Ray Stevens: Ahab the Arab performance Clip...

Hello again...and in this blog entry I'm embedding a video clip of Ray Stevens performing his breakthrough hit from 1962, "Ahab the Arab". In this black and white clip you're going to see legendary Nashville broadcaster Jud Collins speak about Ray and quoting from a reviewer that said Ray was a combination of Victor Borge, Steve Allen, and Abe Burrows all rolled into one.



Ray has always performed this song differently depending upon which era he's singing it as well as the time constraints of a television show or a concert. Sometimes he'll perform the entire song but often he'll sing the edited version that Mercury issued. There's an ending to the song that features the Sultan returning to the tent and discovering Ahab and Fatima in the heat of the moment and there's a chase that ensues. You can hear this unedited "Ahab the Arab" on the 1995 music video he did as part of his Get Serious! VHS movie. Ray was inspired by the book, Arabian Nights, as well as the classic silent film, The Sheik, when composing "Ahab the Arab". Ahab's camel, Clyde, became a visual logo for Ray's music company. Ray's publishing company was once called Ahab Music before he created the more professional sounding Ray Stevens Music, Inc. Ray has several other publishing companies...one in particular being Lucky Streak Music, Inc.

You can find an unedited copy of the 1962 recording on several compilation CDs and if you do a thorough search of the internet you're bound to come across it for sale. The edited copy of the song typically runs 2 minutes, 50 seconds (the single release) and that's the one which is widely available whereas the unedited copy can be found on 1,837 Seconds of Humor (Ray's debut album for Mercury Records) and the music video for the unedited version can be seen on Get Serious! and on YouTube, of course; but it can be found elsewhere but like I said you'll have to search around for it.

Ray re-recorded "Ahab the Arab" two times. He re-recorded it in 1995 for his music video but several decades earlier, in 1969, he re-recorded it for his Gitarzan album on Monument Records. In the 1969 recording there's audience noise and it has a lot of additional lyrics and the pacing is slower. The 1969 recording of "Ahab the Arab" appears on a lot of international compilation albums as well as a whole host of compilation albums released in the United States throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

I'm going to pass along a little trick. If you look at album credits, like I do, if an album shows that "Ahab the Arab" appears through courtesy of Barnaby Records or Celebrity Licensing then it's the 1969 re-recording for Monument Records. Barnaby purchased all of Ray's recordings for Monument Records and so, legally, Barnaby owned Ray's Monument recordings which is why you don't see Monument credited on those compilation albums...you'll only see Barnaby or Celebrity Licensing credited. If you look at album credits and it states that "Ahab the Arab" appears through the courtesy of either Polygram or Mercury Records then it's the 1962 recording. Also, if a compilation lists the record producers, the 1962 recording of "Ahab the Arab" was produced by Shelby Singleton whereas the 1969 re-recording was produced by Ray, Fred Foster, and Jim Malloy. So, then, if you look at the album credits those are the various ways you can determine whether or not "Ahab the Arab" is the 1962 or 1969 recording.