Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Two...

Ray Stevens, while at Mercury Records, became what is known in the music industry as an Artist and Repertoire man...someone that goes over recordings with artists, finds songs for artists to record, and perhaps rehearses the artist prior to the recording session. Those are just some of the more vague things a person in that occupation does. As you can see by looking at the image off to the left Ray was still an active recording artist as well. Let's back up a few months, though...following a late 1960 Christmas release on NRC titled "White Christmas" backed with "Happy Blue Year" Ray eventually found himself signing with the Mercury label in 1961. He still lived in Georgia at the time of his signing and would drive to Nashville for recording assignments throughout 1961. The first single that Mercury released on Ray was also his very first chart appearance on Billboard's national Hot 100 chart. He had previously appeared on the national lists a year earlier, in 1960, if you recall from Part One of this series...he bubbled under the Hot 100 with "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon". The debut single for Mercury, however, reached the Hot 100...not only did it reach the Hot 100 it eased up into the Top-40 area of the Hot 100. It's at this time I should point out, for those that don't know, that the pop music singles chart consists of 100 songs. Technically any song on this list is a 'hit'...however, as time went by and the music industry developed and became gigantic, focus began to zero in on the first 40 songs on the Hot 100 and once the phrase 'Top-40' was coined it became something of an unwritten rule that a song isn't a 'hit' unless it charts within the first 40 slots of the Hot 100.

I, for one, have long felt that having an unwritten rule such as that does a disservice to music and recording artists, in general. The work that goes into the making of just one recording, let alone an entire album, requires a lot of hard work, detail and attention...but yet if a recording or an album goes onto the market but doesn't sell hundreds of thousands of copies or if single releases from an album doesn't receive much airplay, if any, society in general has more or less been trained to regard that recording or album as a failure, as inferior, and something to ignore because it didn't rank on a popularity chart. I think that kind of thinking is crazy. The more 'popular', indicative of whatever single or album is getting the most airplay or the most sales, would determine it's ranking on the charts and over the course of time the art of recording music became a popularity contest rather than it being something that offers artistic expression whether the end result proves to be popular or not.

As you can see from the image above Ray's debut single for Mercury Records is a novelty song. The full title being "Jeremiah Peabody's Polyunsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills". Do you find yourself singing the song's title when typing it out? I do...that's how I remember not to forget any of the words in the title! As I've mentioned in blog entries past I shorten the song's title to "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills". The novelty song approach tended to be the calling card for Ray...the last single from Ray that gained some national attention happened to be comedic...and so he continued that trend with this recording in 1961. It reached the Top-40 of the Hot 100 in the late summer/early fall of 1961. It's B-side, "Teen Years", is a ballad reflecting each teen year of a child's life as they reach adulthood. As hindsight almost always comes into play whenever one writes about past events it's been said by other writers/bloggers and those that write about music history that the song's unusually long title is a novelty all to itself. The entire song's title, also, had to be written on the paper sleeve on the actual vinyl single. You've all seen the paper sleeves...they're small and round to begin with...and to have the task of typing the song's complete title on the single release must've been a challenge. Mercury managed to do it which is all the more impressive given the lack of the kinds of computer graphics in existence nowadays.

In October of 1961 Mercury issued "Scratch My Back (I Love It)"...this is a funny song, more amusing, even though it wasn't probably designed to be comical. I can't help but grin as I listen to Ray relate how soothing and invigorating it feels when he's getting his back scratched...with the subtitle 'I love it' is repeatedly delivered in various harmonies from Ray. It's B-side is his nice cover of "When You Wish Upon a Star"...the same song associated with the Walt Disney company. Ray's recording of the song remains a B-side exclusive...it's never appeared on any albums. The first three single releases from Mercury, by the way, also featured the same art work and photo of Ray...with the obvious differences being song titles and credits. "Scratch My Back", nor it's B-side, reached the Hot 100. In January of 1962 Ray Stevens moved from Georgia to Nashville, Tennessee. As a resident of Music City, USA he could participate on many recording sessions, which he did, and he also established himself as a jack-of-all-trades in the recording studio. He worked under the guidance of Shelby Singleton. It's been reported for decades, and I'm passing it along here, that during a single day in the recording studio Mercury Records utilized Ray's talents on three recordings that became mega-hits. One of those recordings being "Wooden Heart" by Joe Dowell...the other being Leroy Van Dyke's recording of "Walk on By"...and the third being his own recording, "Ahab the Arab". The latter was released in June of 1962 and this is the song that I hinted at in the last blog entry...the single that caused Ray to become a 'super-star' overnight. The single was, of course, a novelty song and it ultimately became his highest charting single up to that time...reaching the Top-10 on the Hot 100 as well as the Top-10 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. The enormous success of the single provided Ray opportunities to appear on television and radio programs that he otherwise wouldn't have been scheduled but funny things happen when a recording artist has a 'hit'...those in the media tend to suddenly acknowledge your existence.

