Ray Stevens: Comical Curb appeal...

It's something of a contagious pattern I've been on lately...looking back on the prolific career of Ray Stevens and spotlighting his music from the various record labels he recorded for over the decades. The one label that seemed to appreciate having Ray on it's roster was Curb Records. Yes, I know that Ray's career goes back to the late 1950s and he had success on every label he recorded for starting with Mercury Records in the early '60s but when I say I feel Curb appreciated Ray being on their roster I mean it from a distribution stand point...they issued numerous products on Ray throughout much of the 1990s and then, after his brief return to MCA (1996-1998), Curb began releasing material from Ray once again in the early 2000s...and this second run with Curb lasted into mid decade. The first release by Curb Records on Ray came in the form of His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits in the summer of 1990. This collection has since been certified Gold by the RIAA for 500,000 copies sold. As a testament to the enduring popularity of his 1984 hit, "It's Me Again, Margaret", Curb placed the publicity photo advertising that song on the album's cover. His first studio album for Curb arrived a couple of months later, Lend Me Your Ears. Photo sessions took place at Nashville's Centennial Park at the replica of The Parthenon. The album's title has a double reference. Visually it's a parody of Marc Antony from the Julius Cesar play, a character who made a speech in that play using the phrase 'lend me your ears', but the title also requests music consumers to purchase the album as in "lend me your ears...take a listen to my latest album...". Two music videos, "Sittin' Up With the Dead" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", emerged in 1990. They were a foreshadowing of things to come. Prior to those music video releases he had previously issued "Surfin' U.S.S.R." (1988) and "Santa Claus is Watching You" (1985) as music videos. The 1990 studio album also features "Barbecue" and "This Ain't Exactly What I Had in Mind"...which would later become animated music videos more than 10 years later.

Early in 1991 Curb issued a newly recorded version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" from Ray. He had previously recorded the song for his 1989 album on MCA, Beside Myself. This 1991 re-recording for Curb kept the same chorus and music arrangement of the 1989 recording but the opening verse was different. This alternate take on "There's a Star Spangled Banner" was placed on the 1991 Greatest Hits compilation that Curb issued early in 1991. It's in panel two in the above collage. That compilation is deliberately heavy on serious, ballad recordings considering the fact that Curb's first project on Ray happened to be an all-comical compilation release. The only comical recordings on the 1991 hits album is 1987's "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" and 1969's "Along Came Jones". By the time Ray's second studio album for Curb came along construction had well been underway in Branson, Missouri for the opening of The Ray Stevens Theatre. This theater opened in 1991...becoming one of the most visited venues in the Ozarks during the summer tourist season...and his studio album arrived in the form of #1 With a Bullet.

Two recordings were promoted as singles from that release. "Working for the Japanese" hit the charts and looked as if it could've had something of a decent chart life but then, out of the blue, radio programmers began removing it from their playlists as it was gaining momentum. So, yes, it was totally unfair to Ray and everyone involved behind the scenes...to play a song and then to pull it from the airwaves on the basis of perceived 'offensive overtones' is actually offensive in itself. Nevertheless it's one of my favorite songs that Ray recorded. The second single release arrived early in 1992, "Power Tools", which is actually the lead-off track on the album. Ironic that the first single from the album is the final track but the follow-up is the lead-off track. The 1991 studio album would be re-visited by Ray several times in the coming years. "You Gotta Have a Hat", while not officially promoted as a single, became a popular song in his concerts at the Branson theater in the early '90s due to it being a comment on the Hat Acts in country music at the time. "Tabloid News", a song that I always thought would make a great music video, hasn't become a music video but pieces of the song have become catchphrases among Ray's fans. A partial music video happened to emerge, though, on one of the VHS home videos. The sketch/video is referred to as the National Supermarket Checkout Examiner which, by the way, is the fictional name of the tabloid Ray sings about in the song. "Power Tools" and "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens" would eventually become animated music videos more than a decade later.

Ray's original run with Curb Records (1990-1996) coincided with his meteoric rise in Branson, Missouri along side a phenomenal series of VHS home video projects released through his own label, Clyde Records, and advertised through mail order by way of television commercials and print ads. I'm not going to touch on the VHS releases too much because those were strictly the product of his own label and weren't associated with Curb Records but I'll offer the commentary that those VHS projects more or less reinvented the career of Ray Stevens and with hundreds of thousands of sales (we're talking Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum certifications in the world of home video) but with those kinds of sales numbers for home video products in the early to mid 1990s he logically began to shift more of his focus away from audio recording and more into video marketing. Print advertisements for the VHS projects appeared in a variety of daily and weekly newspapers and I even seen an ad for one of the home video's in an issue of TV Guide. That goes to show you how far reaching the impact of those home videos were and the effort put into the marketing. The phenomenal success of those VHS home videos, coupled with the success of his Branson theater, it's easy to see why a new studio album from Ray Stevens wouldn't arrive until 1993 (roughly two years after the release of 1991's #1 With a Bullet).

