Ray Stevens: Felix Cavaliere CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! We're in the last day of November...eventually I'll be writing mostly Christmas themed blog entries...but in this blog entry I'm going to embed a video clip of Ray Stevens interviewing Felix Cavaliere. The interview lasts a little more than 3 minutes and then Felix is asked to sing another song. The song he chooses is "Groovin'", one of his hits during his years as a member of the rock group, The Young Rascals. The song hit number one here in America and in Canada and sold more than a million copies. It was also a Top-10 hit in the United Kingdom and Australia. The group, ironically enough, didn't have the kind of success in the United Kingdom as other rock bands that originated in the United States. In a 7 year period (1965-1972) only two singles from the group made the United Kingdom's Top-40: "Groovin'" and "A Girl Like You". Those two single releases were in 1967. The group changed it's name from The Young Rascals to The Rascals in early 1968 and had back to back million selling smash hits: "A Beautiful Morning" and "People Got to Be Free". Felix is credited with singing the lead vocals on six of The Young Rascals/The Rascals hit singles and he played what is known as the Hammond B-3 Organ. Felix and Ray discuss this piano in the video clip below as well as the Peppermint Lounge. Felix described the interior of the nightclub to the delight of Ray and the audience and how the club liked to have the female dancers inside cages although that might be an exaggeration for humor sake. A member of The Young Rascals, Eddie Brigati, happened to be a brother of one of the members of Joey Dee and the Starlighters, David Brigati. The Starlighters had a massive hit with "Peppermint Twist", inspired by the Peppermint Lounge nightclub in New York City, in which the Starlighters were the house band at the Lounge. You'll hear all of this in the video clip below in addition to Felix performing the million selling pop hit, "Groovin'"... 

Ray Stevens: "Injurin' Joe" music video...

Hello once again!! In this blog entry I'm going to be embedding a video of a song Ray Stevens recorded in 2000 for the soundtrack of the animated movie, Tom Sawyer. The movie features a soundtrack and voice acting from a wide range of country music artists. Ray Stevens participated in the soundtrack with a song he and Buddy Kalb wrote called "Injurin' Joe". Ray's song only appears on the film's soundtrack...it was not featured in the animated film nor was it issued as a single. The video was made by a fellow fan of Ray Stevens a couple of years ago and earlier this month the fan got a big surprise when he was contacted by Ray's inner circle and was asked if they could upload the video onto their YouTube channel and other social media platforms. I frequently communicate, on-line, with this fellow fan and have done so for more than 10 years. His name is Daniel Curtis. 

Daniel's just as big a fan of Ray Stevens as I am...at one point in time he had his photo taken with Ray during a meet and greet. I'm way too nervous to do things like that. When I went to Ray's CabaRay showroom in 2018 my brother and I sat at a table right next to the stage...and that was the closest I'd ever gotten to Ray Stevens even though I've been a fan of Ray's since the mid 1980s. I had met his frequent songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, a couple of times at the merchandise tables at other Ray Stevens concerts in the past. As mentioned, Ray and Buddy wrote "Injurin' Joe" and I think it's a wonderful song for what it's suppose to be. The music certainly creates a mood and the imagery from the animated movie is timed a lot with the lyrics. Since this is a song for an animated movie, and it's about the villain of the film, you're going to get a lot of lyrics that build up the menacing nature of the character. You're going to love the video and the song...it's a lot of fun...so without further delay here's the Daniel Curtis video that Ray Stevens uploaded onto his social media sites the other day...

Ray Stevens on Hee Haw: 1987

Hello one and all!! I had something of a surprise recently...I was clicking through the channels, well, actually I was looking on my television's program guide (an on-screen version of a TV schedule) and I was reading the special guests of a 1980's episode of Hee Haw on Circle TV. I turned to the channel and I caught the final minutes of an episode that featured Ray Stevens as a guest co-host!! The episode had aired on Circle TV at 8pm Eastern on Friday night. The problem is, the on-screen program guide, didn't list Ray as a guest for that episode of the show. They actually had an entirely different episode's guest list provided in their episode description. Well, I looked ahead on the schedule and seen that this 8pm episode would re-air at 11pm. I set my DVR and recorded the episode...and watched it at the same time...and enjoyed the entire episode. 

The episode was recorded in the fall 1986 taping sessions but it aired on March 28, 1987 as the final episode of the 1986-1987 season. When Roy Clark began having a different guest co-host each week it presented a major change in the show's long-time traditional opening sing-a-long. Buck Owens had left the show following the 1985-1986 season and so when Hee Haw resumed production in the summer of 1986 the producers began a guest co-host policy. The show would have it's usual opening where the announcer would welcome the viewers to the show, name it's hosts, and then do a run down of the cast members. Afterward, Roy Clark would interact with the guest co-host and that would lead into the guest co-host's first song of the episode. The guest co-host would sing a second song during the second half hour of the show. As I've written before, Ray Stevens appeared a lot of times on the show during this mid to late 1980s time period. He was most often serving as a guest co-host but there are other episodes where he's just a guest. The show's second half of the season always taped in the late summer/early fall...and when Ray taped his appearances in the fall of 1986 he sang a couple of songs from his then current album, Surely You Joust. In the screen cap Ray is singing "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat". 

I took a few screen caps of him performing that song...including an image of him twirling his hand around as he sang about fictional wife, Doris, and her inspired tap dance and Lash LaRue impression. Ray's hand was twirling so much during that portion of the song that it looks like a blur in the screen cap. You'll see that blurred hand in the collage I'll be posting at the bottom of the blog entry. In the screen cap off to the right he's at the piano during his second song of the episode. Ray's wardrobe consists of a yellow jacket, blue shirt, red tie, red pants, and yellow shoes. You'll note that he wore red pants and yellow shoes when he dressed up as Humpty Dumpty on his 1987 Crackin' Up album. It indicates that Ray was possibly photographing possible covers for that album around the time of this 1986 taping. Ray appeared in several cornfield segments and midway through the episode along came the Pickin' and Grinnin' segment. This segment, like most of the sketches, had been part of the show since it's June 15, 1969 debut. The guest co-host would trade jokes with Roy Clark...usually comical insults. The segment's title had multiple meanings. First off is the idea of the two hosts picking their music instruments (guitar and banjo) and grinning as they play...the other meaning is a reference at how the two would pick at each other in a grinning, joking manner with one-liners.

