Hello once again! I didn't embed this video in my earlier blog entry because of the presence of two other video clips. I wanted to spotlight this video clip in a blog entry centered around his appearance on Cavuto Live and the charitable events taking place for the 2020 Nashville tornado victims. The screen cap of Ray illustrates the overall mood after the damage and devastation that took place in and around Nashville early Tuesday morning. Charles Payne was the guest host on this edition of Cavuto Live. Ray's appearance occurred a little before 11:30am Eastern time...which was almost 12 hours ago...since it's 10:21pm as I type this.
Whether the screen cap used by those who uploaded the video, which can be seen HERE, was intentionally selected or purely coincidental it fits the devastating subject matter. The video clip hasn't been uploaded to YouTube, yet...and so I'm linking to the video clip from the Fox News website. The video, when attempting to embed it here, was uploaded with auto-play and so I decided to post a link to the video instead. I did this because I didn't want the video to continually play while you're attempting to read the text of this blog entry.
I did save me some screen caps from the video clip!! The screen caps feature one of those play button arrows on screen and so there was no way to get around the arrow, since it appears each time you go to pause the video, but I went ahead and saved some screen caps anyway. The link to the Cavuto Live video clip doesn't feature a comment area. However, Ray provided a video clip on his Facebook page. When you click the video it'll take you to the Fox News hosting site but remember to return to Ray's Facebook page and leave your thoughts/comments. That Facebook post can be found HERE.
Ray speaks of the CabaRay showroom and how the proceeds of the March 12th concert will go to the tornado relief fund. The CabaRay's third season gets underway on March 12th and you can read all about Ray's West Nashville showroom by clicking HERE. The showroom opened in January 2018 and this will be it's third season of operation. In addition to Ray's concerts there will be further episodes of Larry's Country Diner taped at the showroom this year, too. Something to keep in mind...the time change takes effect. Sunday morning at 2am in the East we set our clocks ahead one hour and it magically becomes 3am. Obviously if you're not a night person you set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to sleep.
Click HERE to visit the Nashville Tornado Relief donation site. The acronym, CFMT, stands for Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. The site has an on-line donation option or you can mail a check/money order to their address. If you're going to be attending the CabaRay third season opening night on March 12th then your ticket price will be your donation to the Tornado Relief.
Showing posts with label fox news channel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fox news channel. Show all posts
March 7, 2020
November 18, 2013
Ray Stevens and the Politics of the Situation...
Yes, I'm still around...and so is Ray Stevens...but it's been a lengthy drought as far as anything brand new to discuss and create awareness for. A couple of months ago I had been creating blog entries all about the clips of Ray Stevens taped during his 1970 summer TV program that were popping up on You Tube with frequency. It was during that point in time that a recent appearance from Ray Stevens on a Fox News Channel program hit You Tube. August 15th...a little more than 3 months ago...an upload titled The World According to Ray Stevens appeared on You Tube. I watched it several times and posted a link on my Facebook page back then. I didn't post the link on my blog page at that time because I felt that the subject matter (hard hitting political commentary) would clash rather heavily with the lighthearted 1970 clips I was posting.
Obamacare is front and center in political discussion once more and the canceled health care policies of millions upon millions of Americans has become a harsh reality. Those that studied Obamacare and stated all that's bad about it consistently remarked that there is language in it in the form of Federal mandates that private insurance companies have to meet, or else, those companies have no choice but to drop customers. The idea that Obamacare would have no effect on people's health care coverage had long been pointed out as a lie ("if you like your current heath care coverage, you can keep it").
After all of the cancellations had been sent out and therefore had taken effect, Obama once again shown his penchant for ignoring existing laws while creating new laws out of thin air (Congress/the Legislative Branch is the only branch of Government that can make laws or amend previous laws, a President doesn't have this authority! Obama should have learned this, as we all did, in grade school Social Studies or even a junior high Government/Civics class).
Anyway, in his usual dictatorial style, Obama demanded that private insurance companies "reinstate the policies they canceled as a result of the health care mandates and simply ignore what the law states"; given all of this it's a perfect opportunity to spotlight the Ray Stevens interview from a couple of months ago where he speaks about politics and his humorous approach at dealing with all the madness.