The third studio album on Curb Records from Ray is Classic Ray Stevens from 1993. As you can see from the album's cover art it's a reference to classical music...complete with a bust of Ray sitting on top of the piano next to a rose and violin. The sheet music reads 'Concerto for Cornball' if I'm remembering correctly. Oh yes...I'm so detailed that I wanted to find out what was written on the sheet music way back when I first purchased the album. Anyway...this studio album has long been misidentified on so many websites as a compilation album due to it's title. If you visit an on-line music store Classic Ray Stevens is usually placed in the section labeled as compilation or greatest hits and it rarely appears among the albums in the studio album discographies of Ray Stevens found on those on-line music stores. Some sites refer to compilation albums as a sampler...and I've found Classic Ray Stevens listed/described as a sampler...it goes without saying but this sort of thing causes music consumers to assume that the songs on that album had all been previously released at some point. Songs from the 1993 album that became popular among his fans include: "Super Cop", "The Motel Song", and the lead-off track, "If Ten Percent Is Good Enough for Jesus". The lead-off track, ironically, became a much bigger hit for Ray nearly 20 years later (!!) when it was re-recorded and then, ultimately, released as an on-line music video in 2010. The video is a concert performance of the song from The Welk Theater. After the release and subsequent promotion of Classic Ray Stevens the remainder of Ray's time with Curb Records was filled out with a couple of non-studio projects. It was also, in 1993, the year that Ray closed down his Branson, Missouri theater. The closing came as a shock, obviously, to fans and probably the Chamber of Commerce and tourist companies as well. The venue had been a constant success for three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993) where he performed two shows a day for six days a week during the summer tourist seasons. However, as Ray pointed out in subsequent interviews, the idea of having a theater backfired on him simply because of the pace he was working...it became exhaustive. He never felt having a theater was a terrible idea and he loved the performance aspect but he often remarked in interviews that if he would ever re-open his theater he'd not carry such a demanding workload of 2 shows a day, 6 days a week again. Curb Records issued an audio version of Ray Stevens Live! in 1995.

One of their other releases that year happened to be something of a retrospective of his time with the label titled 20 Comedy Hits. It features 20 songs...four of the songs are classics from the 1970s, one is the performance of "Shriner's Convention" from the Ray Stevens Live! VHS and CD, while the remaining fifteen songs come from his three studio albums for Curb Records. This was followed by Great Gospel Songs in 1996. That compilation was a collection of gospel recordings Ray did in the early 1970s and originally found on the 1972 album, Turn Your Radio On. The 1996 project tacked on a couple of additional songs from his Everything is Beautiful album from 1970. As a teenager just out of high school in the mid '90s and no access to vinyl or turntables or the early years of the internet it was a goldmine of an album, Great Gospel Songs. My personal collection of Ray Stevens items at that time was nothing to write home about. I had a lot of his cassette tapes and the VHS projects but nothing on vinyl...I didn't even know the names of any of his albums prior to 1984 at that point in time. It was only after I began corresponding with Ray's office staff via letter writing that I was sent a discography of his studio albums from 1962 to the present...but anyway...following the release of Great Gospel Songs in 1996 he left Curb Records. A home video mail order project he released in 1995 would become available in retail stores in the latter half of 1996 and distributed by MCA, the label he recorded for during the latter half of the 1980s (1984-1989).

Ray would release two studio albums for MCA in 1997 before exiting the label the following year. After several years being represented by his own label, Clyde, Ray found himself on Curb Records for a second time in 2001 under the most tragic reasons imaginable. On September 11, 2001 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York. Several other hijacked planes crashed en route to other destinations on 9/11. The man behind these attacks was identified as Osama bin Laden. The wave of patriotism that swept across America in the weeks and months after 9/11 was something I'd never seen before. Country music, more than any other genre, helped in the healing process by performing songs...many focusing around 9/11...and many of these recordings were also used for charitable causes. Ray added a comical contribution with "Osama Yo' Mama" toward the end of 2001. It was released as a single-only backed with his rendition of "United We Stand". In the collage's above I provided an image of the single release and the album release. The artwork for each release is the same...only difference being is the 10 song album has a banner behind the illustration of Ray that reads The Album. The single release became a sales success throughout the latter half of 2001 and well into 2002. It charted on Billboard's Country Single Sales chart for half a year and was certified Gold. The 2002 album contained 7 recordings from 2000 that had previously appeared on a Clyde Records release, Ear Candy, in addition to "Osama Yo' Mama" and "United We Stand" from late 2001. The only recording not previously released was "Freudian Slip". In discographies his 2002 project is listed as Osama Yo' Mama: The Album. Curb later re-released "United We Stand" as a CD single backed with "Everything Is Beautiful" in 2002.