As you can see in the photo...Ray is playing a guitar and he's changed his wardrobe to a red shirt and blue jeans. I'm sure it was the producer's idea...I don't know if they would've wanted to see Ray in red pants and yellow shoes and seated there next to Roy Clark. The routine was part of the show from the beginning but at some point in the early '70s the cast-members began to take part in the routine as well. Cast members Irlene Mandrell and Linda Thompson can be seen in the background. I don't like taking screen caps that include a lot of people because you can never zero in one what you're wanting to capture without having others being cut out of the photo or in this case seeing the bottom half of people. I have some other photo's of Ray Stevens and Roy Clark from this episode but this is the only one that I captured featuring a far shot...the other screen caps are close-up. The second song that Ray sings on this episode is "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" and I posted a screen cap of Ray earlier seated at the piano. In that performance he makes a lot of comical faces. I have seen Ray perform this song on Hee Haw before, as a kid, and so this must be the second time he performed it...but then again he may have performed it on some of the episodes he appeared on during the upcoming 1987-1988 season. The song would go on to appear on a second volume of greatest hits that hit in the latter half of 1987 so it's possible he sang the song on a later episode. Now, having said that, Ray had previously appeared as a guest co-host several weeks earlier, too. He guest co-hosted the March 7, 1987 episode. The footage from that episode also originated in the fall of 1986...so he could have performed "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?" on that episode, too, but then that wouldn't have made any sense to have a performance of the same song on two closely aired episodes. To add to the confusion Ray would appear on the September 26, 1987 episode...but on this appearance he was just a guest instead of a guest co-host. The guest co-host on that episode was none other than Ralph Emery. The footage from that episode originated in the summer of 1987. I'll try and find out on which episodes of Hee Haw Ray sang "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?"...because I know he sang it on more than one episode. 

Meanwhile, the other guests on this episode were Steve Wariner, he sang "Lynda" and "Life's Highway"; Lyle Lovett was another guest and he sang "Cowboy Man" and "Farther Down the Line". Loretta Lynn appeared in the episode and sang "Red, White, and Blue", a song she'd written in the mid '70s for her album, When the Tingle Becomes a Chill. The song, which I'd never heard before, had actually been a Top-20 hit for her in 1976. This episode also featured a segment with The Million Dollar Band (Roy Clark, Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, Danny Davis, Jethro Burns, Johnny Gimble, and Charlie McCoy). The group performed "Jambalaya". In the collage below I included the screen cap of Ray with the blurry arm during his performance of "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat" along with another screen cap of Ray and Roy.

Ray Stevens: Linda Davis CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello all...I begin this post barely 10 minutes past Midnight and still 'recovering' from my usual Thanksgiving intake. I fell asleep sometime after 7:30pm Thursday night and woke up a little after 11:30pm. Christmas season begins almost immediately after Thanksgiving and I'll probably write some sort of Christmas blog entry later this week. Country singer Linda Davis celebrated a birthday yesterday. She's a recording artist/songwriter that's had a lot of success in both areas. The episode of CabaRay Nashville in which she guest starred is reviewed in my blog archives. I reviewed the episode in the summer of 2018. In this video clip Linda sings "Young at Heart" while Ray Stevens plays the piano. Ray recorded a version of the song on his Frank Sinatra album. Ray's album is called Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?. The first time I'd heard of Linda was as a duet partner with Reba McEntire on "Does He Love You?". She then put out a song called "Company Time" that I remember...mostly because a music video of it was a hit on the video channels in the early '90s. A number of country artists were having a lot of exposure through music videos and Linda was no exception. 

A lot was written back then of how airplay on radio, for some singers, was becoming secondary considering music video airplay could reach national audiences all at one time on cable television whereas radio airplay is confined to local geography. What's playing in one area on local country radio stations might not be played somewhere else, for example. Country radio has changed a lot since then, of course, and most if not all Top-40 country stations play a national playlist of songs/artists. Radio stations insert voice tracked commentary to keep a local feel but the music is being programmed elsewhere. 

Linda, according to on-line biographies, was discovered by Bob Montgomery. If you're a dedicated fan of Ray Stevens then you should be aware of his name. Bob co-produced Ray's Don't Laugh Now album in 1982. Ray's 1983 album, Me, featured Jerry Kennedy as a co-producer and to date that's the last Ray Stevens album to feature a co-producer. Ray usually produces and arranges his own albums but those two back to back albums were exceptions. Linda has won three Grammy awards in her career. She and Reba won a Grammy for "Does He Love You?" in 1994 and then 23 years later, in 2017, she won two Grammy awards...one for an album she participated in, Love Remains, and the other for a single release from that album, "Thy Will" (the single has sold more than 200,000 copies). That album and single is credited as Hillary Scott and the Scott Family and it was produced by Ricky Skaggs (he won a Grammy for being the producer of the album). Linda's daughter, Hillary Scott, is a member of the group Lady A. 

Linda is married to Lang Scott. The Scott Family, officially, is comprised of: Hillary, Linda, Lang, and Rylee. Enjoy the video clip of Linda singing the Frank Sinatra classic, "Young at Heart" with Ray Stevens playing the piano.

Ray Stevens: Gary Mule Deer CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans!! The day before Thanksgiving finds me embedding a video clip of Ray Stevens and Gary Mule Deer from an episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. In this clip you'll see Gary perform "Folsom Prison Blues", the Johnny Cash classic. The video clip starts off with Gary singing the song and afterwards it features him and Ray Stevens as kind of a double-act...they do what amounts to a lengthy stand-up comedy routine where Ray comes across as the straight man to Gary's one-liners and jokes. Whenever Ray had guests on his TV show that were known for comedy he'd typically act as the straight man to their jokes. The same thing happened when comedy duo Williams and Ree guest starred. The comedy between Ray and Gary runs a little over 6 minutes...Gary's rendition of "Folsom Prison Blues" is 3 minutes. 

In the screen cap on the left Gary has concluded one of his mini-stories with a punchline that has Ray laughing. This is just one screen cap of Ray in the midst of laughing. There's another one I'll more than likely post later. Ray had casually mentioned during their comedy segment that Gary is known for carrying notes and bits of paper with him in his pockets and on cue Gary pulls out a note and starts reading it. Gary's career goes back decades. His birthday happened to arrive several days ago. He and Ray are the same age...both born in 1939. I recall seeing Gary Mule Deer for the first time in the late 1980s or the very early 1990s. He was on a stand-up comedy show and I'm wanting to say it was the show that used to air on the Arts and Entertainment network, Evening at the Improv. The show was hosted by a guy named Bud Friedman...he was noted for wearing a monocle and I'd always viewed it as a comedy prop for him. In those stand-up routines he did he never sang or carried a guitar...instead he'd have a typewriter sitting on his shoulder and whenever he'd do a routine where he'd read off comical headlines he'd strike the typewriter keys so that it would sound like a newsroom...specifically Walter Cronkite's newscasts with the twinkling typewriter keys heard in the background. 

