Let's Discuss Ray Stevens, Part Nine...

It's me again all you Ray Stevens fans! You all know who you are...I'm one of the biggest. A few days ago Ray was mentioned on The O'Reilly Factor once again. This marks the third time this year that one of Ray's music videos has graced the top-rated Fox News program. This time around "God Save Arizona" was highlighted. Previously "Come to the USA" and "We The People" were highlighted. If you all recall, the first time Ray was mentioned on O'Reilly's program it resulted in Ray's web-site crashing. The highlight of "God Save Arizona" worked wonders because over the course of the last several days the music video jumped to 320,017 hits on You Tube. Prior to the O'Reilly highlight the video was in the mid 260,000 range which is still respectable but it goes to show you what exposure on a nationwide television program can do. There was probably hundreds of thousands of people unaware of the video's existence...but not anymore judging by the spike in hits.

The song is still only available as a digital download and physical CD single...there hasn't been any announcements made of any upcoming album that "God Save Arizona" will be part of.

Ray started his month long stay at the Welk Theatre in Branson, Missouri this week. The opening night was yesterday, September 15th. I should say opening day and night since he did two shows yesterday...one show at 2pm and another at 8pm. He'll be doing several dates with two shows a day and other dates with just one show. I posted the concert days and times in a previous blog. You can see the schedule at Ray's web-site in the Tour section or at the Welk Resort web-page in the Theatre section.

Some more Ray Stevens discussion...

Not a lot of people realize that Ray Stevens had great success with his Turn Your Radio On album. In compilation after compilation usually the songs people hear are "Turn Your Radio On" and or "All My Trials". The two other hit singles from that album rarely got much inclusion: "A Mama and a Papa" and "Love Lifted Me". The album reached the country Top-20 in 1972. As far as chart statistics go "Turn Your Radio On" hit the country Top-20 while "All My Trials" and "A Mama and a Papa" both hit the Easy-Listening Top-10. That format is now known as Adult-Contemporary. The fourth hit, "Love Lifted Me", ironically enough became a Top-5 hit in Bangkok of all places...it completely missed the charts in America. In fact, it was in mid September of 1972 that the single debuted over there and it reached it's Top-5 peak by month's end during the song's third week on the chart. It started to fall back down the chart in the first week of October.

Keeping with the religious/gospel overtones we move on to a single that Ray released on RCA in 1982 with the peculiar title of "Where The Sun Don't Shine". The song comes complete with a church style organ, hand-claps, and bouncy sing-a-long lyrics. The story of the song is about a man and a woman who've broken-up. The man wants to be a gentleman about everything and offers to give the woman just about everything he has, even going so far as to say he'd help her put everything in a U-haul, but then among all this gentleman behavior he offers her some advice of where she can take her love and put it as well. It's a novelty song, of course, but it's performed so serious which makes it funnier...especially toward the end where Ray really gets into the spirit of the song and like a gospel shouter continues to tell the woman where she can stick her love. The song is much better than the actual peak performance on the country charts would indicate...as I pointed out in some of my earlier blogs this was at a time when country radio was starting to shun the comedy song in general no matter who the artist happened to be.

I saw Ray perform the song on television only once...it was during a clip-filled program that used to air on The Nashville Network. The program was called Country Standard Time and it spotlighted classic performances from country artists through the years...in one episode they shown Ray performing "Where The Sun Don't Shine" on an episode of That Nashville Music. The song comes from Ray's 1982 album, Don't Laugh Now. In the mid '80s it was included on the RCA Collector's Series album which is where the picture of Ray comes from. I scanned the image from my personal collection. The album was re-issued in cassette form in 1987 and then it was re-issued in CD form in 1992. Since that time the vinyl version, obviously, has gone out of print as did the cassette and CD versions. RCA has not re-issued the collection digitally yet. As Ray Stevens fans we're all hoping RCA will release all of Ray's material in Mp3 format at some point...even CD format would be great as well! My advice is check eBay or some other on-line music store for Collector's Series. Sometimes the actual vinyl copy of Don't Laugh Now comes up for sale.

