Ray Stevens: 1992 Bus Tour Video Clip...

Hello one and all!! In this increasingly extensive partial economic shut down America is going through due to the COVID-19 virus some performers are going on virtual tours...well, I should say, they're uploading performance video clips on a wide array of platforms to remain in touch with their audience due to entertainment venues being determined a non-essential business several weeks ago. Those video clips aren't 'music videos'...they're put together with a definite home-made quality and they come across as web-camera performances. I'm sure there will be a small audience for this kind of thing once life gets back to normal but for now that's all the music performers can do since their work is deemed non-essential and there's a ban on large, public gatherings. The State Governors across the country have more or less been in step with one another and usually what's been considered non-essential in one State is adopted by the other States as well.

So, then, with no live concerts or touring or anything else really going on in the world of country music as far as public events are concerned the entertainers have turned more toward the internet than ever before. Although Ray, for  now, hasn't jumped into the fray and began performing songs from his house or from his recording studio at the CabaRay he nevertheless has kept his social media platforms active. One could say he's gone in the opposite direction from other performers and rather than posting video commentary of himself discussing the pandemic he's treating his fan base with memories of performances from his past. I think it might be his way of keeping pre-COVID-19 imagery and our normal way of life at the forefront and to promote hope for the return of normalcy in America sooner rather than later. That is just my opinion, though. As my message states off to the right underneath my photo, it goes something like this: This is a fan-created blog page and it shouldn't be taken as official representation of Ray or his office staff. I'm one to give my opinion freely and that's my opinion.

In this blog entry I'm embedding a video clip from earlier today. It's a video of Ray Stevens from 1992 and it aired as part of a bus tour and it's a video clip that was never released to the general public. It's an advertisement to entice operators of bus tours to include Ray's theater on their itinerary. I love seeing the video clips that come along every few days...

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series, Part 28...

Once again welcome to the Golden LP Series! This time we take a look at studio album 28 in the career of Ray Stevens. This particular release hit in 1991 and it could easily be described as songwriter Buddy Kalb's magnum opus. Kalb wrote or co-wrote 9 of the 10 songs on here. This wasn't the first Ray Stevens project that featured an abundance of Kalb material. He'd been writing songs for and with Ray on a consistent basis since the early '80s. Each successive LP that Ray issued throughout the '80s would usually include at least 4 songs from the pen of Buddy Kalb...often in collaboration with Ray. Their magnum opus on vinyl as a songwriting team was studio album 26 in 1989. That particular album was largely written by Ray and Buddy but this 1991 release is the first time that Buddy was the sole writer on just about every song.

The 28th studio album was titled #1 With a Bullet. This title is based on music industry jargon that a general audience may not be familiar with. In the music business there are weekly charts that rank albums and songs based on sales and airplay. Whenever a single or an album shown an increase in sales or airplay it receives what's referred to as a bullet. If you look at any weekly music chart you'll see numbers that appear on a black dot on certain singles and albums. Those are the releases that have been given bullets to indicate that the release is 'hot' and is a 'fast mover', etc. etc. just like a real bullet from a gun. When a single is said to have gone #1 With a Bullet that means the single is incredibly hot and shows no signs of losing steam for a couple of weeks even though it can no go higher than #1. The same applies to albums as well. The phrase "with a bullet" simply indicates that a song or album is selling briskly or has a good opening week on the charts. However, this doesn't mean that an artist must reach the charts in order to show their popularity. All artists have their initial across the board successes but ultimately what happens over the course of time is an artist begins to focus on their fan-base and what might please a targeted audience rather than a general audience.

As far as this album goes it's a return to zaniness and nuttiness. In the early years of the macho do-it-yourself kind of men we have the perfect song addressing the situation in "Power Tools". In this song, one of the single releases, Ray sings about the utter chaos and destruction that happens as a result of his messing with stuff he shouldn't be messing with. It's a good way to open up an album filled with zany goings-on. The song reached the Country Singles chart early in 1992 as an album cut. There wasn't a commercial single available for purchase.