I wrote a recap of the full episode of Gary's guest appearance on Ray's television show in case you're wanting to know even more details about that episode. That recap is in the archives. If you search 2017, the month of November, you'll find the recap of Gary Mule Deer's episode. As you can see from looking at the image above Ray thoroughly enjoyed the remarks and comical commentary Gary brought to the show. In the video clip below you'll see what caused Ray to laugh so heartily and you'll hear several remarks about their experiences with Roger Miller.

Ray Stevens: Musicians Hall of Fame Interview...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I know you're out there and a lot of you are just as devoted to his music, from all time periods, as I am. It's several days before Thanksgiving...in some of my blog's around this time of the year I often remark about how thankful we are that the music of Ray Stevens is in our lives. Those who are fans of him know how rare he happens to be...by saying that I mean we know that not too many performers/recording artists have the sort of talents Ray possesses. He's not only a singer but he's also a songwriter, musician, producer, music arranger, music publisher, and we can see his acting abilities in his comedy music videos. He's in his 63rd year as a recording artist...after having released his first recording in 1957...and recently he participated in an interview with Joe Chambers of the Musicians Hall of Fame. All kinds of topics are discussed in this half hour interview...some things all of us knew given our long standing appreciation for the music and career of Ray Stevens...but there are a couple of things that Ray gave some detail on. 

If you recall a couple of months ago Ray spoke of an upcoming box set and mentioned the working title was Musical Highlights of the 20th Century. He said that the box set would be several CD's in one massive collection. Well, in this interview, Ray goes into detail about this box set and discusses cover art and the concept of some of the CD's in the collection. He also reveals the amount of songs he recorded. If you're a repeat visitor to this blog you'll see in some of my blog entries that I wonder what Ray's up to or if new songs from him are on the horizon. When Ray revealed the song total it dawned on me that's what he's been busy with in the recording studio over the last couple of years. I don't want to give away too many details, obviously, because I want you to watch the interview for yourselves...

One of the things to keep in mind is that this is an interview of Ray Stevens by Joe Chambers. There are people on Ray's social media sites who are looking at the screen cap of Ray and they see 'Musicians Hall of Fame Backstage' in big letters and they've automatically assumed that Ray's either a member of that Hall of Fame or he's been elected to it. There's a lot of congratulation replies on his Facebook page, for example, but this is only an interview...Ray isn't a member of the Musicians Hall of Fame! Ray happens to be a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Georgia Music Hall of Fame, Atlanta Music Hall of Fame, Christian Music Hall of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Is this interview a foreshadowing of things to come? I had seen this interview on Joe Chambers' YouTube page a couple of days ago but held off featuring it in a blog. I left a comment about the video at the time. I usually never want to get ahead of what Ray's planning on doing with video content that appears on-line. I typically wait until the content appears on his YouTube channel or his Facebook page before I feature it in a blog entry. A few blog entries ago I went ahead and uploaded the two performances from Ray's appearance on Mike Huckabee's television show...those videos originated on Huckabee's social media platforms...so I don't always wait until video content appears on Ray's social media sites but for the most part I do. 

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" hits 2 million unique views...

Well, it's me once again!! Earlier tonight I was doing my usual internet browsing and I decided to visit the Ray Stevens YouTube channel...which is something of a routine thing for me...and I discovered that his COVID-19 comedy video, "The Quarantine Song", has pushed beyond 2,000,000 unique views. As of this writing the unique view count is 2,005,516 and so it must have vaulted into the 2 million range at some point earlier on Monday. The music video debuted in May of this year...a few months into the pandemic...and as we're well into November and soon to be in December the hyper-exaggeration of cases is at an all time fever pitch. The partial economic lockdowns being re-implemented by power hungry Governor's and big city Mayor's, in my opinion, is starting to reach a point of no return and that's why, I think, so many people are protesting the COVID-19 restrictions this time around. The people can see where things are headed. There's a very vocal and loud response to California restrictions by the public out there and it's caused many of them to rally for a recall of their Governor. It's hard to tell what's going to happen from day to day, week to week, or month to month...the uncertainty is enough to weigh on one's mind. The Thanksgiving restrictions in some of these States is beyond appalling...power hungry, mini-tyrants in State and local Government issuing edicts and mandates that they themselves have no intention of following but threaten fines or arrest if the ordinary everyday citizen dares to have fun or have any family and friends over. How come we all can't quarantine from the Government?

Ray Stevens chats with Jeannie Seely...

Hello one and all!! Earlier today, if you happened to have been on any of the Ray Stevens social media accounts, you'd know that Ray spoke a little with Jeannie Seely on her satellite radio series on Sirius XM. Her show, Sundays with Seely, airs each Sunday from 12pm until 4pm Eastern on Channel 59. It's on the Willie's Roadhouse channel. She led off the fourth hour with Ray as a guest. She spoke of her new recording contract with Curb Records and she gave Ray a lot of credit with helping get her signed to the label. He modestly said that he didn't necessarily deserve much credit. She spoke about the 50th anniversary of "Everything is Beautiful" and asked him about it. She brought up the fact that there's two renditions of the song available. Ray spoke about how one rendition features a new opening bridging it to contemporary times while the other rendition is a medley with "United We Stand". Ray and Jeannie recorded a duet titled "Dance Tonight". The duet is on her new CD but several blogs ago I mentioned that the song can be purchased by itself as a digital download, too. She brings up their duet and then asks Ray about the CabaRay. He informs the listeners that he'd love to have the CabaRay opened but the pandemic is keeping the facility closed but he's hopeful all of the talk about vaccines being ready by the end of this year will help returns things to normal. Jeannie tells Ray a story about a friend of hers and that when her friend was 9 years old she wanted to sing "Everything is Beautiful" at her church. The request was granted. Jeannie remarked it was the first time the church ever allowed any song to be performed that wasn't part of the church's traditional hymnal. Ray was almost speechless upon hearing Jeannie's story. The chat was brief but it was publicity and exposure...and in these pandemic times, any opportunity to get your latest happenings to the public and inform those that might be outside your immediate fanbase, the better. 

Ray Stevens: The Huckabee 2020 performances...

