Ray Stevens and Ahab...

Welcome to this installment of the Music Journey! A lot has been said of one of Ray Stevens biggest hit songs, "Ahab the Arab". I've written about this song before in a couple of blog entries, too. The single dates back to 1962 and a lot of it's inspiration according to Ray came from the early 1920's silent films. Rudolph Valentino, in particular, appeared in a film called The Sheik in 1921 and then a year later there was another silent film released called Burning Sands. I believe if people who have complained about this song at some point in time would realize that there is no deliberate malice at play and that it's basically a love story set in Arabia during the early 1900's I think a lot of the belly-aching would stop.

I'm not saying all of the belly-aching would stop because there are people out there who thrive on that sort of thing...but by and large the people who come across this music video nowadays should take into consideration the intent of the song's writer instead of automatically lumping Ray Stevens into the insensitive category. The music video here is the official release. I noticed that the video had several thousand hits, 29 ratings, but only two comments as of this writing. One of those two comments is my own. So, in an effort to continue and expose the music video that Ray's You Tube people uploaded last July I'm putting it in this blog entry. As of now it has 8,738 hits which is relatively low compared to how long it's been uploaded.



The single was released in 1962. It became a Top-5 pop hit and a Top-10 R&B hit that year and went on to sell over a million copies. A music video never materialized until 1995 and that is what you see here. The music video was part of a 1995 direct-to-home video movie that Ray released that year. The movie was called Get Serious and this music video was the last one featured before the closing credits rolled.

Ray Stevens: Country-Pop, Pop-Country?

The image that appears on the flip side of the 1977 Feel The Music album is a picture that became a publicity photo for a period of time. As it was pointed out to me several months back the front of the Feel The Music album is a close-up of a stereo speaker. I never paid much attention to the back of the album, aside from knowing Ray's picture is there, to grasp the stereo speaker concept. On the back of the album we see illustrated renderings of screws and made up product labels designed to mirror what the back of a stereo speaker looks like. It looks so obvious now after I spent several years not really knowing what the front of Feel The Music was suppose to resemble. I took both of these picture yesterday while browsing through my Ray Stevens albums.

Technically, it's the same picture. In the first picture I edited myself out so that the back of the album would have a larger exposure. This picture is the original with me in the shot as you can tell. The music on the album is mostly easy-listening...some may consider it pop-country or middle of the road, which is another name for easy-listening. Today this style of easy-listening isn't called Adult-Contemporary...it's referred to now as Beautiful Music. The phrase Adult-Contemporary at one time meant the songs and artists who recorded light/soft rock and easy on the ears music that wasn't too rock and roll and wasn't considered country. As time went on Adult-Contemporary radio apparently decided they wanted their own identity and that's why you won't hear John Denver, Glen Campbell, Barry Manilow, and others on modern Adult-Contemporary stations. Those acts have been pushed into that Beautiful Music format.

Is this album pop-country or country-pop? Easy-listening or Adult-Contemporary? Beautiful Music or inspirational?

Feel The Music isn't 100% any of those music genres. The overall flow of the album carries that easy sound but there are a couple of songs on here that are distinct in their sound. Those distinct recordings happen to be "Dixie Hummingbird", which carries a country music feel; "Junkie For You" is decidedly more bluesy in it's delivery. We have religious/inspirational numbers on here like "Set The Children Free", "Save Me From Myself", and the title track, "Feel The Music". There are straight forward love ballads like "Daydream Romance" and "Road Widow" and then we have the story of a couple in the songs, "Alone With You" and "Blues Love Affair". I consider "Get Crazy With Me" a pop song more than country. It's arrangement pretty much confirms this. In 1995 Warner Brothers issued a 3 set collection of songs that Ray recorded for the label. The only songs from this 1977 album that weren't spotlighted on those 1995 collections are "Junkie For You", "Get Crazy With Me", and "Road Widow". To date this album is the only place to find those songs.

Ray Stevens: We The People music video, Part Four...

2,582,851 hits have accumulated for the You Tube music video from Ray Stevens, "We The People". The video continues to rake in several thousand hits per day. This is February 3 and in nine days the music video will mark it's second month on You Tube. December 11, 2009 through January 11, 2010 is it's first month; January 12, 2010 through February 12, 2010 will mark it's second month. If you're going by a month by month basis, though, it's three consecutive months: December, January, and February.