Ray's heavy involvement in political humor and commentary began late in 2009, around this point in time, during the first year of Obama's time in the White House while the looming Obamacare was making it's way through Congress. A video, "We the People", became an on-line video hit and throughout 2010 and on into 2012 Ray supplied the on-line video community with a series of politically charged music videos. His videos have reached more than 25,000,000 people during the last 4 years and there's no telling how many times the videos have been watched by those millions of people. You Tube only counts 1 view per computer, commonly referred to as a unique view or a unique visitor. Multiple visits to the same video aren't counted in the visitor/view totals.
This means, you could watch one of his videos, "Mr. President - Mr. President", 3 times in a row, every day for a year straight, but only that first initial view is ever counted toward the view total that appears just below the video screen on it's main page. This system is in place to deliver accuracy for advertisers and to display accurate totals based on visitor total, rather than play totals, for the artists and or record companies. Play totals skew things too much. If You Tube used play totals, for example, a Ray Stevens video that has more than 4 million visitors could realistically have 20 million plays if you factor in multiple plays from the same visitor. See how skewed and misleading "play totals" can be? That is why "unique visitor" totals are used on You Tube instead of play totals.
The "Obama Budget Plan" has more than 2 million visits so far. The specific total is 2,729,860. This video, debuting on April 25, 2011, had it's biggest impact during the budget debates and all of the fiasco surrounding the debt limit and debt ceiling and the constant back and fourth among Obama, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the officials that make up the Congressional Budget Office. Given that the reputation of Obama and mostly all Democratic Presidents through history is to spend enormous amounts of money that the nation doesn't have and then raise taxes "on the rich" in an attempt to make up the loss is at the heart of this particular song/video. The humor, or painful truth, is displayed in the plot of an average American family that decides to emulate the Federal Government and print as much money as possible using a printing press. However, reality sets in for this family and the outcome is played out in video form...but yet members of the Federal Government that participate in the same thing aren't treated as criminal, unethical or immoral.
The video for "Obama Nation"...at the moment it's gotten 949,434 unique views. It hit You Tube on July 23, 2012...
Voter fraud's become an underlying theme in a lot of elections in recent history. Accusations of it or factual proof of it no doubt inspired "Grandpa Voted Democrat". The video hit You Tube on November 3, 2012 prior to the 2012 Election cycle and it's been seen by 335,103 people. To date, this is the last political song that Ray Stevens has issued in video format...
There have been a couple of politically themed commentaries from Ray that have appeared since November 2012, titled 'Politically Speaking', plus several interviews of Ray discussing political issues such as the one at the start of this blog entry, but as far as a conventional music video is concerned, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" is the last political one as of November 18, 2013. This was an off year, too, as far as major national elections, but I look for this video to bounce back again during the 2014 Election cycle.
One of his videos is close to entering the million visitor realm, "Mr. President - Mr. President". This video hit You Tube on September 27, 2011 and it current has 998,494 unique views...
As more and more of Obamacare is unleashed on people the mood is certainly favorable for a new video/song directed toward the situation.
Obamacare is front and center in political discussion once more and the canceled health care policies of millions upon millions of Americans has become a harsh reality. Those that studied Obamacare and stated all that's bad about it consistently remarked that there is language in it in the form of Federal mandates that private insurance companies have to meet, or else, those companies have no choice but to drop customers. The idea that Obamacare would have no effect on people's health care coverage had long been pointed out as a lie ("if you like your current heath care coverage, you can keep it").
After all of the cancellations had been sent out and therefore had taken effect, Obama once again shown his penchant for ignoring existing laws while creating new laws out of thin air (Congress/the Legislative Branch is the only branch of Government that can make laws or amend previous laws, a President doesn't have this authority! Obama should have learned this, as we all did, in grade school Social Studies or even a junior high Government/Civics class).
Anyway, in his usual dictatorial style, Obama demanded that private insurance companies "reinstate the policies they canceled as a result of the health care mandates and simply ignore what the law states"; given all of this it's a perfect opportunity to spotlight the Ray Stevens interview from a couple of months ago where he speaks about politics and his humorous approach at dealing with all the madness.
Ray's heavy involvement in political humor and commentary began late in 2009, around this point in time, during the first year of Obama's time in the White House while the looming Obamacare was making it's way through Congress. A video, "We the People", became an on-line video hit and throughout 2010 and on into 2012 Ray supplied the on-line video community with a series of politically charged music videos. His videos have reached more than 25,000,000 people during the last 4 years and there's no telling how many times the videos have been watched by those millions of people. You Tube only counts 1 view per computer, commonly referred to as a unique view or a unique visitor. Multiple visits to the same video aren't counted in the visitor/view totals.