Hello one and all!! Ray Stevens guest starred on Huckabee yesterday night. Ray wasn't interviewed but he performed two songs while the show's host, Mike Huckabee, played the bass guitar. I don't know if there was an interview segment that was recorded for the studio audience for a later release or if Ray was only there as a performer instead of as an interview subject. The series airs on religious station, TBN, and it's been in production for a number of years. It originated on the Fox News Channel but then moved over to the TBN. The acronym stands for Trinity Broadcasting Network. Ray's appeared on the show before but this, I think, may have been the first time there wasn't an interview segment. Ray performed "The Quarantine Song" midway through the hour long program. There was a studio audience...it wasn't packed with people because of the COVID virus...but there was an audience. Ray closed the show singing the "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley. This was the first time Ray had performed this on any television show. The performances from Ray were their usual stellar productions but be sure to take in all of the intense emotion of Ray's performance of "United We Stand"! The first video embed is of the medley...even though the video title states that it's only "Everything is Beautiful", it's actually the medley performance with "United We Stand". 

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Studio recording Console...

Hello all the Ray Stevens fans!! It's been several blog entries since I opened up the blog with a greeting of some sort. This black and white photo of Ray emerged on his social media sites the other day and I'm just now getting around to spotlighting it on this fan created Ray Stevens blog page. The recording studio he is in is his brand new studio. The studio opened for recording a year or a year and a half after his CabaRay showroom had it's grand opening. The showroom opened in early 2018 for concert performances but elsewhere in the facility the recording studio was still being constructed. I'd seen photo's of the recording studio as it was being built...cords and wires laying everywhere...boxes of recording equipment sitting around here and there. If you search the photo section of Ray's Facebook page and go back to April 2019 you'll see a series of photos of the CabaRay recording studio under construction. I saved one of the photos from last year and I'll be posting it below. I left a comment on Ray's social media pages saying that every time I see a photo of Ray next to a recording console I have the lyrics of "Bionie and the Robotics" going through my head. That song was written by Ray and Buddy Kalb and recorded in 1986. It appears on Ray's Surely You Joust album. I think of that song no matter what time period the photo happens to be...I've got photos of Ray in 1974 and 1981 inside his recording studio and sitting near the console. There's also several more photos of Ray you can find on-line from various time periods that show him inside the recording studio.

The photo above shows Ray in a relaxed mood inside a previous recording studio. This 1974 photo originated from the studio he opened on 1707 Grand Avenue the same year. He closed it down in 2019 after a run of 45 years while a new recording studio was being built within his CabaRay facility. If you search the archives of my blog in the year 2019 you'll come across a blog entry I wrote titled: 45 Grand (Avenue) Years: 1974-2019. If you notice both photos are in black and white...and if you also notice there's a change in technology, too. The console in the 2020 photo looks just as complex but you'll also notice that there's a computer screen on the console and Ray's holding a cell phone. In the 1974 photo there's no computer, that's visible, and a phone is sitting on top of the console next to an ash tray. The presence of the telephone in 1974 compared to a cell phone in 2020...and the visibility of a computer in the 2020 photo...are technological differences that stand out right away when comparing the photos. 

The reason I say there's no computer visible in the 1974 photo is because Ray has always been innovative when it comes to recording equipment and technology. Ray, in fact, may have add early models of a computer in his recording studio along side all of the other equipment but there isn't a visual of a computer in the 1974 photo. Did you ever notice why Ray's recordings always sounded a whole lot different than anyone else? It isn't because most of them were comical. It's because of the music execution and the production values. When you hear Ray Stevens singing a ballad like "Idaho Wine" (from his 1973 Losin' Streak album) or "Golden Age" (from his 1973 Nashville album) the music, arrangement, production is all Ray Stevens...no other recording artist had the same sound. Ray continues to have his own sound to this day. In the black and white photo off to the right it's a more close-up of Ray at the console. When I came across this photo several years ago it wasn't dated. Whenever I see a photo of Ray and it isn't dated I go through a mental process of elimination based on what he looks like or what he might be wearing. In this photo he has the thick dark hair and based on the pose it looks like he's got the thinner beard. He had a thicker beard in the mid '70s...search YouTube for video clips of him from 1975 performing "Misty" or "Indian Love Call" to see what I mean. He had a thinner beard in the early '70s and there's YouTube video of him from 1972 on the television show, Hee Haw, if you want to know what I call a thin beard. However, the style of beard in this photo combined with the casual attire reminiscent of his photo on the 1981 One More Last Chance album has me thinking the close-up photo is from 1981...but it's highly possible it could be from 1980, 1982, 1983...but it's definitely the early '80s. If anyone knows for certain what year that photo originated I'd love to know! A brief interview of Ray at his former recording studio back in 2014...he talks about purchasing an upright piano at a music store in 1960 and taking it to the NRC recording studio. You can hear the brief interview, from July 2014, when you click HERE.

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Float"...

Well, in this blog entry which happens to be my 240th of the year, I'm embedding a particular recording from Ray Stevens that comes from his 1973 album, Nashville. The recording is an instrumental...it features heavy emphasis on two of the most polar opposite instruments in the music world: the steel guitar and the trumpet! The instrumental is titled "Float" and not only does it feature those two instruments it also incorporates the piano and guitars...but when you listen to it you're going to hear an abundance of the trumpet, the performance's main instrument. Ray wrote and arranged this recording as well as produced it.  

If you follow Ray's career with any degree of an in-depth nature you'll know that he can play the trumpet...he's credited as a trumpet player on some of his recording sessions and he is credited as a timpani player on his 1985 album...notably heard on the chicken clucking fanfare called "Thus Cacked Henrietta". That's the only recording on that album to feature a timpani, by the way. Those thundering beats heard throughout that recording is Ray striking the timpani. You can search YouTube for video of musicians playing a timpani and once you hear those strikes being applied you'll immediately recognize Ray's "Thus Cacked Henrietta", which itself is based on the fanfare portion heard in a classical music piece titled "Also sprach Zarathustra", written by Richard Strauss. When you see a timpani you'll know they're also referred to as kettledrums. 

Now, since Ray can play a trumpet, I've always assumed that he's the one playing the trumpet on the "Float" recording...but I can't definitively answer that, yet. The musicians aren't credited on the back of the 1973 Nashville album and there's no notation anywhere crediting Ray as the trumpet player on that recording. I'm assuming the steel guitar player is Jay Dee Mannes, the same steel guitarist who played on some of Ray's other albums of this time period. Steel guitarist Larry Sasser used to do concert dates with Ray...Larry also doubled as a dobro player if needed. Hal Rugg played the steel guitar on a couple of Ray Stevens recordings as did John Hughey. I've not done hardly any blog entries where I've spotlighted the musicians that have appeared on Ray Stevens albums over the decades...one day I'll get around to writing a blog about the musicians. 