In a song that was inspired by a Saturday morning cartoon series we have "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens". Spoofing the Ninja turtles, Ray's song tells about a chicken foursome and their heroics on the farm. Ray showcases his elderly lady impression as well as a gruff vocalization as a shady con-artist who tells a story of a peculiar rooster on the farm. When Ray guest hosted Nashville Now in the latter part of 1990 or early 1991 he performed a song about the trend in country music where all the men were wearing cowboy hats. New artists that were popping up were wearing hats. In "You Gotta Have a Hat" Ray whimsically informs us that the only thing it takes to become rich and successful in country music is a hat. Ray's impression skills and overall mimicry brilliance is once again on display in "Tabloid News" where we hear about the outrageous headlines and get to hear first hand accounts by those people written about in the made up stories. One of the stories is about a woman who gives birth to an alien. We get to hear her gush and show emphatic approval of his mistakes. "The Sheik of R&B" is a pun on the movie title Sheik of Araby. In Ray's song we hear about an arab who loves the sounds of classic R&B. He'd discovered it by accident while in the vicinity of an American soldier's army tent. "Juanita and the Kids" is a satire on the IRS and taxes in general. In the original recording Ray performs the song in his natural voice but several years later, when a music video was made, he re-recorded the song with an exaggerated Americanized Spanish-Mexican accent. Ray offers a re-recording of "The Pirate Song", track five.

"A Little Blue Haired Lady", track 9, is a comical story about the frustrations motorists experience while being stuck behind a driver going 20 mph in a 65 mph zone. An interesting tidbit of information you may not realize is little blue haired ladies played a factor in the hours leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. How? You'll have to listen to the song to find out! Pearl Harbor's 50th Anniversary was marked in 1991. How ironic, though, that the 1991 album would close with the social commentary of "Working For the Japanese". This is an incredible song and it was the first single release in the latter part of 1991. It was a topical song about the economy and how America consumes more and more products from overseas rather than our own products. A gong was a prominent instrument in the recording as were the vocal impressions of Geisha girls cooing and sighing in the background. The single was showing some signs of gaining traction with country radio...it reached the Country Singles chart, too. This was his first appearance on the weekly singles chart since 1988. However, political correctness was becoming an ever increasing nuisance in society. The success of the song was halted by the politically correct advocates who threatened anyone and everything that shown the slightest support of the song. As a result of a potential protest/boycott, radio stations one by one started to pull the song from their playlists. In the meantime, advertisers didn't want the song played on stations that their ads aired on for fear of a backlash of some sort. The single was nearing the Top-50 on the Country Singles chart when it was pulled from the airwaves.

1991 is the year that Ray Stevens opened up his much anticipated theater in Branson, Missouri. The facility was one of the most popular for a period of years. Ray's years in Branson, Missouri saw an obvious decrease in his road dates as well as a decrease in television show appearances. The following year would launch a new creative avenue for Ray and one that caused a steady decrease in his audio releases as more and more of his attention was being taken up by his successful theater and a phenomenal music video collection released exclusively through mail-order. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, the more we progress into the 1990's the more we see a creatively restless artist having the time of his life with music video production and marketing.

Ray Stevens: We The People in Concert...

A quick blog entry tonight...here's a brand new video of Ray performing "We The People" at a Branson, Missouri concert. My guess is this was taped during his previous slate of shows at the Welk Theater. It's gotten over 300 views at the moment.

Ray Stevens In a Concert Near You...

Good Friday morning all you fans of Ray Stevens!! It looks as if the second half of 2012 will be concert heavy as news broke the other day that Ray will appear as far west as New Mexico later this year. He has three Florida dates in late February that I wrote about a couple of blogs ago. To recap those concerts it's February 21st through 23rd. On the 21st he'll appear at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach. On the 22nd he'll be at the Lakeland Center in Lakeland, Florida and then on the 23rd he'll be at the King Center in Melbourne, Florida. In my earlier blog I provided URL links to each venue.

There are no concert appearances scheduled, at the moment, for the months of March through August. Perhaps a concert or two or three will pop up as time goes by...but starting in September Ray Stevens will perform a total of 12 concerts during the months of September and October. On September 21st he'll do two shows at the Blue Gate Theater in Shipshewana, Indiana. On September 29th he'll appear at the New Barn venue in Renfro Valley, Kentucky. He's appeared there several times during the last several years so for those familiar with the locale it'll be in the same place as before. On October 13th he'll appear at The Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino in Mescalero, New Mexico. On October 15th Ray will become a regular performer, for 6 shows, at the Andy Williams Theater in Branson, Missouri. Then, on October 26th, he'll perform 2 concerts at the Country Tonite Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Several days ago Ray celebrated his 73rd birthday. I had written a birthday blog in 2010 and 2011 but I didn't do one this year (as you can see) due mostly because of slow computer connection stemming from a series of weather events that passed through here. On Ray's Facebook page you can read the birthday wishes and belated birthday comments. The official page is called Ray Stevens Music so when you visit the site type in 'Ray Stevens Music' and you'll be there. You can also read more information about the tour dates here. When you're at Ray's web-page you'll be able to click on the info links and visit the various venue web-sites.