This means, you could watch one of his videos, "Mr. President - Mr. President", 3 times in a row, every day for a year straight, but only that first initial view is ever counted toward the view total that appears just below the video screen on it's main page. This system is in place to deliver accuracy for advertisers and to display accurate totals based on visitor total, rather than play totals, for the artists and or record companies. Play totals skew things too much. If You Tube used play totals, for example, a Ray Stevens video that has more than 4 million visitors could realistically have 20 million plays if you factor in multiple plays from the same visitor. See how skewed and misleading "play totals" can be? That is why "unique visitor" totals are used on You Tube instead of play totals.
The "Obama Budget Plan" has more than 2 million visits so far. The specific total is 2,729,860. This video, debuting on April 25, 2011, had it's biggest impact during the budget debates and all of the fiasco surrounding the debt limit and debt ceiling and the constant back and fourth among Obama, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the officials that make up the Congressional Budget Office. Given that the reputation of Obama and mostly all Democratic Presidents through history is to spend enormous amounts of money that the nation doesn't have and then raise taxes "on the rich" in an attempt to make up the loss is at the heart of this particular song/video. The humor, or painful truth, is displayed in the plot of an average American family that decides to emulate the Federal Government and print as much money as possible using a printing press. However, reality sets in for this family and the outcome is played out in video form...but yet members of the Federal Government that participate in the same thing aren't treated as criminal, unethical or immoral.
The video for "Obama Nation"...at the moment it's gotten 949,434 unique views. It hit You Tube on July 23, 2012...
Voter fraud's become an underlying theme in a lot of elections in recent history. Accusations of it or factual proof of it no doubt inspired "Grandpa Voted Democrat". The video hit You Tube on November 3, 2012 prior to the 2012 Election cycle and it's been seen by 335,103 people. To date, this is the last political song that Ray Stevens has issued in video format...
There have been a couple of politically themed commentaries from Ray that have appeared since November 2012, titled 'Politically Speaking', plus several interviews of Ray discussing political issues such as the one at the start of this blog entry, but as far as a conventional music video is concerned, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" is the last political one as of November 18, 2013. This was an off year, too, as far as major national elections, but I look for this video to bounce back again during the 2014 Election cycle.
One of his videos is close to entering the million visitor realm, "Mr. President - Mr. President". This video hit You Tube on September 27, 2011 and it current has 998,494 unique views...
As more and more of Obamacare is unleashed on people the mood is certainly favorable for a new video/song directed toward the situation.
May 31, 2013
Ray Stevens visits Fox News, June 1st...
Hello all...as the title of the blog entry indicates, Ray Stevens will be appearing on the Fox News Channel tomorrow, June 1st. The appearance is scheduled to take place at some point during the 12pm EST hour on the America's News Headquarters program. The news of the appearance was released in the latter half of Thursday and by the time I had returned to the computer it was well past 11pm and so I decided to make mention of the Saturday appearance this morning.
There is much more about this from Absolute Publicity, the company that represents Ray.
His appearance tomorrow, as you'll read about in the link, deals with the various politically driven music videos he's issued on You Tube since December 2009. The unique view totals, according to the news release, have eclipsed 20,000,000. The accomplishment of this is noteworthy when you consider that the political music videos are seen as topical...but conventional wisdom would have you believe that anything topical has a short shelf life and therefore becomes irrelevant once the topic at hand loses priority to something else. The fact remains that Ray's "topical" music videos continue to attract views, clicks, and shares to this day and I share my opinion as to why this is happening further down the blog. While briefly looking through some of the tweets about Ray I saw links posted to "Obama Budget Plan" and I often find links to "Obama Nation" and "Throw the Bums Out!" too.
Often, political music in general are nostalgically placed in the late '60s/early '70s time frame. Also true is the fact that most artists who perform politically driven songs, for the most part, are politically liberal and therefore their music is skewed to please a liberal audience. Also true is most news outlets, both on television and on-line, are more likely to embrace political songs that cater to a liberal message of some kind.
Ray Stevens, who for some came out of nowhere in 2009, is one of the few artists that have broken through in a big way over the last several years with political music videos promoting the Tea Party, a smaller Government, and fiscal responsibility. These political issues aren't 'topical'...they're mainstays of a political message. The names of politicians certainly change but rarely do their methods and goals change. Therefore, in my opinion, Ray's political songs will be able to continue to entertain hundreds of thousands of people for months and years....which is exactly what's taking place now.