After doing my daily check of Amazon I discovered that Ray's current single, "God Save Arizona", is among the best-selling Mp3 singles in the Alternative Country-Americana category. This is the first time I'd seen the single ranked in a best-seller list and so my guess is it debuted at some point today and has risen each hour. As of this writing it's ranked at #33. It's anyone's guess why Amazon decided to put the single in that category instead of in the country format as they did his previous releases. Perhaps the overall feel of the song being so tied to America enabled it to be tagged in that category? Whatever the reason...as long as it's listed as a best-seller is all we fans care about because it shows those who criticize him that there is a great number of people who agree with his points of view. Two of his You Tube music videos have combined to total over 6,000,000 hits...with this kind of track record what more proof do the skeptics and naysayers need?? Ray really does speak to a large majority of people...and I'm sure you all, like myself, get annoyed whenever you read a blogger try and make Ray out to be a representative for a small group of people.

Ray Stevens and those Music Video Hits...

"God Save Arizona" is currently sitting at 183,920 hits on You Tube. The video has officially been available for 1 month...except for several days when it was off-line. It looks to top the 200,000 mark relatively soon...it's 16,080 hits away from reaching that milestone. Currently this video is the 9th most popular among the music video uploads that Ray has issued on You Tube. I suspect the ranking will go higher as it gets more hits. Here's an overview of his music video hit list along with their most up to date hit counts...in bold print are the music videos released on You Tube within the last 9 months...

1. Come to the USA: 3,598,135 hits
2. We The People: 3,531,156 hits
3. Osama Yo' Mama: 529,077 hits
4. Throw the Bums Out!: 451,234 hits
5. The Mississippi Squirrel Revival: 421,579 hits
6. The Streak: 321,879 hits
7. Caribou Barbie: 231,333 hits
8. Thank You: 229,296 hits
9. God Save Arizona: 183,920 hits
10. Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills: 135,987 hits
11. Everything Is Beautiful: 131,018 hits
12. Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens: 95,412 hits
13. Shriner's Convention: 63,217 hits
14. Ahab the Arab: 58,983 hits
15. The Global Warming Song: 46,253 hits
16. It's Me Again, Margaret: 42,663 hits
17. Santa Claus Is Watching You: 41,559 hits
18. Sittin' Up With the Dead: 36,534 hits
19. Misty: 31,302 hits

A 20th upload is the television commercial for Ray's We The People collection. The commercial has 44,843 hits so far.

Ray Stevens Fans Unite...

No, it's not what you're thinking. I don't officially have a Ray Stevens Appreciation Society up and running...but I do consider myself and a handful of others as members of this imaginary society. It's more or less an honorary kind of society in that there's no actual society of members who meet in person but instead it's a collective cyber-space group of like-minded Ray Stevens fans who until today had no idea I had selected them to my fictitious group. The imaginary group contains several real people who've demonstrated that they're just as crazy for Ray Stevens music as I am. Those people I'm referring to should already know who they are without my having to reveal who's who. A hint: Anyone who receives e-mails from me discussing Ray Stevens music and history. You're all members of this imaginary group of mine. I'm sure this made their day and they're excited beyond belief while jumping up and down.

Hmmm, I wonder how Ray was able to get that candy cane in one ear and out the other?

Seriously, though, I came across an article on Ray Stevens written several weeks ago...August 13th to be exact. The article was moderately positive...it didn't have any overly negative commentary but it wasn't a gushy article either. Obviously as Ray Stevens fans we prefer the gushy, positive articles and interviews featuring Ray Stevens. The article examined Ray's success with You Tube music videos...making reference to "Come to the USA" and "God Save Arizona". Focusing on those two songs, in particular, made sense because the article was written for an Arizona-based news organization. The actual article including a video of "God Save Arizona" can be found here. There are a lot of user comments at the bottom of the article and predictably there's a lot of bickering back and fourth but that's come to be expected given the intensity of the song's message. Personally I don't see why anyone would have a bad thing to say about the song but there are plenty who have problems with it.

147,374 hits have accumulated so far for "God Save Arizona". I feel that it still needs that big push to really send the video into the stratosphere and approach half a million status and higher. That big push will no doubt be a high profile interview or some sort of other high profile publicity on Fox News or elsewhere. It's only been available for almost three weeks so it's still relatively new...but if you're like I am you usually want the most latest offering from Ray Stevens to quickly gain a lot of notice...not saying that this video hasn't gained some notice...but it has some ways to go before it reaches that 500,000 and higher club.

