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

Welcome to Part Four of this blog mini-series as I spotlight Ray Stevens' Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The year is 1968 and Monument releases their fifth single on Ray in January...a unique offering titled "Unwind". This single credits both Fred Foster as well as Ray Stevens as producers...Ray also wrote both sides of the single. By unique offering I'm referring to the blending of tempo heard throughout the performance. The recording starts off with Ray in frenetic mode detailing all of the things he's got to do throughout the course of the working day and then as his descriptions near the hour of 5pm his vocalization has decreased in tempo to where he sings about winding down once he arrives home and the vocalization has long since shifted from frenetic to mellow but then, following a brief vocal break as the instrumentation plays, the tempo begins to pick back up and the frenetic vocalization resurfaces as the new workday is underway...and the routine plays itself out...but, once more, Ray winds down his vocalization as it draws closer to the end of the workday at 5pm. In the career time-line of Ray Stevens "Unwind" is typically the single that bridges the gap between the various phases of his career. By this I mean it's a single that frequently shown up on various greatest hits and best-of albums released on Ray Stevens even though it wasn't as widely known as his follow-up single...but if you base a 'hit' as a single that makes an appearance on a popularity chart then "Unwind" certainly qualifies. In part three I mentioned how "Freddie Feelgood" (from 1966) returned Ray to the national Hot 100 pop chart for the first time in three years...that single also appeared on the pop singles chart in Australia. "Unwind" reached midway up the Hot 100 here in America in early 1968 and in Canada it reached their pop music chart, too, peaking the Top-30. The B-side of "Unwind" is a devastating ballad titled "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Monument followed up this hit single with a song from Ray dripping in social commentary...a pointed look at the corporate elitists...a song partially inspired by a business deal gone bad involving Ray.

It's often been reported about by historians, journalists, and mentioned by Ray in interviews that early in his career he was taken advantage of, briefly, by opportunists that mishandled his money through unwise investments and when he decided to take a look at his earnings he seen how lousy those in charge of his finances happened to be. As a result of the mishandling of his finances and a general negative feeling overall he came up with "Mr. Businessman"...a single that burst onto the music landscape in the summer of 1968. Production by Ray and Fred Foster this self-penned vocal outrage dealing with corporate America's amoral attitudes, misplaced priorities, and the bottom line was a startling contrast to the bluesy love ballads, easy-listening renderings, and novelty songs he'd long been noted for. The single features single note piano key strikes at the beginning of the song...as the tempo rises the key strikes get more stinging and more keys are added into the performance...as more and more instrumentation is added into the performance the piano blends into the background. It's a great hook and in concert whenever Ray starts to play those familiar piano strikes there's an obvious enjoyment that flows from the audience. Commercially "Mr. Businessman" was a very big hit...it reached the Top-30 on the Hot 100 and, ironically enough, the single had even more impact in Canada where it hit the Top-10. Perhaps it's not an irony...I'd say that the subject matter Ray sings about in the song is almost universal...there's good and bad businessmen and businesswomen all over the world.

The success of "Mr. Businessman" ultimately spawned the release of a vinyl album. In those days record companies often preferred to release singles...and if an artist had accumulated a series of hit singles then the record company would issue an album featuring those single releases, their B-sides, and several other recordings to fill out the collection of songs. This means that a lot of vinyl albums of this era were usually filled with one or two recordings that had been released as singles...and most of the time the album was named for one of those hit singles...while the rest of the album contained songs that were not commercially driven and sometimes an album would contain whatever the artist or producer felt like placing there...knowing full well that albums were purchased by the most loyal of consumers while a single was designed to cater to a general audience. In country music the record companies would release a vinyl album named for the hit single but then the remainder of the album wouldn't be explored by the record label for future single releases. There are a lot of country albums of this era with 10 or 11 songs but only one of those would be the single release...to say the album was looked upon with contempt is putting it mildly. Anyway...Monument Records issued their first studio album on Ray titled Even Stevens in the fall of 1968 on the heels of "Mr. Businessman". The album was produced by Fred Foster and Ray Stevens. It features 10 recordings in which Ray was the songwriter on 8 songs, a co-writer of one, while a tenth song was written by another writer. Ray also arranged every song on the album except two of them.

I created that collage a couple of years ago...or it could have been last year...anyway it's me attempting a similar pose from Ray Stevens as he appears on the Even Stevens album of 1968. The back of the album shows Ray seated in front of a music stand. The album comes with liner notes authored by Tupper Saussy. By the way Tupper is the one responsible for the only song on the album that Ray never had a hand in writing or arranging: "The Earl of Stilton Square". Tupper wrote and arranged the song. One of the television shows from this era, Get Smart, had a popular catchphrase...well, the show had several, but to borrow just one of those phrases... 'would you believe??' that Even Stevens never made an appearance on the Billboard 200 album chart!! If that wasn't ironic enough...Ray himself became a businessman but this was out of necessity given how little faith he had in someone else looking after his finances. He was once quoted as saying that nobody's going to look after you but you and so he reluctantly had to become more involved in the business side of the music industry. He eventually hired a manager, though, by the name of Don Williams...not to be confused with the country singer of the same name.