Some of his albums, like 1973's Nashville, doesn't feature a credited musician list so it's anyone's guess who played on what recording. Ray famously likes to keep it simple when it comes to the studio musicians that appear on his albums...some have appeared on his albums for more than 30 years. There was once a time when, in the 1990s, the musicians that appeared on Ray's current albums were the same ones that appeared on his 1970s albums. In an era where there's a lot of turn-over when it comes to studio musicians and road musicians Ray's continually managed to keep a small group of them together for decades at a time (studio musicians and concert musicians) and the same goes for his harmony singers! Now, yes, of course, there's been some turn-over...some musicians may retire or they pass away...or some want to move on and do other things but for the most part the people he surrounds himself with tend to stay with him for decades.  

Ray Stevens audio clip: "The Motel Song"...

In this fan created blog entry I'm going to embed an audio clip of a Ray Stevens song from 1993 titled "The Motel Song". This song made it's debut on an album Ray released titled Classic Ray Stevens. I've mentioned in blog entries that the album's title, over the years, has confused a lot of people. When people see Classic Ray Stevens listed on music sites, and they see the title, they automatically assume that it's a greatest hits or best of compilation. There is one album review I came across where the critic remarked "for a CD called Classic Ray Stevens I don't see any recognizable songs...". 😄 

The reason that's funny, to me, is because the music critic either had no information that the CD was all new recordings and presented in the classic comedic style Ray Stevens fans have come to love or the critic simply didn't have a clue to begin with and didn't know what in the world he was critiquing anyhow. The cover art for the album shows Ray's face on a bust of a classical composer...more likely it's a visual parody of Beethoven. Anyway, the classical music design of the CD's cover art was part of the tie in with the CD's title. Ray covered "The Bricklayer's Song" on this CD...it's track number three. Ray wrote one of the songs, "If You and Yo' Folks Like Me and My Folks". The bulk of the songs were written by Buddy Kalb with several co-written with a writer named Glenn Fortner. In the early '90s Glenn had several songs on Ray's albums. The songs were usually in collaboration with Buddy Kalb. "The Motel Song", though, was one of the songs Buddy wrote himself and Ray recorded.

Ray Stevens: Sunday YouTube analysis...

Here I am on a Sunday mid-morning with the clock about ready to click to 12pm with the threat of a minor wind storm approaching. The wind guests are said to be in the range of 45 to 55mph at various moments throughout the day. I can hear the winds kicking up outside. 

I was looking at the YouTube videos of Ray Stevens prior to writing this blog entry and I was adding up the unique views of his recent video uploads. I did an estimated total rather than doing it down to the specific number. In my analysis I added up the unique views of the following music video uploads that shown up in the last 6 days: "Everything is Beautiful" (6.7K), "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" (4.7K), and a 1987 television performance of "It's Me Again, Margaret" (7.8K). Those three video uploads have a combined unique view count of  over 19.2K, or, in other words, more than 19,200 unique views. When you see the capital letter, K, following a number it's referencing numbers in the thousands whereas the capital letter, M, references numbers in the millions. 

Ray's videos are typically active on a daily basis on YouTube. "The Quarantine Song", his music video from May of this year, has over 1.8 million unique views. "Grandpa Voted Democrat", several days ago, was in the 2.8 million range but now it's exceeded that with 2.9 million...specifically speaking that's 2,906,191 unique views. That particular music video was sitting at 2,877,319 on November 11th and since then it's added 28,872 unique views to bring it to it's current total as of this writing. When you do in-depth analysis of the music videos that I'm highlighting in this blog entry you can see that the three video uploads that debuted within the last 6 days (going back to November 9th) did great at grabbing a combined estimated figure of 19,200 but then we take a look at "Grandpa Voted Democrat" and see that in the last 4 days (going back to November 11th) that music video took in 28,872 unique views by itself. 

Since I like rounding the numbers, for easy math, let's add the combined unique views of the three video uploads of the last 6 days (19,200) with the unique views obtained for "Grandpa Voted Democrat" in the last 4 days (rounded up to 29,000). When rounding the numbers we find that a combined total of 48,000 devices (computers, I-pads, I-phones, cell phones, smart phones, etc.) had Ray Stevens video content airing at some point during the last 6 days. Keep in mind that number is focusing only on four specific video uploads and the unique views they've obtained since November 9th. I didn't factor in how many additional people have seen other video content on his YouTube channel, like "The Quarantine Song", for example or video content featuring guests that have appeared on his locally syndicated PBS television series, CabaRay Nashville. Ray's YouTube video uploads remain active and engaging on his social media accounts.

Ray Stevens: Updated "Everything is Beautiful" nearing 6,000 unique views...

In my look into the most recent unique views for the 50th anniversary music video of "Everything is Beautiful" it's received 5,927 unique views as of this writing. This is a pickup of 1,107 unique views from my previous blog entry early yesterday morning. The video debuted this past Monday (November 9th) and it was paired with a medley video on the same day. "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" premiered at the same time as the full performance of "Everything is Beautiful". The combined unique views of both music videos is above 10,000. The medley music video has 4.2K at the moment. The songs are available as Mp3 digital downloads for those that want the audio tracks in your music library. I purchased them the day they were released (October 30th) and have watched the music videos several times this week.

The music video is enjoyable both as a music video but the graphics, visuals, and the updated arrangement make it even better. I continue to think back to the updated narration that Ray kicks the song off with. He's fully aware that the ones who are calling for unity are the ones that are being the most divisive and the most reckless. A call for unity and civility is in order...a call for tolerance...having the freedom to express your beliefs and not get threatened from other people in society and certainly not threatened from elected Government officials for speaking your mind...it's possible for unity where people of all political, religious, and economic backgrounds co-exist. There's a movement going on to undermine the country's founding and strip away it's ideals and it's principles. It's those who seek to divide that are the most dangerous in society. A country's citizens having differences and having the freedom of being tolerant or intolerant is what makes us the United States...the scheme to overthrow societal norms and "reimagine" America as something it isn't, well, that's a dangerous mindset in my opinion.    

Ray Stevens: "It's Me Again, Margaret" 1987 performance...