Ray Stevens and Arizona...It's no Laughing Matter...

I happen to believe that a lot of things in the music business are cyclical. There is abundant proof currently on display when it comes to Ray Stevens. Ray burst onto the scene in the late '50s performing love ballads rooted in R&B and early rock music. However, he didn't get any mainstream attention until he joined Mercury Records in 1961...following a 1960 single on the NRC label entitled "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", one of his very first comedy recordings. The comical approach told Ray that it would get him some attention...and during 1961-1963 Ray wrote and recorded a steady stream of comical songs and love ballads. The comical songs made the most impression on the various pop music charts of the era...and suddenly Ray found himself being labeled a novelty artist. This comical image was difficult to overcome no matter how many fine, serious recordings Ray made during the mid 1960's.

Then something happened...by 1968 Ray found himself gaining some momentum on the pop charts with a non-comical song for the first time in his career. "Unwind" would peak just below the Top-50...by doing so it became his most successful non-comical recording to date. The song was his fifth single release on Monument Records...and the sixth single release later in 1968 became his major breakthrough non-comical song. The song in question? It's none other than "Mr. Businessman". It was a social commentary song putting on trial the average businessman's reputation. Ray's album that year, Even Stevens, shown a much more serious overtone than his previous albums. Also, his voice had by this time deepened...causing him to sound completely different than he did throughout the bulk of the '60s. Ray would continue to issue comical material off and on during the 1969-1974 time frame but 90% of the material was non-comical. This serious approach to material enabled Ray to build a fan base that preferred the serious, non-comical recordings he was making in this era.

1970's "Everything Is Beautiful" was and continues to be his biggest non-comical hit song. It reached #1 and was a million seller...a year earlier he emerged with an all-comedy album, Gitarzan, featuring the million selling title track. He flip-flopped from comedy to serious material often and in early 1971 "Bridget the Midget, The Queen of the Blues" became a smash comedy single in England. Ray would continue to release the occasional comedy song or full length comedy album but the bulk of his commercial singles happened to be serious love ballads. Ray had his biggest selling hit single, "The Streak", during the streaking fad of 1974...it was a million selling comedy song and hit #1 in a little over a month's time on the pop chart.

What all of this boils down to is Ray's career can be described as somewhat cyclical due to the flip-flopping of serious and comedy recordings...not to forget the flips from pop to country to R&B to gospel. Throughout the mid '80s and on through the next two decades of the '90s and 2000's Ray had firmly established himself as a country comedian...and it's that image and it's those comical recordings that typecast him once and for all as a singer of comedy songs. Also, several generations of audiences grew up on this comical version of Ray Stevens...and much like the audiences of the late '60s through the mid '70s preferred the much more serious Ray Stevens, the audiences of the '80s through the '90s were much more familiar with the zany and comical Ray Stevens and that's what the general public wanted to see. "God Save Arizona" and his recent video hits on You Tube carrying political overtones is something foreign to the generations who grew up with the image of Ray Stevens singing and prancing around a stage playing characters-in-song and joking around with the audience and his band members. This brings us back to that cyclical phrase once again. Anytime an artist chooses to shift gears it's bound to ruffle some feathers and make some uncomfortable. Ray Stevens "going political", as some refer to it, is something new and different from an artist who up until late last year rarely talked politics in such a public way.

The very idea of a "comedy singer" having anything "serious" to say, especially about politics, tickled a lot of people's funny bones and gained Ray a lot of attention. There were some who misunderstood "We The People" and took it to mean something completely out of context. Some thought Ray was spoofing the Tea Party, for example, but in reality he was supporting them through his style of humor. In "Come to the USA", you had people out there whining and crying and accusing Ray of being racist. "God Save Arizona", the latest hit video, created a similar misunderstanding when some accused Ray of being a borderline fascist who wishes to see the Federal Government over-thrown. I'm sure at some point Ray will return to the non-political songs...cyclical time indicates things often return again...but let none of you out there forget that it is a business after all. Ray's having some of the most talked-about songs of his career and they're finding audiences on You Tube...and the exposure translates into potential sales for the music. Like in time's past once something isn't successful anymore you move on to something else that'll hopefully grab people's attention. Meanwhile his political music videos of late are grabbing people's attention...and the idea of getting attention is what any singer hopes to do with everything they release.

