Ray Stevens: Monkey Business

Throughout the career of Ray Stevens there has been a good supply of monkey business taking place. By this I mean recordings putting monkeys, apes, gorillas, and other members of the animal kingdom front and center...or in the background. Specifically I am referring to "Harry the Hairy Ape", "Gitarzan", "Monkey See, Monkey Do", and his cover of the theme song of the musical group "The Monkees". The animal closely associated with Ray is the camel...but it's the chicken that's made it's way onto three separate recordings and in the background of various comedy songs. Ray became associated with the camel in 1962 after the success of "Ahab the Arab" and several years later he named his music publishing company, Ahab Music Company, with a camel logo as it's trademark. Today that camel logo continues to appear on many Ray Stevens products and in fact, the camel's name, Clyde, serves as the name of the record label that Ray owns and operates.

The earliest known primate in Ray's career is an ape by the name of Harry. This creature of the zoo emerged in 1963 and upon escape made his way to a park where he liked to jump out from behind bushes and scare people. Harry loved this hobby as we're told in song but something strange happened when a near-sighted DJ came strolling through the park. This 1963 romp reached the Top-20 on the pop chart and the Top-20 on the R&B chart. Chart statistics show that it charted higher in the Top-20 with the R&B audience than with the pop audiences. A limited animation music video was put together decades later and appears on this Volume Two edition of Cartoon Carnvial. Harry, as you can see, is the ape with the guitar in the lower left hand corner of the DVD cover. While the 1963 recording is the original he re-recorded the song in 1969 and it's even better than the original in my opinion. A lot of this has to do with more advanced recording techniques and the boosting with energy atmosphere created behind the song's performance. This 1969 re-recording often appears on the various compilation releases put out on Ray. The re-recording appeared originally on the 1969 Gitarzan album...and this brings me to "Gitarzan", obviously.

Although this single hit the Top-10 on the pop chart and sold over a million copies, one of the characters heard in the song is a monkey...one that is described to have fondness for drinking but can carry a tune with the rest of them. In this recording the monkey has no name but it's one of the hooks of the song. The monkey, Jane, and Tarzan form a jungle band in this spoof of the Tarzan legend. I hope none of the more dedicated fans of Ray's gets offended by reading things you might already know. I usually always approach my blog entries under the assumption that someone is reading about Ray Stevens for the first time and so I end up repeating quite a lot of facts and information for that very reason. In other words, I don't want it to come across that this blog can only be enjoyed by those who are more dedicated than others...but yet I also want this blog to be thorough, too, and come across much better than the blogs that pop up every so often by people who don't really care about Ray Stevens' music but are simply using a song or two of his to attract readers. I've actually seen web-sites that copy word for word the "biography" of Ray Stevens and pass it on as original. That sort of thing can be called monkey business...but literally speaking we have a 1970 song called "Monkey See, Monkey Do". The song is a comment on the way people tend to want to emulate and copy other people, specifically in terms of material possessions. We don't hear monkey impressions in this recording, though. It's not a comical song unless you're someone who thinks the title makes it a comedy song regardless of the serious lyrics and message.

Now, when it comes to "The Monkees" we hear a couple of Austrians belting out the theme song and making nonsensical commentary to one another back and fourth. The lyrics, I think, deliberately blend all of the cultures in that part of the world together because there's references to the Alps, German culture and words such as Lederhosen and wienerschnitzel, and when you listen to the song you get the image of a duo on stage whose patter dissolves into full-blown anger. It helps your mind visually if you're familiar with the Bavarian dance routine. You've all seen the comedy skits that spoof the dancers and without fail a fight breaks out almost routinely by the end of the performance. Such a scenario was played out on National Lampoon's European Vacation as well as numerous episodes of Benny Hill's comedy programs. So, when you listen to "The Monkees" picture in your mind that kind of setting...it won't be hard to do with the authentic sounding music heard in the background. The song was recorded in 1984 and it appeared originally on his He Thinks He's Ray Stevens album.