Hello all...in this installment of my fan created Ray Stevens blog I'm going to embed a 1987 performance from Ray Stevens of "It's Me Again, Margaret". This novelty song was written by the late Paul Craft and had actually been recorded and released as a single by him in the mid '70s. The legendary songwriter wasn't well known outside of the songwriting community and therefore his own recordings aren't widely known as a result. Ray had previously recorded a Paul Craft song, "Honky Tonk Waltz", and that single became a Top-30 country hit for Ray in 1976. Ray's recording of "It's Me Again, Margaret" emerged from his 1984 comedy album, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. It was the third single release from the 1984 album. "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" was the first single release...but during the promotional stage word got around that "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" was getting a lot of unsolicited airplay (a phrase referring to disc jockeys playing a song on their own based on listener requests) and so that single received a lot of publicity and promotion...eventually becoming a Top-20 country hit early in 1985. The impact of the single's success bolstered sales of the album and it eventually hit the Top-10 on the Country Album chart in 1985 and was eventually certified Gold and then Platinum. "It's Me Again, Margaret" wasn't a big radio hit but it rode the wave of success that "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and He Thinks He's Ray Stevens had set in motion. 

Take a look at that comical photo of Ray over on the left side of the screen. You know from looking at the photo that he's performing "It's Me Again, Margaret". When it was announced last year that Ray was one of the newest members elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame I seriously wondered if the CMA would use that photo of Ray on the Hall of Fame plaque or use a photo similar. Ray's reputation for comedy and novelty songs propelled his recording of "It's Me Again, Margaret" into cult status...a song that people know about in spite of it not being a nationally known radio hit. It's one of those songs that hit locally...a geographical hit...meaning that it could be a big hit in a radio market in southwest Missouri but people in northwest Missouri may not even know the song exists. "It's Me Again, Margaret" was placed on 1987's Greatest Hits album as was "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". Those two songs are often paired up on compilation albums...you usually don't see one without the other. Curb Records knew how very popular "It's Me Again, Margaret" truly was with Ray Stevens fans that when they issued a 1990 compilation on Ray titled His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits they used a photo of Ray in a phone booth as Willard McBain calling up Margaret on a pay phone. Music videos were made for "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and "It's Me Again, Margaret" in 1992...and "It's Me Again, Margaret" became an enormous hit for Ray all over again. The music video being so prominent in those television commercials and the fact that it had been a popular song for Ray since it debuted enabled the song to eventually become a beloved performance in Ray's concerts. Leave it to fabulous Ray Stevens to make a novelty song about an obscene phone caller a beloved classic...but that's exactly what he did. Whenever he appeared in concert and on television shows like Nashville Now there was usually a reference to "It's Me Again, Margaret" or Ralph Emery would ask Ray to perform the song if there was any extra time left. 

In this 1987 episode you'll see that Ray was asked/requested to perform the song and when he finishes he walks back to the set...where other guests were seated...which indicates that Ray had already performed several songs and had been interviewed by Ralph already. Ralph's show at that time was still 90 minutes...and each guest would sing their first song, then go over and have their interview/conversation with Ralph, and then during the second part of the episode the guests would sing their second song of the episode. Whatever guest was well established or was considered a legend in the music business usually got to sing three songs. I think "It's Me Again, Margaret" was the third song Ray performed on this episode. I believe this episode is the same one where Ray sang "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" and "Gourmet Restaurant". Those two Nashville Now performances are on YouTube. The video below was uploaded a little more than 4 hours ago and it's already obtained close to 1,500 unique views already. The video is a lot more clearer than the thumbnail image may indicate. 

    

Ray Stevens: "Grandpa Voted Democrat" hits 2.8 million unique views...

It's me once again!! As you know I've been writing blog entries surrounding new music videos from Ray Stevens (released this past Monday) and in my previous blog entry I noted that Ray has two entirely different music videos that are just as active on YouTube and social media as the brand new music videos happen to be. I mentioned the highly active "The Quarantine Song" music video and I also mentioned "Grandpa Voted Democrat". I believe everyone can be united in a fight against voter fraud wherever it may exist or at least be united against the presence of voter fraud and irregularities that undermine the integrity of the voting process. To deny existence of fraud or to diminish it as being so miniscule that it has no impact on the outcome of an election is an irresponsible attitude, I think.

On August 11th of this year the music video had garnered 2,511,520 unique views. The video had been uploaded onto YouTube in 2012. On October 13th of the year the music video had risen to 2,713,458 and I wrote a blog entry promoting the music video obtaining 2.7 million unique views. Now then, I just looked at the totals for the 8 year old music video, and as of right now the video is sitting with 2,877,319 unique views. This is a pickup of 163,861 in less than a month's time. It's a pickup of more than 300,000 unique views between August 11th and November 11th. It's hard to tell how the post-election fallout will continue to play out. There's numerous lawsuits and mandatary recounts that are going to take place...and some States are still counting votes more than a week after election day!! 

However this all plays out in the next couple of months, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" takes on voter fraud in a lighthearted fashion...but it makes it's point crystal clear if you listen carefully. Also, the sentiments expressed in the music video are still relevant in 2020. I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not?? This video, as mentioned, debuted in November 2012 and here we are 8 years later...with situations emerging from various States which allow the idea of voter fraud and corruption to dominate the election cycle!

Ray Stevens: Another update on "Everything is Beautiful"...

Hello all...there's been a brisk pickup of unique views for the 50th anniversary music video of "Everything is Beautiful" on YouTube. A couple of blog entries ago I reported that the video was sitting at 2,765 unique views. The most recent update sees a pickup of 2,155...bringing the unique view total to 4,920!! It looks to be on pace to break 5,000 unique views at some point later today. When a YouTube video is uploaded there are instances where view counts can get suppressed in the early stages of it's availability and this is explained in a lengthy report detailing the inner workings and the statistical calculations of YouTube and the process in which view counts are verified as real or the result of bots. This is usually a factor when a YouTube music video is embedded in a wide variety of websites across the internet. Ray's 50th anniversary "Everything is Beautiful" music video hasn't been embedded on a wide variety of internet sites (yet) and so it side-stepped the usual viewer count freeze of 301+ which is often applied to video content that gets tens of thousands of unique views within hours of it's debut. As reported the music video, at the moment, is nearing 5,000 unique views. 