Anyway...enjoy Ray's current You Tube video hit...

Let's discuss Ray Stevens...

Several days ago word got out through a social networking site that Ray Stevens had appeared at the Fraternal Order of Eagles in Louisville, Kentucky and put on a concert for the group. This appearance went under the radar and the reason behind it was perhaps the venue where Ray performed wasn't open to the public...that is...it wasn't your typical concert where anyone can walk-up to a box office and buy a ticket. My guess is had this appearance been more widely known there would have been hundreds of people showing up becoming members of the Eagles organization just to have the chance to see the concert. In my opinion that is why the appearance was kept quiet...because of the Eagles being a members-only organization it wouldn't have made any sense to announce his appearance "to the public at large". I wonder if he performed "Shriner's Convention"...given that the song is all about a convention of Shriners, a members-only organization, and at one point in the song Ray mentions the Knights of Columbus.

In the world of You Tube music videos Ray has officially gone beyond the hundred thousand mark with his latest song/video, "God Save Arizona". The music video has obtained 103,605 hits since being uploaded almost two weeks ago. This kind of pace usually means that Ray is in for another hugely successful video. As of this writing the song is only available for purchase at Ray's web-site store. I had been wondering if the Mp3 would become available elsewhere but for now it's still exclusively available at Ray's web-site. You can get an Mp3 digital download at Ray's web-site store. It's a wonderful song and I'm sure most of you who frequent this blog have watched the video already as I've embedded it in a couple of my previous blogs. To find those you can search the archives on the right side of the screen. Also there's a visual time-line that stretches from 1957 up through the current year that runs along the right side of the blog as well. I spent a lot of time on that time-line when I was putting this blog page together two years ago and I often add images from time to time.

"God Save Arizona" is NOT available on this CD. This collection is Ray's most recent CD release and it does feature "We The People", "Thank You", "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", "Come to the USA", "The Global Warming Song", and a lot of other political and patriotic songs...however, "God Save Arizona" came along several months after this CD was released as to why you won't be able to find the song on the CD. As mentioned earlier the only way to get "God Save Arizona" as of this writing is through Ray's web-site store. The We The People CD is still a must-have purchase because it features all of the songs that have become major hits on You Tube during the last half a year. Yes, it's hard to believe that this coming December marks the first year anniversary of "We The People" becoming a You Tube sensation. The video was uploaded on December 11, 2009! As of this writing that music video has obtained 3.4 million hits. The actual total is 3,483,817 hits. "Come to the USA", uploaded on You Tube not too long ago on May 13, 2010 has enjoyed 3,346,220 hits.

Ray Stevens: Video Single success...

Tuesday morning! There's not much happening at the moment as far as Ray Stevens activity is concerned. The current video single, "God Save Arizona", has reached 75,437 hits on You Tube and the CD and Mp3 are still available for sale at Ray's web-site store. As of this writing the song isn't available on Amazon or any other on-line music store. I assume the single will become more widely available if and when it shoots beyond a hundred thousand hits. This is just my guess, though. Who knows...the single may become more widely available next week!? I came across another back-handed commentary about Ray's latest string of video singles...I won't quote it but I'm curious why the writer felt the need to describe Ray as "an aging pop novelty singer". Why should someone's age even be put front and center? I could understand it if Ray were literally 100 years old or 90, in the tradition of the late George Burns, where his age was always being a conversation piece...but I don't feel writers/bloggers/critics need to single out a performer's age. Why do I feel that way? It's because of bias...some use age discrimination, directly or indirectly, to cheer or jeer someone in the performing arts. By using the phrase "aging" it makes the blogger appear to be disrespectful to the performer, in this case the performer is Ray Stevens. Why do I say that? It's because other words could have been used such as "legend", "veteran country comic", or "legendary novelty singer"...see, by using those particular descriptive words it shows some respect toward the performer. But instead what we got from the writer/blogger is a description of the performer as "aging". There were some so-called hip music critics who called Ray Stevens "aging" back in 1992 when Comedy Video Classics was released. As a fan I was offended then and I still get offended when he's not shown any respect.