There is much more about this from Absolute Publicity, the company that represents Ray.
His appearance tomorrow, as you'll read about in the link, deals with the various politically driven music videos he's issued on You Tube since December 2009. The unique view totals, according to the news release, have eclipsed 20,000,000. The accomplishment of this is noteworthy when you consider that the political music videos are seen as topical...but conventional wisdom would have you believe that anything topical has a short shelf life and therefore becomes irrelevant once the topic at hand loses priority to something else. The fact remains that Ray's "topical" music videos continue to attract views, clicks, and shares to this day and I share my opinion as to why this is happening further down the blog. While briefly looking through some of the tweets about Ray I saw links posted to "Obama Budget Plan" and I often find links to "Obama Nation" and "Throw the Bums Out!" too.
Often, political music in general are nostalgically placed in the late '60s/early '70s time frame. Also true is the fact that most artists who perform politically driven songs, for the most part, are politically liberal and therefore their music is skewed to please a liberal audience. Also true is most news outlets, both on television and on-line, are more likely to embrace political songs that cater to a liberal message of some kind.
Ray Stevens, who for some came out of nowhere in 2009, is one of the few artists that have broken through in a big way over the last several years with political music videos promoting the Tea Party, a smaller Government, and fiscal responsibility. These political issues aren't 'topical'...they're mainstays of a political message. The names of politicians certainly change but rarely do their methods and goals change. Therefore, in my opinion, Ray's political songs will be able to continue to entertain hundreds of thousands of people for months and years....which is exactly what's taking place now.
April 10, 2012
Ray Stevens on Fox and Friends
Good afternoon all the Ray Stevens fans...Ray appeared on Fox and Friends this morning, twice. He appeared toward the end of the televised program and sang a medley of songs from The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. Songs featured were "White Lightnin'", "Charlie Brown", "Chug-a-Lug", and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavor?".
You can see this by clicking the following: Ray Stevens Medley. If the video plays in slow motion, right click over top of the video and it'll play at normal speed. The video playback was slow for me and so I right clicked over top of the video and the speed corrected itself. Make sure you right click over part of the video that of course doesn't obscure Ray!
After the show ended Ray appeared on what's known as After the Show Show...an extended visit where he spoke more about the Encyclopedia and performed "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" in it's entirety.
Here's the link to that performance: Ray Stevens on Fox and Friends, After the Show.
Ray is scheduled to appear later this evening on a Fox News Radio program at 7:30pm. I will more than likely be asleep at that time (I'm a third-shift worker and so I sleep during the afternoons and most of the evening!). So, I'll check the internet tomorrow morning and see if there's any podcasts available of the interview. If there's any, of course, I'll be posting the links on this blog page.
You can see this by clicking the following: Ray Stevens Medley. If the video plays in slow motion, right click over top of the video and it'll play at normal speed. The video playback was slow for me and so I right clicked over top of the video and the speed corrected itself. Make sure you right click over part of the video that of course doesn't obscure Ray!
After the show ended Ray appeared on what's known as After the Show Show...an extended visit where he spoke more about the Encyclopedia and performed "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" in it's entirety.
Here's the link to that performance: Ray Stevens on Fox and Friends, After the Show.
Ray is scheduled to appear later this evening on a Fox News Radio program at 7:30pm. I will more than likely be asleep at that time (I'm a third-shift worker and so I sleep during the afternoons and most of the evening!). So, I'll check the internet tomorrow morning and see if there's any podcasts available of the interview. If there's any, of course, I'll be posting the links on this blog page.
April 7, 2012
In the Ray Stevens Mood, Part 3...
A funny thing happened on the way to my publishing my previous blog entry. Another web-site was putting together their page filled with more information about Ray's upcoming television and radio tour to promote the Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The web-site called Music News Nashville features a page filled with upcoming Ray Stevens appearances. All show-times are in the Eastern time zone. Those who live in the Central or Western time zones will have to do the usual mathematics in determining the air-times in your area.
The fun begins on April 10th as I mentioned in my previous blog. Fox and Friends appearance during the 8am hour, a Fox News Radio interview on the Fox Across America program that evening during the 7:30pm half-hour, and a couple of interviews on SiriusXM sandwiched between the two Fox-related interviews round out the activities on April 10th.