I don't know if this updated version of the song or the medley, which is also grabbing unique views, is going to appear on any future Ray Stevens album. Curb Records is the one distributing the Mp3 digital downloads of the full performance and the medley. I've written a number of blog entries spotlighting the Mp3's. They're available for purchase on Amazon and other on-line music sites. The two music videos are, in essence, competing against one another...a combined unique view count of "Everything is Beautiful" and the medley, "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand", equals 8,454 unique views. The medley has a unique view count of 3,534 in case you may be wondering. Technically, all of Ray's YouTube videos compete against one another, but when you release two music videos on the same day one will take off while the other usually plays catch up. On top of these two music videos there's two additional music videos from Ray that are just as active...one of them being a music video from earlier this year, "The Quarantine Song", which is approaching 2,000,000 unique views and the other being "Grandpa Voted Democrat", from 2012, obtaining a fury of new video activity given this being an election year. I wrote a fairly recent blog entry about the video's resurgence this election season and at that point in time the video had 2.7 million unique views. It's now gotten 2.8 million unique views. We still have awhile before the recent music video releases from Ray approach hundreds of thousands of unique views...the first milestone is for one or both of the music videos released this past Monday to make it to 5,000 unique views and then 10,000 and then 20,000 etc., etc.     

Ray Stevens: Let's revisit Ray and the Country Music Hall of Fame...

Hello one and all!! I was doing my usual on-line searches and came across a radio station website that had uploaded an audio interview of Ray Stevens from last year. The time stamp on the radio station page is November 9, 2020. I'm assuming it's more or less a lookback, of sorts, on the part of the radio station...re-posting an audio interview conducted with Ray last year. When you listen to the audio clip you'll hear Ray being introduced as a Country Music Hall of Fame member-elect. This phrase is used to describe those that have been elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, informally, and then later in the year those members will formally be inducted at the Medallion Ceremony. Ray was formally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October 2019. The radio station goes by the name The Possum and it's located at 96.3 FM on the radio dial. Ray's audio interview is part of that radio station's 'Member Monday' feature. I hadn't done any research but it's probably referring to the Country Music Hall of Fame members and in that feature they either pay tribute to, or air audio clips of, whatever member of the Country Music Hall of Fame they decide. 

Ray Stevens...an entertainer for more than 60 years...with a lengthy list of memorable and eye-catching recordings!! I'm sure some of these are your all-time favorites. He's recorded so many great songs over the decades: "Special Anniversary", "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right", "I'll Be in Atlanta", "Melt", "Cornball", "Make a Few Memories", "The Streak", "Everything is Beautiful", "Dear America", "It's Me Again, Margaret", "Misty", "Where The Sun Don't Shine", "Gitarzan", "Mama's in the Sky With Elvis", "Ahab the Arab", "The Dooright Family", "Sunset Strip", "Feel the Music", "Marion Michael Morrison", "Caribou  Barbie", "One More Last Chance", "Dixie Hummingbird", "The Moonlight Special", "Sittin' Up With the Dead", "A Mama and a Papa", "Southern Air (duet with Jerry Clower and Minnie Pearl)", "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Golden Age", "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me", "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens", "Dream, Girl", "My Dad", "Thank You", "Have a Little Talk With Myself",  "A Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee", "Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues", "Party People", "Mama Sang Bass (duet with J.D. Sumner)", "Game Show Love", "Mr. Businessman", "Your Bozo's Back Again", "We the People", "Save Me From Myself", "Shriner's Convention", "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.", "Honky Tonk Waltz", "Bionie and the Robotics", "Talking", "Obama Nation", "Kiss a Pig", "You're Magic", "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out", "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?", "Come to the U.S.A.", "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", "Obama Budget Plan", "Night Games", "Grandpa Voted Democrat", "Nashville", "Isn't It Lonely Together", "The Pirate Song", "America, Communicate With Me", and "The Quarantine Song"...and with those song titles I'm just scratching the surface when it comes to my all-time favorites!! I guess just about anything I've heard from Ray is an all-time favorite. 

You can find the audio interview with Ray Stevens, from some point in 2019, when you click the radio station website HERE. 

Ray Stevens: Follow-up on "Everything is Beautiful" at 50...

In my quest to be one of the most detailed and thorough Ray Stevens fans in existence here I am with another blog entry spotlighting the 50th anniversary rendition of "Everything is Beautiful". In my previous blog entry I remarked that the video had gotten 1,680 unique views. I just returned from YouTube and the unique views for the music video have jumped to 2,765. This is a pickup of 1,085 unique views. In the closing narration of the song Ray remarks that it's hard to believe 50 years has passed since he released the song in 1970. 

I've posted this image in some of my previous blog entries and I also included it in the pictorial time-line that runs along the side of the page. If you glance through the time-line you'll see I cut off in 1980 and then jump to 2012. I've been meaning to have a full fledged album discography running along the side of the page along with other images of Ray but midway through the construction of the time-line I figured it would just be too many images and so I deliberately jumped 32 years to spotlight more contemporary releases from Ray. There is no CD copy of the song (so far) but nevertheless on-line music stores are using the image as a publicity photo for the 50th anniversary Mp3 release. The medley music video has also risen...it's now sitting at 2,067 unique views at the moment. So, as you can see, both music videos have made it into the 2,000 unique view range. 702 unique views separate both music videos at the moment. Predictably the full version of "Everything is Beautiful" is getting the most impact rather than the medley where it shares the same stage with "United We Stand". I'm making the assumption that one day this week the music videos, perhaps one or the other or both, will ultimately breakout and start racking up the unique views at an even more frenetic pace and get into that 10,000 range. An aggressive publicity campaign can accomplish the feat. A round of on-line interviews or other such publicity will draw viewers to the videos. I'll be keeping track of the numbers throughout the week and next Monday we'll see what the unique views on YouTube happen to be after a full week of on-line availability on the video hosting site.

Ray Stevens: Update on "Everything is Beautiful" music video...

I'm back once again!! I was going to write a blog entry later this evening but I decided to just go ahead and write a blog entry now since I'm still at the laptop. Oh, I've taken breaks...I was never going to sit at the laptop for the entire day and literally monitor the unique views of Ray's new music videos...but I find myself back in front of the laptop and so I decided to check in on the unique views of the 2020 rendition of "Everything is Beautiful". Earlier this afternoon the music video was sitting at 1,345 unique views. The most recent count is 1,680 as of 4:16pm eastern. A pickup of 345 additional unique views on YouTube. There were a number of people on social media sites earlier today sharing links to both of the music videos and so it's going to take several hours or a couple of days before we know which music video will have the most impact with on-line viewers. The medley music video is up over the 1,000 unique view threshold, now. Specifically it's sitting at 1,387. The "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley is embedded below...