I tend to get beside myself whenever I try to figure out angry critics. There's nothing angry about this album, though. It was released in 1989 on the MCA label and it showcased the two sides of Ray Stevens the public at large is familiar with: the comedian and the serious singer. In fact...this album marked the first time since 1983 that brand new non-comical material was featured. His previous albums for MCA starting in 1984 and running through 1988 contained nothing but comedy material...with the lone exception being a song called "Furthermore" on his 1984 album. The song was a bluesy performance telling the story of a man coming to grips with losing his girlfriend. Some may have found the song comical simply because it was performed by Ray Stevens. Did you all know that there are some people out there who laugh at almost everything Ray sings...disregarding whether or not a song is meant to be comical or if it's meant to be taken seriously. Beside Myself contains 10 songs...five comical and five non-comical. "Another Fine Mess" is one of my favorites. It has a saxophone as it's main instrument...a slow tempo saxophone at that...and most people who hear the saxophone being played that way will no doubt be drawn into the song. The song is about a couple falling in love...and going by the lyrics it's something of an awkward relationship but nevertheless the two grow closer.

I wrote about this double album recently. This particular collection was sold on television and in newspaper print ads throughout the late 1980's. I'd seen the TV commercial a couple of times so I can barely recall how it played out. It was one of those kind of commercials where the names of the songs scroll up the TV screen as snippets of the songs are played. In this commercial Ray dressed up in various costumes acting out the lyrics in several of the songs. This could have been a foreshadowing of his highly successful music video career in the 1990's. The official title is Get The Best of Ray Stevens...which sounds like something you'd hear at the start of a commercial...so the album's name very likely was given it's title simply because the people buying the album were getting the best of Ray Stevens. Now, of course, this album came along in 1987...and he's recorded a lot more songs since then...and so it's the best Ray Stevens recordings up until that time period. A lot of the songs were featured on the Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits, Volume Two collections...both 1987 releases.

In-print Ray Stevens classics...

Good Sunday morning all the Ray Stevens fans out there. I'm sure you're aware of this particular 1991 collection? In case some are not familiar with it then read the following sentences and learn something about it. The collection, as mentioned, came along in 1991 and was released on the Curb Records label. This was something of a series of greatest hits packages that the label issued on several artists that year. Each of the collections featured pretty much the same art decoration and graphics. The collection contains ten songs and out of those 10, eight of them are non-comical. This continues to be one of the few greatest hits collections issued on Ray Stevens to focus almost exclusively on the non-comedy recordings that he had commercial success with. The collection is notable among Ray Stevens fans for including an alternate version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner". The song made it's debut on Ray's 1989 album, Beside Myself. However, on this collection, you'll hear different lyrics...although it retains the same chorus as before. Naturally, since 1991, there have been an abundance of CD releases of his 1970's recordings when he was primarily recording nothing but non-comedy songs...but this 1991 collection is still a good addition to anyone's Ray Stevens collection. I know people still buy vinyl and cassette through on-line flea markets so those who come across this collection and might not be familiar with some of the lesser-known mainstream recordings featured on here...go ahead and think about purchasing it. It's also an obscure release. Liner notes are provided by a writer named Don Ovens. The picture of Ray as most are aware was a widely used publicity photo during this era.

Speaking of CD releases of Ray's 1970's material...Warner Brothers in 1995 released a three CD collection of songs which enabled long out of print material Ray recorded in the late '70s to emerge in the CD age. Those songs were pulled from the following albums: 1976's Just For the Record; 1977's Feel the Music; 1978's There Is Something On Your Mind and Be Your Own Best Friend. A single-only release from 1979 was also spotlighted in the three CD collection. The single, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", inspired his 1979 album of previously recorded material, The Feeling's Not Right Again. Varese Sarabande was responsible for the release of several CD's in the late '90s concentrating on Ray's late '60s recordings on Monument Records. Two of Ray's albums for Monument: Even Stevens and Gitarzan were both issued in CD format during the late '90s. He recorded those albums in 1968 and 1969 respectively.