I don't have a satellite radio but for the many that do Ray Stevens will appear on Channel 106 during the Freewheelin’ with Meredith Ochs & Chris T. program at 1pm. An hour later, on Channel 99, Ray will appear on the Raw Dog Comedy Channel on a program hosted by a personality named Mark Says Hi. Those with SiriusXM will know more about how to tune those programs in this Tuesday. If I find any podcasts or audio links of those satellite radio interviews I'll post them on this fan-created blog page as soon as possible.
On April 14th and April 15th the interview Ray gave on Crook and Chase a couple of months ago is suppose to be repeated on those two days on both of their shows: they host a syndicated series and then there's the series that airs on RFD-TV. The show airs on Sunday evening at 6pm on RFD-TV and so I'll check the program next weekend and see if the episode with Ray airs. There's been a habit where episodes are said to air but when the show comes on a completely different episode, with a different guest artist, is aired so I usually am leery about promoting upcoming appearances for their series due to the inaccuracies of air-date information. Below is a link to an interview Ray gave recently on Michael Berry's radio program.
Michael Berry interviews Ray Stevens
The fun begins on April 10th as I mentioned in my previous blog. Fox and Friends appearance during the 8am hour, a Fox News Radio interview on the Fox Across America program that evening during the 7:30pm half-hour, and a couple of interviews on SiriusXM sandwiched between the two Fox-related interviews round out the activities on April 10th.
I don't have a satellite radio but for the many that do Ray Stevens will appear on Channel 106 during the Freewheelin’ with Meredith Ochs & Chris T. program at 1pm. An hour later, on Channel 99, Ray will appear on the Raw Dog Comedy Channel on a program hosted by a personality named Mark Says Hi. Those with SiriusXM will know more about how to tune those programs in this Tuesday. If I find any podcasts or audio links of those satellite radio interviews I'll post them on this fan-created blog page as soon as possible.
On April 14th and April 15th the interview Ray gave on Crook and Chase a couple of months ago is suppose to be repeated on those two days on both of their shows: they host a syndicated series and then there's the series that airs on RFD-TV. The show airs on Sunday evening at 6pm on RFD-TV and so I'll check the program next weekend and see if the episode with Ray airs. There's been a habit where episodes are said to air but when the show comes on a completely different episode, with a different guest artist, is aired so I usually am leery about promoting upcoming appearances for their series due to the inaccuracies of air-date information. Below is a link to an interview Ray gave recently on Michael Berry's radio program.
Michael Berry interviews Ray Stevens
August 30, 2011
Ray Stevens discusses Obama and other issues...
Good Tuesday morning all you Ray Stevens fans!! I came home from work to find that at some point yesterday Ray submitted an opinion/commentary to Fox News and it was published in their opinion section. To read Ray's commentary on Obama all you have to do is click here and read it for yourselves. I was thrilled to read the commentary and enjoyed it greatly. It will no doubt make it's way onto the liberal blogs and afterward will predictably become maligned and trashed and called everything you can think of. I was surprised to find that Ray wrote an opinion piece since it's something that I never would've thought he'd do considering his songs and videos speak for themselves but it was great seeing him enter the commentary realm in this sort of way, too. Who knows if he'll do this regularly or not?! In the meantime his current music video, "Obama Budget Plan", has enjoyed 592,445 on-line views so far!
June 5, 2011
Ray Stevens and Obama Money, Part 6...
I hope you all caught the trio of interviews that Ray Stevens gave over the weekend. As I touched upon in my previous blog entry Ray was to appear on two programs that air on the Fox Business Network and then appear on a program that airs on the Fox News Channel. The shows that Ray appeared on were America's Nightly Scoreboard, Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch, and Huckabee. The appearance on the Judge's program was brand new...earlier I had contemplated whether the appearance would be new or a rerun from earlier in the year. The appearance on Huckabee re-airs tonight at 8pm Eastern on the Fox News Channel. In a departure from the norm, Ray is the first guest on Huckabee. Usually a musical guest on a news program will appear toward the end of the show but this time around Mike had Ray open the show. Ray sang the "Obama Budget Plan" and the two of them spoke a little bit about Obama, music, and comedy.
I noticed that a certain theme took center stage in the trio of television appearances...the theme was the explanation of how important music is in everyday life. Ray commented that music helps a lot of people understand things that are going on and that people can usually remember things a lot more if it's presented in music form. Ray remarked that his political direction hopefully causes the non-politically active to become a bit more aware of what's going on in Washington, D.C.