The success of the single provided Mercury the avenue in which to release a full length LP; as was commonplace back then practically every record label would issue singles on a recording artist and if the single or a series of singles proved successful in the label's eyes then they'd release a full length LP containing the songs that had been released as singles plus several album tracks...sometimes the album tracks would surface as future singles but often they'd remain on albums heard only by the most dedicated of fans. The feeling being that only the dedicated of fans would purchase an entire album of songs from one artist...while a general audience is more likely to purchase the single. "Ahab the Arab" tells the story of an Arab and his love for harem woman named Fatima...one of the women in the Sultan's harem...and throughout the song Ray tells of how Ahab and Fatima are in love with one another behind the Sultan's back. Ahab rides the dunes of the desert on a camel named Clyde. Ray has often spoke of the song's origins and how it's based upon the imagery seen in the film, The Sheik, as well as the books on Arabian culture...often cited is One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. The character names, as explained by Ray, come from various inspirations. Ahab is selected due to it rhyming with Arab (when pronounced Ay-rab rather than Air-ub). Fatima was a brand of cigarettes while the camel's name, Clyde, was inspired by Ray seeing Clyde McPhatter walking around in the recording studio one day. Clyde McPhatter, according to interviews I've read and heard from Ray and from passages in his memoir, was one of Ray's musical influences. Mercury edited the original recording of the song...cutting out a third verse...for time reasons. Ray, in later interviews, remarked that he was crushed when told that in order to potentially get airplay for the song it needed trimmed down. Whenever you see the 1995 music video of the song it includes the missing lyrics not included in the single release from 1962. The song's B-side, "It's Been So Long", is a delightful ballad...one of his more soulful of that time period. The success of Ray's first single releases led to Mercury releasing the LP titled 1,837 Seconds of Humor. The album contained almost all of the recordings found on the first three single releases on Ray by Mercury (missing was "When You Wish Upon a Star" and "It's Been So Long"). Some of the other songs on the album were: "Popeye and Olive Oyl", "PFC Rhythm and Blues Jones", "Saturday Night at the Movies", and "Julius Played the Trumpet". There were a lot of songs on that album specializing in pop culture satire which you can tell by some of the song titles. Those that didn't really care for rock and roll music had deep hatred for Elvis Presley...and when he was drafted into the military it tickled a lot of people's funny bones. Those that appreciated the things Elvis did for the music industry and those within the industry that liked this new kind of music also lent their contributions, in song, to the idea of a rock star being drafted into the military. Ray's song, "PFC Rhythm and Blues Jones", tackles the concept of a musician being in the military...in this case it's a rhythm and blues singer who goes by the name of Jones. It's explained that Jones would much rather be back home fronting his rhythm and blues band instead of dodging bullets from the enemy in some foxhole.

Mercury Records issued a further single on Ray in the fall of 1962...this time the love ballad was on the A-side and the comedy song on the B-side. However, the A-side come across as a novelty because it was unusual in it's delivery. As long time fans should already know but I'll explain for newcomers: a lot of Ray's songs in this time period that were intended to be taken seriously were often casually labeled 'novelty' by music critics due to the construction or vocal phrasing being different from what was being heard on radio. Novelty or off-beat were the common descriptions of Ray's serious recordings of this time period even though they were intended to be taken seriously. So, "Furthermore", his fourth single for Mercury, starts out with high falsetto from Ray delivering a scat singing introduction as music plays in the background. The delivery itself crams a lot of lyrics together in strings of what appears, to the ear, as run-on sentences but they're complete sentences but sung fast. It's a love song for sure...but given the performance it's described as off-beat. He re-recorded the song decades later as a slow, bluesy ballad. The B-side of the 1962 original is "Saturday Night at the Movies".

