Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Twenty-One...

Hello once again!! It's seems as if I hadn't been blog writing in awhile but statistics show that it's only been a few days since I wrote Part 20 of this mini-blog series. In this installment we're into the new millennium and we've reached 2001. The internet explosion was in full swing and virtually every recording artist had established their own webpage. In these early years of the internet as we know it there were genuine concerns of how it would impact the recording industry...how audio files of music had almost overnight replaced the physical copy of CDs. The negativity surrounding this stemmed from upstart, Independent-driven internet sites offering music for free...the record companies had not yet figured out a way of using the internet in a positive way.

In hindsight the marriage of record companies and on-line retail stores looks so obvious but back then real fear existed on how recording artists and record companies could stay in business. Oh, there are still internet sites that provide 'free' music but by and large they've become a minority and fortunately there's been something of a negative stigma attached to getting music 'for free' and so music consumers, most of them, pay a small fee to whatever on-line store they choose and receive their music downloads. In this way the record companies and artists remain in business and the consumer gets their music immediately.

If I recall correctly Ray Stevens' first internet site had so many letters and what's referred to as special characters in it's address...I didn't get on-line until my parent's purchased me a Web-TV in 2002. The internet access, for me, was limited due to the device I was using at the time. I graduated to a desktop computer a couple of years later and then many years later graduated to a laptop computer. I still don't own a Smartphone device or I-pad or whatever. One day I might graduate to one of those devices...but I like the current laptop I'm using. However, getting back to Ray Stevens...the year 2001 will forever remain linked to the single most loss of life in world history when on September 11, 2001 terrorists hijacked several airplanes and set about using those flights as missiles. The most devastating were the flights that struck both towers of the World Trade Center...causing both to come crashing down. The loss of life from those inside the hijacked flights as well as the people inside the buildings was staggering. On top of this there were other hijacked flights meant to crash at other significant locations but failed to reach their intended target...one flight crashed into a field when passengers overtook the terrorists. The 9/11 terror attacks set in motion a lengthy War on Terror...a symbolic declaration given there was no official declaration of war directed at any particular country...but nevertheless the War on Terror was underway in the days after the 9/11 attacks. Recording artists, television performers, and the U.S. population from all walks of life, in general, had urges of patriotism surge through them...the likes of which I personally had never seen before...I'd only read about this kinds of patriotism in history books covering WWII. Sales of American flags had reached an all-time high.

Country music, more than any other format, was at the forefront in the weeks and months following 9/11. I think country music organizations had more fundraisers, too, for the victims and for the military. Ray emerged later in the year with a humorous offering in an all too serious National mood with "Osama Yo' Mama". Since 9/11 there had been several Patriotic songs emerge...some very topical and some were just pro-American values in general...and there were a few that were comical. Ray Stevens, forever the master of comedy songs, had the natural talent of walking the tight rope with a humorous novelty song amidst serious, super-Patriotic offerings in the weeks and months following 9/11 from Charlie Daniels, Alan Jackson, Hank Williams, Jr., Toby Keith, Aaron Tippin, etc. Ray's song humorously uses the 'your mama didn't raise you this way' logic and, from the point of view of Osama's mother, Ray unleashes a fury of contempt directed at the terrorist. Ray vocally performs the role of Osama's mama at various moments in the song. The President of the United States at the time, George W. Bush, is referred to in the song as Dubya. Ray delivers several lines as the fictional Dubya (not a vocal impression, by the way). A very catchy song and certainly a welcome treat during those earliest months after 9/11.

Curb Records distributed a CD single to radio stations late in 2001. It became an instant hit...and it was a kind of hit that clearly shown the disconnect between radio and the music consumer. This wasn't anything new in the career of Ray Stevens but it was another example of how radio insider politics plays a role in the airplay success rate of a song. The single made it's debut on Billboard's Country Singles chart for the week ending December 29, 2001. The single debuted in it's peak position (number 48) and spent the next four weeks floating around the bottom half of the chart. At the time the Country Singles chart consisted of 60 positions.  The song's final appearance on the airplay-driven Country Singles chart was January 26, 2002...a total of five chart weeks.

The single, "Osama Yo' Mama", then made it's debut on the sales charts in February of 2002. The Billboard Top Country Single Sales chart for the week ending February 2, 2002 has "Osama Yo' Mama" making it's debut on that particular chart while it was also charting on Billboard's Hot 100 Single Sales chart. The single itself never appeared on the Hot 100 but it charted for several weeks on this Hot 100 Single Sales chart beginning on February 2, 2002. Now, even though country radio's airplay of the single was limited at best, it's sales were strong. The single remained a top selling product for the first half of 2002. Curb Records issued a full-length CD, Osama Yo' Mama: The Album. The art work for the CD single and the full-length CD were the same...the only difference being the full-length CD had 'The Album' written underneath Ray's name.

CD single and full-length CD

The graphics, as you can tell, were designed to conjure up the spirit of Uncle Sam and patriotism. The facial expression, as you all should know, comes from his 1992 VHS, Comedy Video Classics. The CD single featured "Osama Yo' Mama" and "United We Stand". The full-length CD made it's debut on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart for the week ending March 2, 2002 in it's Top-30 peak position. The album was a top seller for a couple of months but the CD single, as mentioned, was unstoppable pretty much. It was a runner-up on the Country Single Sales chart for months on end unable to take over the top position during it's very lengthy chart run. Somewhere along the way in 2002 Billboard cut it's 25 position Country Single Sales chart to a very modest 10 position list. This eliminated a lot of artists that weren't heavily played on country radio but whose single releases were selling. I guess the radio programmers in country radio were just a little bit uncomfortable seeing artists like Ray Stevens, Hank Williams, Jr., Lee Greenwood, and Charlie Daniels (just to name a few) ranking among the top selling singles lists yet weren't being played on country radio and so the editors of Billboard, I assume, sought to publish a chart that reflected sales rankings of songs that were actually being played on radio...rather than have a sales chart dominated by songs that weren't.

A music video eventually surfaced of "Osama Yo' Mama" but it didn't appear regularly on any cable television music video programs of the time period. In December 2002 Billboard magazine unveiled it's annual year-end overview. Ray's "Osama Yo' Mama" single was ranked among the top selling singles of the year...which shouldn't come to no surprise. The Hot 100 Single Sales of 2002 had the single ranked number 41 out of 50 while the Country Single Sales had the single ranked number 5 for the year.

Ray's label, Clyde Records, issued a VHS in 2003 titled Cartoon Video Collection. This project features six music videos with live action Ray Stevens interacting with animated backgrounds. It was an experiment, most definitely, and the VHS collection closes with "Osama Yo' Mama". An equally funny sequel came along, "Hello Mama", set to the same music as "Osama Yo' Mama" but of course it came with different lyrics. In "Hello Mama" we hear a phone call between Osama and his mother...in the music video as well as in the song Ray portrays both parts. That particular song was released as a CD single...in very limited supply...but it didn't appear on any full-length CD until a couple of years after it's release. The hook of the song are the explosions heard at the end of each call as Osama realizes whatever phone he attempts to use is wired to explode. The music video appeared as a bonus feature on the 2004 DVD release, The Complete Comedy Video Collection. That particular title had two releases...some pressings feature the music video, "Power Tools", whereas other releases do not. Also, "Osama Yo' Mama" is featured as an extra bonus feature on the versions lacking "Power Tools". Ray's patriotic "Thank You" music video is also part of this collection. In the summer of 2004 Ray returned to Branson, Missouri...at his former theater no less...and more on this in Part Twenty-Two of this Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame traveled by Ray Stevens!