The Warner Brothers and Monument material has since been issued digitally as well. Ray's work on Barnaby Records, 1970-1975, finally became in-print on CD and in Mp3 format in the middle of last decade thanks in large part to a company known as Collectables Records. They issued all of his Barnaby albums except one onto CD and Mp3 format in 2005. The one album on Barnaby Records that Collectables didn't release was Losin' Streak. It's anyone's guess why that particular album wasn't issued on CD/Mp3...but the other albums he recorded for the label became available: Everything Is Beautiful and Unreal both from 1970; Nashville from 1973; Boogity-Boogity and Turn Your Radio On from 1974; and Misty from 1975.

Fast-forwarding 35 years to 2010 we take a look at Ray's contemporary successes. His You Tube music video, "God Save Arizona", after having been passed around Twitter and the blogs during the last several days, has racked up the hits significantly since my last blog entry. In my previous blog entry I remarked that the video had obtained more than 50,000 hits. As of right now the hit count rests at 65,615. I'd say the music video easily hits the 100,000 mark in a week's time or maybe sooner...depending on how many more people discover the video. Some are just now discovering "Come to the USA" even after the video had gone beyond three million hits a couple of months ago. Lost in the shuffle is "The Global Warming Song" which was released on You Tube last month and as of now it's gotten 41,267 hits...compare that to the 65,615 hits "God Save Arizona" has gotten in a week's time. I hadn't did a complete update in awhile...here are the up to date hit counts for Ray's last series of music videos going back to December 2009's release of "We The People"...

We The People: 3,459,410

Thank You: 214,002

Caribou Barbie: 210,576

Throw the Bums Out!: 406,123

Come to the USA: 3,211,204

The Global Warming Song: 41,267

God Save Arizona: 65,615

"God Save Arizona" is available as a CD single and as an Mp3 digital single. This is the first offer of an actual CD single since "We The People". I purchased the Mp3 download but haven't purchased a physical copy of the single...yet. I may or may not. I purchased both the physical CD single and the Mp3 single of "We The People", though...but I may just wait and see if "God Save Arizona" is part of a much larger collection of newly recorded material before I decide if I want to buy the CD single. The song isn't on the We The People album so the only place to find it is on You Tube and the only place to purchase the song is at Ray Stevens' store located at his web-site. You can also watch the official music video here. I always embed or post URL links to the official music videos at some point...why? Well, it's because I want the hits going toward the official uploads from Ray Stevens. There are some people on You Tube that upload Ray's music videos for the sole purpose of trashing the video...and so I always embed the official music video's from Ray Stevens. In other words...any video upload from a Ray Stevens hater isn't going to appear on my blog page.

Ray Stevens requests God to Save Arizona...

As long time fans of Ray Stevens are well aware of we're always being surprised...this time around it's the out of the blue music video release of "God Save Arizona". The reason I say it's out of the blue is because there wasn't much advanced alert of a video in the works...the song itself is brand new and not something on his We The People collection. The song combines the attack of the U.S.S. Arizona during World War Two and relates this to the modern-day illegal immigration war currently going on. The song isn't comical and as of right now it has over 45,000 hits on You Tube. It was uploaded a few days ago but then it became unavailable for some reason. I originally had a blog posted about the music video but when the video was removed from You Tube, for whatever reason, I deleted my original blog because the video of course would no longer play but now I'm re-posting a more concise version of my original blog with "God Save Arizona" at the bottom of the entry.

Time will tell how many hits this particular music video receives but considering we're heading into the mid-term election cycle and Arizona being one of the top items of discussion politically I'd not be surprised if this music video easily reaches hundreds of thousands of hits in two weeks time...perhaps more. The message is stirring...as is the musical arrangement. As I mentioned...this song is not available on his We The People collection and so chances are much of the inspiration for this song is tied to the latest round of court battles where a judge blocked several aspects of the SB 1070 immigration law from going into effect. To illustrate just how strong this video is doing...it's gotten more hits in just a few days time than his previous music video, "The Global Warming Song", has received in a little over a month.

Here's the video...hopefully it'll remain uploaded this time...