In the winter months of 1962 Mercury released the original recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You". Ray would re-record this song in 1985, with almost an entire set of different lyrics, which was accompanied by a famous music video; and he re-recorded it a second time in 1997. The 1962 original is a cute Christmas novelty...and it reached the Top-50 of the Hot 100. I like the original recording but I love the 1985 re-recording/partial re-write. The Christmas release remained a single exclusive until it began appearing on compilation albums. It should be noted that there's a lengthy recording of 1962's "Santa Claus is Watching You" and there's also an edited version for radio stations that clocks in a little over 2 minutes. The unedited recording is a little more than 3 minutes. You can find an audio clip on YouTube of the unedited 1962 recording by using the search phrase: Santa Claus is Watching You (1962). It was uploaded by a user named verycoolsound. Once you hear it and once you hear the edited version (the edits are noticeable) you'll wonder to yourself the reason why the editing took place...but again one only has to think back on the time period (early '60s) and how pop songs were typically quick and rarely ran longer than 2 and a half minutes whether it be a ballad or an uptempo recording.

As the calendar flipped to 1963 and as Ray was becoming more and more involved in the recording process with his session work and overall duties in the Artist and Repertoire department of Mercury he began to expand his workload...if only in terms of music arranging and other technical aspects of the recording industry. The first single release on Ray from Mercury in 1963 was "Funny Man" backed with "Just One of Life's Little Tragedies". Ray experienced some success in Canada with "Funny Man" as it reached the Top-20 of their pop music chart while on America's Hot 100 it peaked outside the Top-40. Mercury issued their second LP on Ray with the title being This is Ray Stevens. The overall flavor of the album was an almost even mix of comedy and serious recordings and it wasn't as pop culture heavy as the previous LP in 1962. "Harry the Hairy Ape" became a hit for Ray in the summer of 1963...it's all about an ape that wants to be a rock and roll singer...and how his entertaining ways leads to his becoming a recording artist following an encounter with a disc jockey. This novelty single became a Top-20 pop hit in America as well as a Top-20 Rhythm and Blues hit. On Canada's pop music chart it reached the Top-30. Ray's talents as a songwriter had long been on display. He wrote all the songs found on his first two albums. He and Margie Singleton wrote a song titled "My True Confession" which became a big hit for Brook Benton in the summer of 1963...so Ray not only found himself on the charts as a singer-songwriter of his own material but he was on the charts as a co-writer of the Brook Benton hit. Brook's hit was produced by Shelby Singleton (as was all of the songs found on Ray's first two albums) and it was arranged by Bill Justis. Brook was a major recording artist on the Rhythm and Blues as well as the Easy-Listening chart...the latter being a format devised in the aftermath of rock and roll...radio stations played songs from pop music artists who appealed mainly to adult audiences instead of teenagers. On the Hot 100 Brook's recording reached the Top-30 but in the Easy-Listening format it skyrocketed into the Top-10...it repeated this same Top-10 success on the Rhythm and Blues chart in 1963 as well.

Ray entered into a unique situation around this time period. I've never known the specific details but I've been able to come up with somewhat vague information stating that Ray signed a deal with Monument Records in 1963 as a producer/arranger/session musician while still under contract with Mercury Records as a recording artist. This meant that Ray would still issue recordings for Mercury Records but for Monument he was signed as a behind-the-scenes artist. The final single release from Mercury in 1963 on Ray happened to be "Speed Ball" backed with the ballad "It's Party Time". The A-side was another novelty hit...reaching the Hot 100 for several weeks...while reaching the Top-30 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. The B-side wasn't released on any album. I'm hoping that the first two chapters in this mini-blog series is helping go a long way at showcasing just how varied Ray's music career happens to be. In Part Three I won't be as story-telling as I probably come across in this blog entry...for in Part Three I'll be bringing into focus Ray's career as a music arranger and producer for other artists in addition to the recordings being issued on Ray by Mercury Records...so be on the look out for Part Three soon!