Ray commented that comedy has always been a surefire way to create awareness and even though the subject matter of which he's singing about isn't a laughing matter the fact still remains that a lighthearted approach a lot of the time can go a long way. In a couple of the interviews Ray commented on the business of making music and how a lot of established artists had to adapt to the new ways of selling music or suffer financially. Gone are the days where a person goes to a record shop and buys something on vinyl...very rarely do people make mad dashes to a store to purchase a CD...a good number of consumers, of course, are purchasing music on-line and the audio files go directly to a person's computer or cell-phone depending on which device is making the purchase. Publicity was given to his current CD, Spirit of '76, which is currently ranked at #35 on Amazon's Singer-Songwriter best-selling Mp3 list. His previous release, We The People, is ranked at #27 on Amazon's Comedy best-selling Mp3 list.
In addition to those TV appearances Ray appeared in-studio on the Tom Sullivan radio program a few days ago. Fox News Radio uploaded the interview and here it is...
The above interview is by far the longest one given by Ray during the course of the last couple of days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday). Ray was in New York which explains why he appeared in-person on the radio show. A lot of times, of course, Ray calls in from Nashville. The "Obama Budget Plan" received quite a boost in You Tube over the weekend, too. The video now sits with 214,047 unique views in a little over a month's time. The video was released on April 25, 2011 but let's back up a few years...
The year was 1988 and this single paid tribute to the sounds of early rock and R&B while at the same time told a humorous tale of a man attempting to teach a deaf woman how to drive a '57 Chevy. Titled "The Day I Tried To Teach Charlene MacKenzie How To Drive" it was on the country charts for a couple of weeks in 1988 signaling one of Ray's final chart appearances for MCA Records. The single was lifted from his comedy album that year, I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. As you can probably guess from the album's title Ray appeared in Will Rogers attire performing a rope trick. Throughout the song Ray tries to teach Charlene all there is to know about cars but she mishears quite a lot of information which causes minor accidents along the way...climaxing in the car finally coming to a stop...as a result from a crash, of course! In the 1995 direct-to-home video movie that Ray starred in, Get Serious, Charlene plays a substantial role in the story. The character was played by actress Connie Freeman. In the movie Charlene wanders into Ray's life after years of absence. She helps him evade the police, a mob of protesters, and a posse put together by a record company executive (played by Michael Airington).
Although the Charlene MacKenzie single reached the charts, the song from the album which received a bit more wider publicity during that time period was the album's lead-off, "Surfin' U.S.S.R.". The single was made into a music video...Ray's second (following the seasonal "Santa Claus Is Watching You" a few years prior). The song's video spoofed current events and it included exclusive content not found on the audio recording such as the opening spoof of a newscast and comical dialogue between Reagan and Gorbachev. As the two political leaders have small talk, Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev engage in a little pushing and shoving which ultimately results in a wild take-no-prisoners cat fight. Ray, of course, did vocal impressions of the two political figures. The Cold War was nearing an end (1991 is the year it officially ended) and all over the news, specifically during the latter half of Reagan's second term in office, were indications that the Cold War may soon be at it's end. The song itself was a mixture of several pop music sounds. On one hand you have the Beach Boys feel...the island music and the Mike Love-style vocalizing from Ray which instantly makes one think of the Beach Boys. Secondly there's a heavy use of Soviet references and the fact that the Beatles had once recorded a song called "Back in the U.S.S.R.". This connection is eluded to in the "Surfin' U.S.S.R." music video as all of the members of the crew hold up pictures of Vladimir Lenin...all except Ray's character...he holds up a picture of John Lennon!
I noticed that a certain theme took center stage in the trio of television appearances...the theme was the explanation of how important music is in everyday life. Ray commented that music helps a lot of people understand things that are going on and that people can usually remember things a lot more if it's presented in music form. Ray remarked that his political direction hopefully causes the non-politically active to become a bit more aware of what's going on in Washington, D.C.