There have been a lot of political dynamics at play over the course of the last several weeks in an attempt to push health care to the back burner but a decision in Virginia elevated health care back into the fray once again on Tuesday. The state legislature passed a bill making Government mandated health care illegal in Virginia. This is perhaps the start of a growing trend across the nation where other states take action well before Congress in Washington, D.C. has any opportunity to push through ObamaCare should the Democrats entertain the notion of doing so. Imagine the message it would send the Federal Government if states all over the country began drafting and passing bills in the State legislature that rejected the national health care bill proposal, affectionately known as ObamaCare, and in effect making it illegal. I don't think anyone has ever witnessed such an uprising in modern times from the State Government's toward the Federal Government should other states follow Virginia. Constitutional scholars no doubt will weigh in on these kinds of situations in the days to come.



From time to time I like to do these Ray Stevens through the years picture displays. The two black and white pictures of course originate from the 1970's. The first image was used as a publicity picture in the early to mid 1970's. It appeared on several picture sleeves of singles that were issued overseas. The picture, as far as hairstyle is concerned, is also similar to the one that appears on his 1973 Nashville album. The second image is from the mid 1970's. A variation of that picture appeared on the back of his 1975 Misty album. The image was also used in trade publications/magazines of that time period.



In the images above we see a publicity picture of Ray from the early 1990's. The image appeared on his 1991 Greatest Hits album that Curb Records released. I do not know if that album is where the image originated or not but since then it's appeared all over the internet and in country music reference books. Of course, the fourth image is the current single, "We The People".

Has anyone ever thought to take into consideration just how much Vice President Joe Biden has strikingly similar facial expressions to former President, Andrew Johnson? Are the two of them descendants or anything? Google images of both Andrew Johnson and Joe Biden and see the similarities. Joe Biden does smile more...but pretty much they both have that withdrawn, somber, down in the dumps expression.



It's one of the eeriest similarities that I've come across...as far as this sort of thing is concerned. You can click on each image for a bigger view.

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 4

As we take a fourth walk through Nostalgia Valley we come across the Urban Cowboy era in country music. I've touched upon this late '70s/early '80s craze in other blog entries and recently commented on this 1981 album. For further reading go check out my blog archives for the entry titled One More Last Chance and the Urban Cowboy. It was during this time that Ray was still battling the public perception of his image and the undeniable commercial impact he enjoyed with comical songs compared to love ballads. In interviews during this time period Ray was often remarking on how much he wished his more serious works would obtain the same kind of commercial success that his comical works had obtained. A year earlier, in 1980, he enjoyed Top-10 success with a single and Top-5 success with an album named for the single, Shriner's Convention. It was an all-comedy album...his first all-comedy album since 1974's Boogity-Boogity. This 1981 album didn't make the country albums chart. I happen to believe that the album sold well but it lacked the media attention and hype that in theory causes consumers to buy an album in droves. It's a shame, too, because there are some very emotional love ballads on this collection of songs...the highlight of the album is the inclusion of a late 1980 hit entitled "Night Games" which reached the country Top-20.

The fact that Ray closed out 1980 with a much more serious release amidst the hype of his Top-5 comedy album indicated how quickly, at that time, he wanted to get back to being serious. In my fascination with Ray's career I'm always coming across magazines articles and interviews that have been uploaded onto the internet from years ago that really help explain some of the frustration that took place under the surface in Ray's career.

If you do a Google news search for Ray Stevens check out the "archives" option on the left hand side of the screen. After clicking archives type whatever year you want and chances are you're going to get a lot of vintage newspaper articles and interviews and write-up's in your search results. I do this once or twice a month just to see if any new old write-up's about Ray Stevens have been added to the search results. In a lot of these pre-1984 interviews you'll see Ray excited over his comical recordings but at the same time remind readers that there's much more to him than comedy. A lot of these interviews touch on the comedy versus the serious side of Ray Stevens. In 1984 when he signed to MCA Records as a country comedy act a lot of his interviews post-1984 had language in them that allowed a reader and the fan to clearly see that he had made the decision to market himself in the most commercially profitable way and that was with comedy songs. His demeanor on stage and in interviews had gone from being the piano playing crooner with a sense of humor to a silly, almost clown-like stage presence with props and other effects. Of course, those who were never fans of Ray Stevens in the first place never took him seriously with anything he recorded anyhow, so I'm excluding those people from my commentary. Ray's career rebounded big time in 1984/1985...all of the comedy albums that were to come throughout the rest of the decade forever labeled him a comedy act...and the sales success he was enjoying with those MCA albums far outsold the sales of his albums in the first half of the '80s while on RCA. The big reason why I highlight Ray's RCA material a lot and his Warner Brothers material is because a majority of those songs didn't get a lot of hype and publicity during their initial release and so I like to spotlight the material on occasion to introduce it to a new audience.

