rather than cobbling together lyrics seemingly at random just to cash in on the fad. The single sold millions of copies worldwide. The sales figure that's often cited is more than 5,000,000 copies sold. It not only reached the top of the Hot 100 pop chart here in America but it crossed over and become a Top-5 hit in country music and a number one hit in the United Kingdom. In America the song was at number one for three weeks. It had a meteoric rise to the top...once it hit the Hot 100 it was sitting at number one within a month's time. The single reaches it's golden anniversary this year but for this occasion it's okay if Ethel takes a look and celebrates the milestone. Although the 1974 Boogity Boogity album is officially a comedy release it did contain at least one love song. It happens to be the album closer, "Just So Proud To Be Here". Ray also includes his rendition of "Don't Boogie Woogie", a rocking piano pounding performance that sounds a lot like Jerry Lee Lewis and ironically Jerry Lee Lewis would in fact record that song...one year after Ray. Here's an audio track of "Just So Proud To Be Here". I don't know if Ray chose to write a song with this as a title because of his friendship with Minnie Pearl or not. If you'd ever seen Minnie in performance she'd holler out her opening "How-dee!" and follow it with "I'm just so proud to be here...". 


In 1975, still with Barnaby Records, Ray issued the single, "Misty". Now, technically, the name of the song is a woman's name but the song is actually about emotional feelings. If you've never heard the song before it's about how misty-eyed a man gets the moment the love of his life is near him. So, yes, it's still a love song but it isn't about a woman named Misty. Ray won a Grammy early in 1976 in the category of Best Music Arrangement for his recording of "Misty". Elsewhere on the Misty album there are plenty of love songs. One of the greatest on the album is his version of "Lady of Spain". There's also the delightful "Sunshine", a song that's arranged and sang with such vocal happiness that you're bound to smile throughout as you listen to it. On the opposite end of the up-tempo productions we have the sensual vibe that exists throughout his performance of "Take Care of Business". That song, from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr., uses a phrase heard throughout Ray's 1968 single, "Mr. Businessman". Layng was a writer at Ray's publishing company and if I recall correctly the songwriter chose "Take Care of Business" as a title because he felt it might grab Ray's attention to the point of his possibly recording the love ballad...or he used that title because "Mr. Businessman" happened to be one of Layng's favorite Ray Stevens songs. It's one or the other. Ray's marvelous ballad renditions of "Indian Love Call" and "Young Love" are on the 1975 album as well. 


In 1976 Ray exited Barnaby Records and signed on with Warner Brothers records. His debut album for the label, seen above, is titled Just For the Record. It's a glorious album chock full of up-tempo, mid-tempo, and ballad performances. In the category of love songs this album has plenty. His rousing rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" was the album's debut single and it was followed by another love song, "Honky Tonk Waltz". A savory ballad found on here is "Once in Awhile" whereas "Cornball" is a bouncy sing-a-long kind of song where Ray sings about a guy that no matter how hard he tries he can't seem to impress the woman but he's so desperate that he feels the need to remind her that he'll always be available if she ever gets lonely. I tend to use the word, glorious, a lot when describing specific Ray Stevens recordings. I'll use that word again.. "Gimme a Smile" is a glorious love song about a strained relationship that's reached a breaking point and Ray asks for forgiveness and a smile. 

So far I've touched on quite a few Ray Stevens recordings that fall into the category of a love song or those that contain women's names in the song titles in these first three blog entries focusing on Ray singing about women. In part 4 I'll be spotlighting some recordings of Ray during the years 1977, 1978, and 1980 as women's history month continues. 

March 9, 2024

Ray Stevens: Singing about Women, Part 2

Hello once again Ray Stevens fans!! We're on the eve of the annual tradition of setting our clocks ahead one hour at 2am. I don't if the State you live in participates in the clock changes (spring forward/fall back) or not but it's something we've done for decades. One of the main points of this limited blog series was to spotlight some of the songs Ray Stevens has recorded that deal with women. I originally wanted to pinpoint songs that feature a woman's name in the title but then I figured I'd also toss in some notice to songs that are about women, in general, and therefore those would fall into the love song category.

Although a casual music listener probably wouldn't think of love songs or deep, romantic ballads when they hear the name, Ray Stevens, but he's recorded and written a lot of love songs. Some of those love songs actually do involve a lot of mature, straightforward lyrics. The issue has almost always been that music listeners can't separate the funny man from the serious one and once he gained a reputation for comedy/novelty it was almost written in stone in the ears and minds of music listeners and music critics that Ray shouldn't be taken seriously. We all know that Ray was able to overcome the novelty/comedy image throughout much of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. His recordings were very well done, immaculately produced, and arranged. Ray is his own music producer and music arranger and those talents continue to show up on his most recent recordings, too. I decided to use that particular pose of Ray because I feel it captures him deep in the performance. His eyes are open so you can't say he's lost in the feeling but it's a capture that captures a side of Ray Stevens that gets overlooked. So, then, in my second part of this mini-blog series devoted to women's history month we begin with a song Ray wrote and recorded in the late 1960s. The song originally appeared on his 1969 album, Have a Little Talk With Myself. "The Little Woman" celebrates the joy of domestic living and the pride one has in living a modest lifestyle. It also, as you'll find out when listening to the song, demonstrates the strength of a marriage. In the song's storyline Ray is approached by a woman who has perhaps a one night stand on her mind but he gently turns her down and states how much he loves his wife who's waiting on him at home. Ray explored this theme of domestic tranquility in a previous recording a year earlier in 1968 on the song, "The Great Escape". In that one he criticizes the hectic pace of working in the city and all that's one his mind is making the escape back to the tranquil suburbs and returning to his wife and their subdivided house. In the embed below it's the audio track of "The Little Woman".


In 1970 one of Ray's albums, Unreal, featured numerous love songs. One of them, in particular, dealt with the sad side of love. "Islands" tells the story of a couple who've drifted off into their own separate worlds. The woman has left the guy and the song is something of a lover's plea for her to return. Sad love songs tend to outnumber positive love songs on that 1970 album. A couple of other sad ones are "Night People", "Imitation of Life", and the war ballad "Loving You on Paper". The album had it's share of positive and inspiring songs, though, such as "Come Around", "Can We Get To That?", and "America, Communicate With Me". In the video clip below you'll hear Ray perform "Loving You On Paper" from a May 1971 episode of the BBC music series, In Concert.


In Ray's 1973 album, Nashville, there are all kinds of love songs on it. First off is the title track. "Nashville" isn't necessarily about a woman but it's a love song directed at the city of Nashville, Tennessee. In several interviews Ray mentioned that he wrote the song while touring Australia and was homesick. He missed being in Nashville and being with his family. Ray's take on "Never Ending Song of Love" is fabulous as is the love ballad "Love Me Longer". The album features the original recording of "You've Got the Music Inside" which he would re-record five years later. In the latter recording from 1978 he gave it a softer music arrangement to mirror his softer vocal performance. 

As was the case in 1970 with the release of two albums Ray released two albums in 1973, too: Nashville and Losin' Streak. Some of the love songs on Losin' Streak were a re-recorded version of "Just One of Life's Little Tragedies" (originally recorded by Ray in 1963), "Idaho Wine", a mid-tempo recording of "Easy Loving", and a bluesy rendition of "Bye Bye Love". The Losin' Streak album isn't officially uploaded onto YouTube and neither is Have a Little Talk With Myself but if you manually search for songs from either of those two albums you'll come across the audio tracks. I'll follow up with part three later on this week.