March 3, 2010

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 7

The biggest hit song for Ray Stevens in 1969 was without question, "Gitarzan". The single was a million seller and it reached the Top-10 of the pop charts. The song continues to be part of Ray's stage shows and over the years he's had a multitude of different female singers play the part of Jane during concert performances...sometimes, though, he plays the role himself as he did on the 1969 recording. On the 1993 home video, Ray Stevens Live!, he enlists the help of a female assistant who came out on stage dressed in jungle attire. I believe the female was Janice Copeland. She played a more significant role in the sequel, More Ray Stevens Live!, by singing two songs: "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" and "Love Can Build a Bridge". Die-hard Ray Stevens fans oughta have those two home videos in their collection. I commented on the two releases in a previous blog...both of them were issued in 1993. "Gitarzan" didn't stop in the United States. The song crossed over all boundaries as it was released all over the world. I've got images of overseas releases of the song tucked away on my computer. Ray co-wrote the song with a guy by the name of Bill Everette. The title of the song, according to Ray, was given to him by Bill Justis. In a 1986 interview Ray remarked that he wrote the song with the aid of a rhyming dictionary by coming up with lines that deliberately had end rhymes and internal rhymes. Today it's impossible to imagine the song sounding any other way and it's the only song that I can think of from Ray that includes so many rhyme patterns.

April Fools Day is a time set aside for practical jokes and playing pranks on someone. In country music April Fools Day, and sometimes the entire month of April, is also a time when the country comedians tend to get a lot of coverage. This year will be no different as our favorite, Ray Stevens, is scheduled to appear on an April 1st radio broadcast. The program that Ray is appearing on is called Opry Country Classics. It's a series of programs that air on WSM radio, the audio home of the Grand Ole Opry. The show is hosted by Larry Gatlin and it will feature other performers as well. Ray is the main focus as he's been given the "spotlight artist" designation. I am making an assumption here by saying that I believe the show will be available on-line as well. The show will air at 7pm Nashville time and that means 8pm in most of the Eastern half of the country since Nashville, in particular, is in the Central timezone. So, at 8pm Eastern time, the radio show will commence. As I mentioned, I believe the show will be streamed on WSM's web-site and if that's the case people all over the country and the world will be able to listen to it. Lastly, I want to attempt to set the record straight about a few errors about Ray Stevens that are blindly passed along as fact on the internet.

First off...Ray Stevens is not the singer of "The Purple People Eater". The singer of that song is Sheb Wooley. I'm still baffled at countless comments on Twitter that erroneously credit Ray Stevens as a the singer of that song when he isn't. Another thing that's annoying as well is when I see comments from people crediting Ray with being the singer of "The Witch Doctor". That particular song was released by Ross Bagdasarian under his popular pseudonym, David Seville. So, whenever anyone comes across web-sites that credit Ray Stevens as the singer of either of those two songs, remember this blog entry for setting the record straight.

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