In fact, just two releases on RCA made the album charts for Ray. The first being the Shriner's Convention album which hit the Top-5. The album entered the charts early in February 1980...literally 30 years ago. His 1981 and 1982 albums didn't make the country album charts but an RCA compilation album simply called Greatest Hits hit the charts in the summer of 1983. That compilation contains just two songs from Ray's RCA period and the rest of the album contains material from the late '60s through the mid '70s. The image of Ray on this 1983 release became something of a publicity picture...and fans loved the picture. The album features 10 songs and was charted for five weeks...which is five more weeks than Ray's previous two albums on RCA had enjoyed.

In my continued quest to promote the Ray Stevens music video, "We the People", this is the latest hit count for the video: 2,569,708. This is the month that Ray is to deliver the much-anticipated political/patriotic CD also called We The People. According to the interviews that he has given all indications point to a mid or late February release. I wish it were released sooner because politics is fluid but I can see why a full-length CD is released later. In some theories it creates a demand to have a single appear months before an album. Those in the loop, such as myself, are anticipating the CD big-time and can't wait to hear more songs along the same lines as "We The People".

Ray Stevens' You Tube success

Welcome to my latest Ray Stevens blog. I thought it would be fun and interesting to dissect the play totals of Ray Stevens' music videos on You Tube. Ray began uploading his popular music videos on You Tube half a year ago and each of the music videos have obtained a level of popularity on-line as a result. Admittedly the music videos had long been available on You Tube from other users who had uploaded them from their own personal collections and those uploads scored hundreds of thousands of hits on You Tube months, in some cases years, before Ray and his people got involved and launched their own You Tube channel. Ray didn't upload many music videos during the last seven months...a bulk of the available music videos you can watch were uploaded 6 months ago. "We The People" was uploaded a month ago and "Thank You" was uploaded 3 weeks ago. The military salute, "Thank You", isn't the official follow-up to "We The People" and that's why he hasn't promoted the song as much. "Thank You" has received thousands of hits nonetheless.

To date, the music videos on You Tube that have been uploaded by Ray's people have obtained a combined 2,965,631 plays if my math is accurate and I didn't punch any wrong numbers on my calculator. While it's true 95% of that total can be traced to just one music video in particular the fact remains that before long Ray will crack the 3,000,000 mark. The reason I make a big deal about that is because Ray isn't a mainstream artist...and anytime a non-mainstream artist can tap into that mainstream audience I consider it impressive. Usually artists who are considered not among the mainstream continue to have success within their audience reach...but once mainstream publicity occurs it's like you've successfully maneuvered around a roadblock of sorts...that roadblock being the mainstream music media and music video channels on television.

So this is why I come across as "too excited" or "easily excited" to those of you who happen to stumble across this blog and wonder why I'm making such a big deal about video airplay on You Tube and the exposure on the Fox News channel. I hope Ray continues to use You Tube to get his music to the masses who otherwise would not hear it if he went through the conventional channels. Ray, being an Independent artist and free from major record label constraints, is able to use You Tube to market his music. He records for his own label and he publishes nearly every song he records...even when he was signed to a major label he published nearly everything he recorded.

The major labels, though, usually use You Tube to market a mainstream artist's music video but with little to no control from the artist. Ray, on the contrary, has much more artistic freedom and control of his music than your typical mainstream artist does and I hope he continues to use You Tube in that manner.

Here is a list of the music videos officially uploaded by Ray Stevens on You Tube and a total, to date, of their hit count. I've listed them from most hits to the fewest...

1. We The People: 2,525,082

2. Osama Yo' Mama: 131,725

3. Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills: 72,941

4. Thank You: 61,900

5. Mississippi Squirrel Revival: 55,653

6. Everything Is Beautiful: 30,709

7. The Streak: 23,314

8. Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens: 21,518

9. Santa Claus Is Watching You: 13,307

10. It's Me Again, Margaret: 12,938

11. Misty: 12,931

12. Ahab the Arab: 7,691

13. Shriner's Convention: 5,812

14. Sittin' Up With the Dead: 110

The 110 plays of "Sittin' Up With the Dead" interest me because none of his other music video uploads have failed to achieve at least 1,000 or more hits. Music video 13 at 5,812 dwarfs the 110 plays of "Sittin' Up With the Dead".

