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.