In the meantime the B-side of "Mr. Businessman", for those curious, is the album's seventh song, "Face the Music". Ray wrote the B-side but the music arranging is credited to Louis Nunley. Monument released "The Great Escape" as a single in the fall of 1968 backed with a phenomenal ballad called "Isn't It Lonely Together?". The A-side followed the social commentary vein and it charted on Canada's version of America's Hot 100...but in America the single Bubbled Under the Hot 100. A third figure emerged prominently in Ray's career during the making of Even Stevens and that figure happened to be Jim Malloy. He's credited as the production assistant to Fred and Ray on the 1968 album in addition to being the engineer's assistant. The engineer of the album was Charlie Tallent. The album itself was recorded at Bradley's Barn (a studio owned by legendary music producer Owen Bradley). In early 1969 Monument released a single on Ray that, according to Ray's interviews and his recollections in a memoir, that Fred Foster was completely against.

The single in question had the unusual name of "Gitarzan"...a word that Ray credits to Bill Justis, which as you can see, combines guitar with Tarzan. A title like that led Ray into creating a story about Tarzan, Jane, and their chimp forming a rock and roll jungle band. Ray also credited the rhyming dictionary in guiding him, line by line, in the song's construction. The song is filled with internal rhymes and end rhymes as well as pseudo-rhymes where sound-a-like words follow each other even though they're not identical rhymes. According to Ray's recollections Fred told him that if this song became a hit then Ray would have complete creative control on his next project. "Gitarzan" became a gigantic hit...in America and internationally...and throughout the first half of 1969 the massive popularity of the novelty song eventually brought certifications of a Gold record by the RIAA. In those days a gold record was indicative of sales of over a million copies. The single hit the Top-10 on the Hot 100, the Top-10 in Canada, the Top-10 in Australia, and the Top-10 in New Zealand. It made the charts in other international markets, too, but I decided to limit it to three additional countries for this blog entry. As you can see in the credits the producers are Ray, Fred Foster, and Jim Malloy. In addition to being a co-producer Jim returned as engineer assistant as he had been during the previous album from Ray in 1968. Songwriting credits go to Ray and Bill Justis...credited under his birth name of Bill Everette. The song's B-side, "Bagpipes-That's My Bag", was written by Ray and produced by both Ray and Fred Foster. For whatever reason Jim Malloy isn't credited...but obviously this is more or less due to his not being a part of the B-side's production. Monument issued their second album on Ray, Gitarzan, in the late spring/early summer of 1969. The album features liner notes from talk show host, Merv Griffin. Upon the release of the album from Monument Records they issued a new single...Ray's version of "Along Came Jones"...and while it didn't hit the Top-10 or sell millions of copies it nevertheless reached the Top-30 on the Hot 100 in America and the Top-30 in Canada in addition to it charting in Australia's Top-20. The original recording of the song had been a hit 10 years earlier by one of Ray's influences, The Coasters. The B-side of "Along Came Jones" happened to be another cover of a Coasters hit, "Yakety Yak". There are those that have often remarked that Ray's version of "Along Came Jones" is the funniest...and a lot of it has to do with the additional material that Ray brought to the song. The original from The Coasters lacks the falsetto cries of Sweet Sue as she's being tortured by Salty Sam...and the original also lacks the sinister laugh from the villain. Those are things that Ray brought to the song. The back to back novelty hits and the album itself labeled Ray a novelty singer...even though some may never have recognized him as being anything but a novelty singer in spite of the recorded evidence proving otherwise...some think "Mr. Businessman" is a funny song. Go figure!

In addition to all of this well deserved and long overdue success Ray had been enjoying lately he became acquainted with pop entertainer Andy Williams by the latter half of 1969. Earlier I mentioned that Ray hired a manager named Don Williams...well, he happens to be one of Andy's brothers...but I don't know what came first off the top of my head. I don't know if Ray and Andy got acquainted first and it led to Don becoming Ray's manager or if Ray hired Don as a manger before becoming a business associate of Andy's. Whatever came first Andy Williams began to have some influence in Ray's career around this point in time...and perhaps not a coincidence Ray began making infrequent appearances on Andy's television series. When "Gitarzan" became a massive hit earlier in the year Fred Foster, as mentioned earlier, made Ray a friendly bet that if it became a hit then on the next project Ray would be given complete creative control over. Fred lost the unofficial bet and so Ray and co-producer Jim Malloy set out to work on his next project for Monument Records...and it was a beauty of an album...which I'll go into more detail about in Part Five of this mini-blog series!!