One of the things Curb began doing in 2002 is re-issuing previously released projects from Ray that he did for other record labels. One of those happened to be a DVD release of his 1992 VHS project, Comedy Video Classics. The release came a full decade after it's original debut and this lead Curb into distributing 2003's Complete Comedy Video Collection. That particular title was originally released on Clyde Records in 2003 but when it was released on Curb Records in 2004 a couple of music videos were added and one was omitted. The 2003 version contains 20 music videos which include "Thank You" and "Hello Mama" referred to on the packaging as Bonus Videos. The Curb Records release in 2004 features 21 music videos. "Santa Claus is Watching You", found on the Clyde Records release in 2003, is replaced with "Power Tools". An additional bonus video is added in the form of "Osama Yo' Mama". On the packaging it's referred to as an Extra Bonus. The release on Curb includes small lettering on the lower left hand side which reads DVD Video. The version released on Clyde Records lacks that feature. Another big story in the career of Ray Stevens at this point in time happened to be the announcement that he was re-opening his Branson, Missouri theater. He re-opened the theater in 2004 for another three season run (2004, 2005, and 2006). In 2005 Curb re-issued Ray's 1990 and 1991 studio albums in CD format. When Ray put together a 3-CD project called Box Set he released it on Clyde Records in 2005. Curb picked up the distribution early in 2006. The collection features a wide array of recordings by Ray from the 1990s and into the 2000s. It includes his early '90s re-recordings of songs like "The Streak", "Ahab the Arab", "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", etc. etc. The recordings of those songs found on Box Set were lifted from his music videos. The material he recorded for Curb and for his own label, Clyde, during the 1990s and 2000s are original. Box Set also features exclusive recordings not found anywhere else...such as "Driver's Education", "Kitty Cat's Revenge", "Family Funeral Fight", and several others. The following month Curb issued two DVD projects on Ray. Gourmet Restaurant and Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens feature limited animation music videos of several of Ray's previous recordings. Each DVD contains five animated videos.

Are you curious about panel two in the above collage? It's a CD single from 2006 titled "The New Battle of New Orleans" written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which Curb issued as a CD-only release. The song was originally written in it's entirety by Chuck Redden and his version can be found on-line. Ray and songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, partially rewrote the song by removing original lyrics and replacing them with different ones. The original is a strong R-rated composition with heavy criticisms aimed at local and national politicians but Ray and Buddy reconstructed the song. Following the summer 2006 tourist season Ray closed down his Branson theater for good and eventually sold it to RFD television. The company uses the facility to showcase their own stage productions...heavily promoted on their television network, of course. The third panel in the above collage is a photo of Ray holding one of his Comedian of the Year trophies. Ray was named Comedian of the Year by the readers of Music City News magazine for 9 consecutive years (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994).

In 2008 Curb issued a budget priced Greatest Hits compilation on Ray sub-titled 50th Anniversary Collection. This project featured some of the re-recorded versions of several of his big hits originally found on the Box Set. The 2008 CD also features "Osama Yo' Mama" released earlier in the decade. Oddly enough the packaging of the CD had a release featuring two different head shots of Ray. In spite of the different cutouts of Ray on each CD both releases features the same songs. It's anybody's guess why Curb issued the compilation with two different images of Ray. Curb would then re-issue a couple of previously released CD's in early 2009. Hum It was originally released by MCA in 1997. It was the studio album that Ray released after he and Curb parted ways in 1996. Curb issued 1997's Hum It in Mp3 Digital Download format in April 2009 along with Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?, a CD that Ray originally issued on his Clyde Records label a year earlier in 2008. Following the distribution of those two projects in 2009 Ray and Curb Records parted ways for a second time. As one can clearly see the bulk of his time with Curb Records was largely spent in the realm of comedy video and DVD releases...more so during his second run with the label. Also, I find it interesting, that during both stints with Curb Records he found himself headlining his Branson, Missouri theater.

After parting company with Curb Records in 2009 Ray hasn't recorded for a major label since. Later on in the year he released a certain music video on-line via the hosting site, YouTube...and in closing I'd like to say some things about that music video because of it's major impact on Ray's career and the direction it took over the next several years (2010-2013).

That music video, "We The People", eventually spread like wildfire (this sort of thing was coined as 'going viral') and much like the mail order/direct market television commercials from the early '90s reinvented his career as a mogul of VHS home video this 2009 YouTube music video reinvented his career as an internet music video star...and for the next several years he created exclusive video content that he would upload on his YouTube channel. The exposure that these topically driven on-line videos received not only reinvented his career (cynics/critics referred to it as pandering) but it actually introduced him to thousands upon thousands of people who would otherwise have no idea who he was...so he was reaching audiences in ways he otherwise wouldn't have...and all this on-line exposure and discovery coming after more than 50 years as a recording artist.

Suffice it to say 2010 became the biggest year for Ray Stevens, as far as high profile coverage was concerned, since 2002 and he did it all without the aid of any major record label help or radio station airplay. Since 2010 Ray continued to release on-line music video content and occasionally he would release audio CDs...and even though the internet videos brought him a wave of exposure it was nothing like the exposure he'd later receive after jumping into television headfirst with a weekly music series...first airing on RFD-TV and then locally syndicated on PBS stations across the country. His CabaRay showroom opened in January of this year in West Nashville. This showroom has an even more spectacular design than the theater he owned and performed at in Branson and this time around he's working at a more relaxed pace...only two shows a week (Friday and Saturday nights). The television series is recorded in batches during marathon taping sessions a couple times a year...much like the production of Hee Haw (1969-1993) and Larry's Country Diner...and as a tie in with the title of this blog entry I'd say the CabaRay has tremendous curb appeal...and the interior is just as spectacular.