The music video had been uploaded by numerous users prior to Ray uploading it onto You Tube and that could play a factor as to why that particular upload has such a low hit count.

Ray Stevens: We The People music video, Part Three

The latest play total for the Ray Stevens music video, "We The People", sits at 2,523,232 hits which is close to 25,000 more plays since my previous blog.

We welcome a fifth follower of this blog, too. I don't get e-mails alerting me that someone chooses to follow this blog and so when I checked my previous blog entry about Ray returning to Branson, Missouri I was thrilled to see another follower latch onto this blog. Ray commented on his Twitter page that he's still working on his upcoming CD but didn't put an official release date on it yet. Late February is the general time-frame that Ray hopes to have it released according to some of his interviews this month. A local Nashville television station did a promo piece on Ray and this song and you can find that segment at his web-site in the "News" section and on his Facebook page a link exists.

The commercial peak of the Mp3 digital download of the single arose a couple of weeks ago in mid January, almost a month after it's release, when it latched onto the #4 best-selling spot for several days on Amazon's list of country Mp3's. The Mp3 was released on December 17, 2009 six days after the music video debuted on You Tube. Right now the Mp3 sits at #80 among the best-selling country songs and #52 among best selling Mp3 comedy recordings. This isn't any cause for concern or alarm, though.

In spite of the inevitable commercial decline on Amazon's best-selling lists, the Mp3 remains high among the Hot New Releases list...ranking at #10 among country music Mp3's. This is the 27th day of the single being ranked on Amazon's Top-100 best-seller lists. This works out to be a day shy of 4 weeks, a month, so the slide in chart placing at Amazon isn't something to be alarmed over. Why? Well, it's because they rank items hourly instead of weekly...and logging 27 consecutive days in the Top-100 is quite impressive because it's all based on sales.

The biggest publicity and promotion "We The People" attracted was through social network sites, namely You Tube, where it had gained over 1,000,000 hits prior to it's exposure on O'Reilly's program on Fox News channel. Some people are quick to forget that it was because of the million or so hits the video obtained on You Tube is why O'Reilly did a couple of features on the song. There are some people who mistakenly believe it was the exposure on Fox News that enabled the music video to become popular when, in truth, the music video had reached a million hits on it's own prior to the Fox News exposure...and now it's at 2.5 million hits.

Ray Stevens returns to Branson...

Ray Stevens is making a return to Branson, Missouri beginning in September and running through late October. The official time frame is September 15 - October 23. He will be what I call a resident singer of The Welk Theatre and judging by it's appearance it appears to be a rather elegant setting. The actual venue is called The Welk Resort Theatre. I mentioned this concert series in my previous blog celebrating his birthday but a video commercial was uploaded onto You Tube on Tuesday and so I thought that I'd copy and paste it here so that it could get some publicity through this blog, too.

It's my understanding that the publicity for these concerts are starting quite a few months early is because there's an anticipation that the tickets will go quickly and if they were to wait until the middle of summer to offer tickets there could potentially be a situation arise where the ticket office would be swamped with orders and have a little window of time to mail the tickets out in a timely manner. So, by starting the publicity 7 months in advance it eliminates any problems with ticket delivery caused by "last minute shoppers". I assume this video upload plays locally in Branson, Missouri and all points in between. I don't think it will air up in my part of the country and so I'm glad that the video commercial/promo was uploaded for the country and the world to see. I like that publicity picture they use with Ray in the red jacket.

2,506,382 is the play total for "We The People". The music video has officially been on You Tube for 1 month and 16 days. It was uploaded on December 11, 2009 and as a result of this song Ray thrust himself into the national spotlight. For those who have been long-time fans of Ray you may become annoyed or irritated by the mainstream music critics who make it appear that Ray's been quiet for decades. We all know that isn't true...Ray's been active in country music and country comedy for years and I suspect because those music formats aren't closely covered on a national level that's why the mainstream audience genuinely assumes Ray has been silent for years and years. It's annoying to me to read those kinds of statements and if it's annoying to me then chances are it's annoying to a lot of you as well.

I hope those who are able to see Ray in concert this year at whatever venue will enjoy the experience! In one performer you'll get an array of musical styles in a fast-moving show that, as the cliché goes, will leave you begging for more. I've been to a couple of his concerts and I know that feeling well.