Ray Stevens...Hot as an Arizona desert!!!

There's been a flurry of news/write-up's on Ray Stevens over the last day and a half it seems like. On September 29th Ray's web-site updated it's news section to provide information about the success in Branson, Missouri at the Welk Theater. Today they added a new article writing up the phenomenal success his music videos on You Tube have been experiencing. To date, all of his music videos have tallied over 10,000,000 hits. Two of those videos, "Come to the USA" and "We The People", account for a good chunk of that grand total which will always be ever changing. You can read those news articles from the 29th and 30th of September in the "What's New" section at his official web-site located here...

Ray Stevens News

A second write-up/interview with a local Missouri newspaper called The Joplin Globe was issued today...details in the link below...

Jopling Globe Ray Stevens write-up

By Dave Woods, New media and marketing manager

The Joplin Globe

Thursday Sep 30, 2010, 12:21 PM CDT

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The full article/interview, as I mentioned, is located within in the URL link above. It's a lengthy article and one I didn't want to paste and copy in this blog so check it out for yourselves. Among other things, Ray gives his opinions about political correctness and the way the phrase politically incorrect is abused with reckless abandon. Although I'm sure Ray feels like he shouldn't have to defend any song that he's written and or recorded and I'm sure a lot of us fans also feel that Ray doesn't have to defend any of his songs...but it's still great to see Ray speak up for his songs, particularly those certain songs that get clobbered by the political correct advocates of today...advocates who I say instinctively look to stir up trouble and create hostility where there ordinarily wouldn't be any.

There's just a slight correction needed that I'd like to point out about the interview...a couple more gospel songs became hits as well: "A Mama and a Papa" and "All My Trials" became Top-10 hits on the Adult-Contemporary chart in the summer and fall of 1971 but since the chart isn't considered what they call a "main chart" and instead is seen as secondary, it's long been common practice to quote the chart placings on the main charts instead of the secondary ones. "Turn Your Radio On" reached the Country Top-20 in early 1972.

The latest music video released a month ago, "God Save Arizona", is sitting at 416,041 hits. A month generally breaks down to 4 or 4 and a half weeks...on country radio, for example, 4 weeks is considered relatively brand new because music charts are published weekly. On You Tube, though, 4 weeks can be considered quite lengthy depending on who you ask due to the fact that a music video gets hits at all times of the day and night and the hits that music videos or any video upload obtains are generated by hundreds of people on their computer day after day after day, etc. etc.

Just like in the old days where sales of singles pretty much dictated which songs got the most airplay on radio this same kind of thing is happening on You Tube where the more hits a video gets in a relatively short amount of time dictates just how popular the video is with video watchers. His previous music video, "The Global Warming Song", was issued 3 months ago and it's gotten 55,699 hits so far. Now, compare that to the 416,041 hits of "God Save Arizona" issued just a month ago. The timing, of course, means a whole lot as well. Global warming really isn't a high priority or a hot topic in the news even though it's a subject matter a lot of people have an opinion on. The music video most surely will get more hits as time goes by particularly if global warming becomes some sort of rabid obsession with people. Still, it's a funny music video and it skewers global warming as only Ray Stevens can...so check the music video out if you hadn't seen it yet. The news banner that runs along the screen is hilarious.

Personal commentary...

I wish that "We Are the Government" were to be made into a music video! The song is on Ray's current We The People CD. Even if the song never becomes a music video I'll continue to champion it and hype it because it's very, very funny. The mid-term elections are coming up in November and with this being the last day of September that leaves just one month, October, before election day rolls around. The song, I think, would strike a chord with the mid-term elections being right around the corner. No matter what happens in November we'll still have the Obama administration at least until January 2013 when I predict he'll have been voted out of office in November 2012. However, even though he'll continue to remain in office through 2012, if the Republicans and conservatives and Tea Party candidates all pull big victories this November the Obama administration will not have the influence as it currently has with a majority of Democrats in Congress. This is why this upcoming mid-term election is crucial at stopping the direction that the Obama policies want to take the country into.