May 14, 2011

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 23...

"Ahab the Arab" by Ray Stevens is a very funny story based on the Arabian Nights and other stories utilizing Arabia and the Middle East as a back-drop. Those who crave political correctness typically want to censor this song and are constantly seeking a day when the song and it's music video will be out of public view for eternity. You see, the politically correct kind want to censor, control, and dictate what people can see, read, and hear. If that doesn't explain the kind of people they are nothing will. Those who object to political correctness are often called racists, trouble makers, old-fashioned, ignorant, prejudiced, and on and on and on. You can also tell when someone's politically correct even if he or she doesn't come right out and say so. You want to know how? The politically correct person almost always comes off apologetic for liking "Ahab the Arab". I've seen numerous posts on Twitter where somebody comes on with a link to the music video and then concludes by saying something like "I know I shouldn't laugh but it's funny!". Well, let's take a look at a line like that...there's nothing wrong with laughing when you hear "Ahab the Arab". It's a very funny song and there's nothing to be apologetic about. In other words don't feel as if you have to say you're sorry for liking the song...however, it's perfectly fine to feel sorry for those who don't like it.



A lot of people on-line get confused when this music video was produced. Some people who look up the song's chart data will see "1962" as the year of release and naively believe the video was taped in 1962! Obviously this isn't the case. This music video of "Ahab the Arab" was put together in 1995 for a direct-to-home video movie that Ray released that year titled Get Serious!. That movie runs 110 minutes and you can typically find copies of it on eBay. There was never a DVD release and so the only way a person can see the movie is on home video. The music videos from the movie are readily available on various home video and DVD compilations from Ray...but I suggest you track down the movie and watch it yourselves. It's a family friendly movie, of course, but there are moments where some of the references will no doubt go over younger viewer's heads.

A lot of the jokes are what one may call inside jokes...in other words the jokes will be understood better by those familiar with Ray's music and his life's experiences. His experience, for example, in a hotel during a Shriner's convention ultimately led to the writing of "Shriner's Convention" (one of the music videos in the movie). However, for those not as familiar with his career, there's the inclusion of the song "Dudley Dorite of the Highway Patrol" which serves as the springboard for the movie's overall plot. In that one single song Ray's music career is spotlighted. Search my blog page for further information about Ray's 1995 Get Serious! movie. I say this because I can go on and on and on and on writing about the movie but that's something I did several blogs ago!

Jumping to contemporary happenings in the career of Ray Stevens we see that he's continuing to spread his music all over the video hosting sites across the internet. Several music videos in are experiencing heavy unique views: the current "Obama Budget Plan" has 138,363 views so far; plus there's the resurging "Osama Yo' Mama" with 1,039,049 views; "Come to the USA" with 5,165,019 views continues to pull in numbers, as does "We the People" which sits at 4,356,105 views. His previous video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", has 154,988 views.

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    I just came across your Ray Stevens blog. I'm a big Ray fan, and I got to interview him last month.

    You wouldn't believe it, but I posted on Twitter that I'd like to talk with him, and his manager got in touch with me that same afternoon.

    Would you mind if we got in touch? There's a couple of questions in the interview that I'd like to ask you.

    Ray couldn't remember everything, and I want it to be as accurate as possible. You can also read over the complete interview. It's 3400 words long.

    I remember hearing you on Ralph Emery Live when Ray was a guest last year. You knew more about his career than he did.

    I attempted to friend you on Facebook, but I couldn't send a message to you. Not sure why.

    Sincerely,

    Jeremy Roberts

    http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-national/jeremy-roberts


    PS The above link takes you to my column where I publish most of my stuff. You can send me an email on there or via Facebook.

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  2. I don't mind answering questions about Ray if I'm asked but I can't, obviously, answer personal questions about him as I don't know him personally. I also don't know any technical information as to who played on what song. Most of his albums have musician credits but a lot of his singles in the '50s and '60s lacked a lot of detail, obviously, when it came to musicians...

    Basically, though, I'm simply a fan of his who created a blog site because I feel his career, to some extent, is severely under-rated and under-appreciated. I also created it as a means of educating people about Ray's music who may only know of him for 2 or 3 songs. I also use the blog to rant about any negative criticisms of Ray that I may happen to come across as I surf the internet. I never link or name any of those kinds of web-sites because I don't want them getting any publicity on my blog page.

    One slight correction, though...I never called Ralph Emery's television program last year.

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