Ray Stevens: 1974 Hit Parader Article...

This must be a relatively new item on eBay as it's only come to my attention within the last several hours. It's a January 1974 issue of a magazine called Hit Parader. The magazine cover's main subject is the southern rock group Black Stone Arkansas. There are advertisements on the magazine's cover for other acts of the time period and there's reference to that issue's collection of lyrics from current songs. It's not entirely accidental that the magazine's cover doesn't promote an article on Ray Stevens. If I were to have seen this magazine advertised on-line and if there wasn't any reference made to an article inside about Ray Stevens I wouldn't have even concerned myself with the contents of that issue. The same could be said if any fan of Ray would have seen this magazine on a retail rack in 1974 and if they didn't bother to browse through it before purchasing they wouldn't have even been aware of the Ray Stevens article because it's not advertised on the magazine cover. I say it was not entirely accidental that his name isn't advertised on the magazine cover due to rock and roll clashing with the 'pop' music preferred by radio programmers and being played on Top-40 radio.

Even though Adult-Contemporary radio stations were around in the early '70s and had begun popping up in the mid '60s when traditional pop music singers had largely been replaced by rock and roll performers there was nevertheless a growing resentment among disc jockeys of 'rock and roll' music having softer pop and rock songs on their playlists. In an interview of Ray that appeared in a July 1970 issue of TV Guide he remarked: "I'm not what you call a country performer. I'm more pop-contemporary"...the very format that rock and roll publications were hesitant to heavily promote.

The advance of time and the creation of the internet has long since resolved this culture clash and everyone is free to listen to whatever style of music they choose at the click of a button in an on-line music store or on YouTube but this luxury obviously didn't exist back in 1974...and so the acts advertised on the magazine's cover, more than likely, reflect the personal taste of the magazine's owner or it's editor. It's highly unlikely Ray Stevens would enter your mind when you look at a magazine cover spotlighting a rowdy looking rock and roll group...but then again the magazine cover makes mention of a device called an Elecphone from Andy and David Williams (the twin nephews of pop crooner Andy Williams) who were as far removed from rock and roll as you could get in 1974 but the twins managed to achieve the teen idol treatment (numerous appearances in magazines catering mostly to teenage girls) but predictably the duo met with resistance from radio programmers. You can see the magazine by clicking this LINK.

1973

The magazine being issued in January 1974 is notable for it being released several months before "The Streak" came along and it's a glimpse into Ray's career time-line months before that particular smash hit would forever become synonymous with career. The current album from Ray at the time of the magazine's release happened to be Nashville. In the magazine you'll see a photo of the Nashville album and you'll see a photo of Ray taken during the photo session for the album. There is a photo of Ray, with a beard, sitting at his piano inside his recording studio. This is very similar to a photo that appears in the liner notes of a 1997 CD on Rhino Records titled The Best of Ray Stevens. In that photo Ray is grinning from ear to ear but in this magazine photo the facial expression is more of a slight smile...but it was definitely taken on the same day in 1973. On the left hand side of the blog entry is a cassette copy of Nashville...something rare...as cassette format was largely overshadowed by vinyl even though existence of cassette tape had been around since the '60s. The music cassette was something of a phenomenon in the 1970s as it enabled people to take their music with them on a portable device as opposed to sitting at home with a vinyl LP of music playing on a turntable. The popularity of the music cassette took off in the late '70s and became the dominant form of music sales in the 1980s even though vinyl continued to be released throughout the decade, too. If you notice there's an MGM logo on the lower right hand side of the cassette. If you know your record label distribution history you're no doubt aware that Barnaby Records went through a series of distributors in America and internationally. The label was distributed by CBS Records in the early part of the '70s and then Janus Records became one of it's distributors. Janus fell under the umbrella of GRT Records. MGM, as you can see, at one time distributed Barnaby Records products. The MGM distribution deal was apparently brief because Ray's earlier LP release in 1973, Losin' Streak, was distributed by CBS Records and his 1974 LP, Boogity Boogity, was distributed by GRT/Janus and in between the release of those two LP's was 1973's Nashville, with MGM distribution.