Ray commented that comedy has always been a surefire way to create awareness and even though the subject matter of which he's singing about isn't a laughing matter the fact still remains that a lighthearted approach a lot of the time can go a long way. In a couple of the interviews Ray commented on the business of making music and how a lot of established artists had to adapt to the new ways of selling music or suffer financially. Gone are the days where a person goes to a record shop and buys something on vinyl...very rarely do people make mad dashes to a store to purchase a CD...a good number of consumers, of course, are purchasing music on-line and the audio files go directly to a person's computer or cell-phone depending on which device is making the purchase. Publicity was given to his current CD, Spirit of '76, which is currently ranked at #35 on Amazon's Singer-Songwriter best-selling Mp3 list. His previous release, We The People, is ranked at #27 on Amazon's Comedy best-selling Mp3 list.
In addition to those TV appearances Ray appeared in-studio on the Tom Sullivan radio program a few days ago. Fox News Radio uploaded the interview and here it is...
The above interview is by far the longest one given by Ray during the course of the last couple of days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday). Ray was in New York which explains why he appeared in-person on the radio show. A lot of times, of course, Ray calls in from Nashville. The "Obama Budget Plan" received quite a boost in You Tube over the weekend, too. The video now sits with 214,047 unique views in a little over a month's time. The video was released on April 25, 2011 but let's back up a few years...
The year was 1988 and this single paid tribute to the sounds of early rock and R&B while at the same time told a humorous tale of a man attempting to teach a deaf woman how to drive a '57 Chevy. Titled "The Day I Tried To Teach Charlene MacKenzie How To Drive" it was on the country charts for a couple of weeks in 1988 signaling one of Ray's final chart appearances for MCA Records. The single was lifted from his comedy album that year, I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. As you can probably guess from the album's title Ray appeared in Will Rogers attire performing a rope trick. Throughout the song Ray tries to teach Charlene all there is to know about cars but she mishears quite a lot of information which causes minor accidents along the way...climaxing in the car finally coming to a stop...as a result from a crash, of course! In the 1995 direct-to-home video movie that Ray starred in, Get Serious, Charlene plays a substantial role in the story. The character was played by actress Connie Freeman. In the movie Charlene wanders into Ray's life after years of absence. She helps him evade the police, a mob of protesters, and a posse put together by a record company executive (played by Michael Airington). Although the Charlene MacKenzie single reached the charts, the song from the album which received a bit more wider publicity during that time period was the album's lead-off, "Surfin' U.S.S.R.". The single was made into a music video...Ray's second (following the seasonal "Santa Claus Is Watching You" a few years prior). The song's video spoofed current events and it included exclusive content not found on the audio recording such as the opening spoof of a newscast and comical dialogue between Reagan and Gorbachev. As the two political leaders have small talk, Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev engage in a little pushing and shoving which ultimately results in a wild take-no-prisoners cat fight. Ray, of course, did vocal impressions of the two political figures. The Cold War was nearing an end (1991 is the year it officially ended) and all over the news, specifically during the latter half of Reagan's second term in office, were indications that the Cold War may soon be at it's end. The song itself was a mixture of several pop music sounds. On one hand you have the Beach Boys feel...the island music and the Mike Love-style vocalizing from Ray which instantly makes one think of the Beach Boys. Secondly there's a heavy use of Soviet references and the fact that the Beatles had once recorded a song called "Back in the U.S.S.R.". This connection is eluded to in the "Surfin' U.S.S.R." music video as all of the members of the crew hold up pictures of Vladimir Lenin...all except Ray's character...he holds up a picture of John Lennon!
June 1, 2011
Ray Stevens hits the TV airwaves...
The amazing, versatile, comedic, legendary Ray Stevens is set to appear on a trio of television programs starting tomorrow June 2. Kicking things off will be an appearance on the Fox Business Network's program, The Nightly Scoreboard, on June 2. The show's hosted by David Asman. The show starts at 9pm Eastern. The Fox Business Network is carried on just about every channel line-up so check your on-screen program grids for the channel in your area. On June 3 Ray will appear on Judge Napolitano's program, Freedom Watch, which also airs on the Fox Business Network. This program airs at 8pm Eastern but there's no indication if this is a brand new episode or if it's a rerun from earlier in the year when "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore" was brand new. Ray appeared on Napolitano's program in April to promote the music video and discuss the TSA. On Saturday and Sunday, June 4 and June 5, Ray's appearance on the Huckabee program will air. The program airs at 8pm Eastern and it reruns on Sunday night at 8pm Eastern. A few weeks ago Ray was scheduled to appear on Huckabee's program but Ray's appearance was postponed due to coverage of bin Laden's death. The You Tube numbers for the "Obama Budget Plan" now sit at 188,114.
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