May 24, 2010

Ray Stevens and a Million Cacti...

Let's all congratulate Ray Stevens' latest accomplishment. His latest music video, "Come to the USA", has vaulted past the million hits mark on You Tube in 11 days. This puts the music video in the elite company of another Ray Stevens music video, "We The People", which itself is sitting at 3.9 million hits and climbing. The specific play count for "Come to the USA" as of this writing is 1,038,146. Now you all can understand why I title this particular blog entry the way I do.

Q: Is this the first time Ray has ever recorded a song with an Arizona or southwestern backdrop?

A: No...Ray has recorded a couple of other songs highlighting this part of the United States. One song in particular is called "The Ballad of Cactus Pete and Lefty". The song is about a codger and his pet sidewinder, Lefty. Throughout the song Cactus Pete tells us about his various adventures in the desert with Lefty. One of the running gags in the song is the Maraca sound effect which indicates Lefty's communicating with his master. Every time Cactus Pete mentions animals we hear a Maraca which indicates Lefty's excitement. This prompts Cactus Pete to remind Lefty to settle down. The song can be found on Ray's 1987 album, Crackin' Up. Ray made a music video of this song a couple of years ago...it was an animated music video. It can be found on the Cartoon Carnival, Volume One DVD that Ray has for sale in his on-line store. A second song with a southwestern flavor is "How Much Does It Cost to Fly To Albuquerque?". That particular song is from the Hum It album from 1997 and it's an exaggerated spoof on airline companies. Ray plays the part of a singer who's interested in doing a concert in New Mexico and he calls up the travel agent who proceeds to give Ray all sorts of headache about prices and deals, etc etc.

Ray's We The People album is currently ranked in the Top-30 on Amazon's sales list of country music CD's. As far as comedy Mp3 digital albums are concerned the album is ranked in the Top-5 this hour.

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