February 4, 2011

Let's Discuss Ray Stevens, Part 24...

Ray Stevens has certainly been busy as he crisscrosses the radio dial doing telephone interviews and in a lot of cases taking phone calls from listeners. As of now he's did radio interviews with KMOX, WICH, KWEL, WDRC-AM, and on Monday as I touched upon in a previous blog entry he'll be featured on a couple of other talk programs. A lot of the radio call-in appearances take place on conservative talk radio stations which offer a platform. Modern-day music radio, by and large, attempts to stay away from politics. True, patriotic music can often be heard on country radio, but you won't hear songs that clearly align with one political party over another.

In the past, though, Top-40 pop radio didn't hesitate to play what have been called protest songs. These songs almost always had a much more liberal point of view and spoke out against conservative values and America pride...the antithesis of songs that held conservative values and displayed pride in America which were heard much more on country radio. Nowadays, though, you rarely hear songs with political overtones on music radio...and this is a big reason, I think, why Ray is doing these talk radio call-in's and by-passing music radio interviews for the most part.

Today a blogger for U.S. News and World Report, Paul Bedard, did a write-up of Ray's recent song "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". The write-up comes across as friendly and pro-Ray Stevens and the blogger sub-titled it as the "I Hate the TSA Song".

This was picked up by others and his blog was spread around on Twitter earlier this afternoon with the unofficial song title as a reference. So far there's not been a music video release or a single release...I'm assuming something will be released soon with either a music video or Mp3 single being offered. There's a demand already underway for the song judging by the commentary from the listeners of the radio stations he's given interviews to and the comments from those who visit blogs wondering why there isn't a single or a music video available yet.

On Sunday February 13, 2011 the song "Bad Angel" will be in the running for a Grammy in the Best Country Collaboration with Vocals category. The song is performed by Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, and Jamey Johnson. The song is written by Verlon Thompson and Suzi Ragsdale. The song had previously been nominated for a CMA Award in the Vocal Event category in 2010. Suzi, for those who don't know, is the daughter of Ray Stevens and this particular recording is co-published by Ray's company.

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