In a previous blog entry I remarked that the medley music video had gotten 831 unique views. 2020 is the 50th anniversary of "Everything is Beautiful"...hitting originally in the late spring of 1970 and being one of the biggest hits during the summer of 1970. It spent two weeks at number one on the Pop chart and three weeks at number one on the Easy-Listening chart. The latter chart was renamed Adult-Contemporary in 1979. The song won a Grammy for Ray at the 1971 telecast in the category of 'Best Male Pop Vocal Performance'. A cover version by gospel singer, Jake Hess, also won a Grammy with the song for 'Best Sacred Performance'. Here is the other music video...the full performance from Ray of "Everything is Beautiful"...

Here's a quick reminder to keep the music video's straight and I'm using compass directions. The medley music video features the image of Ray seated at the piano and facing the West. The full performance music video of "Everything is Beautiful", directly above, features Ray seated at the piano and facing the East. I'll be keeping track of the music video throughout the day. 

Ray Stevens: "Everything is Beautiful" 50th anniversary video Update...

Hello once again! In my previous blog entry I mentioned that I'd be tracking the unique views of the two music videos that Ray Stevens uploaded this morning. The "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley video, as of this writing, has 831 unique views. The "Everything is Beautiful" full performance video has more than 1,300 unique views so far. The two music videos debuted at the same time this morning and it looks as if the full performance music video is the one receiving the most impact. I'm sure the reason for that is because it's a full performance and isn't a shortened performance blending into "United We Stand". The full performance video is racking up the unique views. It had been in the 1.2K range for about 10 minutes when I refreshed the page and seen the video had risen above 1,300. I'm going to look at the unique views for that particular video in a couple of minutes and have those numbers in this blog entry.

 

I just taken a look over on YouTube and the unique views for "Everything is Beautiful" sits at 1,345 as of 12:38pm eastern. In my previous blog entry I posted the medley music video, too. This time around I'm only going to embed the full performance music video since it seems like that's the video that is getting the most plays/shares on YouTube. He hasn't uploaded the video to his video list at Facebook yet. He's posted a link to the YouTube video, though. I'll take a look at the unique views later this evening and discuss them at that point in time. 

Ray Stevens: "Everything is Beautiful" music videos debut today...

Hello all fans of Ray Stevens!! I just finished watching/commenting on Ray's social media sites in relation to the premiere of two music videos this morning. A little earlier than usual...Ray often premieres a new music video in mid-morning but this time around the premiere took place at 8am central, 9am eastern. I was watching the premiere of "Everything is Beautiful" and made some commentary in the chat section while the video was playing. I also copied and pasted those comments I made into the comment section below the music video. 

It was 50 years ago that Ray emerged in the spring of 1970 with "Everything is Beautiful". The single ultimately hit the top of the Hot 100, sold more than three million copies, and hit the top of the Easy-Listening chart. It was used as the opening theme to the summer show he hosted for Andy Williams. The single was reaching it's peak during the opening weeks of the summer show. It's the most covered song that Ray's written. There were countless artists that recorded Ray's song in the early '70s. 

As readers of this blog may already know the Mp3 single releases of "Everything is Beautiful" and the medley "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" were issued back on October 30th. I wrote reviews of those two releases at the time. You can find the reviews over on Amazon, too. Today, obviously, is the first time we've seen the two music videos in their entirety. 

I happen to like the video's graphics, the visuals, the selection of people used...and if you hadn't heard this 2020 reworking of "Everything is Beautiful" until today then you're going to be treated to a new opening narration suited to contemporary times. He also closes the song with a narration. The video design on YouTube features a rectangle design. It's not necessarily letterbox format but it's not the standard square design. The two music videos more or less compete against one another. They both had their premiere at 8am central, 9am eastern. As of this writing the full performance of "Everything is Beautiful" has a slight edge in unique views. It has 273 unique views to the medley video's 200. Now, of course, as we go throughout the day those unique view totals will certainly skyrocket as more people see it and share the videos.

The video above is "Everything is Beautiful". This new Blogger design doesn't allow me to actually resize the video to my specifications like it used to. I still haven't explored/learned much about the new Blogger's capabilities. I'll, of course, be tracking the unique views of each video as the days and weeks go by. The medley music video is located below. If there's any sort of news release or write-up from any country music website/blogger surrounding these videos or of Ray's career, in general, I'll provide links to those articles.  

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" is nearing 2 million unique views...

Three blog entries in a row!! I decided to look up the activity on another Ray Stevens music video...the highly active "Quarantined". The music video has officially been re-titled "The Quarantine Song"...I don't know the reason why...I guess using the word, quarantined, as a song title may have caused it to get lost in the search results or something because since the pandemic began in early 2020 'quarantine' has become a much used word. In a blog entry from September 1st I wrote about the music video topping 1,000,000 unique views. I was on YouTube several minutes ago and checked the video's unique view totals and as of this writing the video is in the ball park of hitting 2,000,000 unique views. The specific unique view count for the music video is: 1,831,008. The fact that the video amassed over 800,000 unique views in a little over 2 months time (since topping the 1,000,000 mark on September 1st) shows that it might be on pace to break into the 2,000,000 range by year's end. COVID-19 "cases" tend to be on the rise as well as hospitalizations. I don't like the idea of more lockdowns or rationing of hand sanitizer and other hygiene products...but we all witnessed how the nation reacted in the early spring and half the summer...you couldn't find hand sanitizer anywhere and shopping stores were limiting the amount of items you could purchase. Let's hope the future doesn't include the possibility of national lockdowns!!

Ray Stevens: New Music Videos on the horizon...

Well, now, it's me again!! You can say I'm playing catch up...going through some of the social media posts from Ray Stevens during what turned out to be an election day stretching out to nearly an election week. The media projects a winner but it's not official yet...so the counting of ballots goes on...as to potential lawsuits and recounts. In the meantime Ray Stevens will debut a pair of new music videos in the coming days. Well, actually, it'll be tomorrow since it's past midnight here (November 8th). On Monday November 9th Ray will debut a music video for the reworked rendition of "Everything is Beautiful" (which became available as an Mp3 download on Amazon back on October 30th) and he'll also be debuting a second music video, the "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley. The videos, as of now, are scheduled to be uploaded at 8am Central, 9am Eastern. Ray posted a sneak preview of one of the videos but rather than posting a snippet of a video I'll instead post a screen cap from the upcoming music video...

I have several other screen caps but I decided to post that one. Why? Well, it resembles a photo of Ray from the back of an album cover for a Greatest Hits album Barnaby Records issued on Ray in 1972. The photo was in black and white and Ray was clean shaven at that time but it shown him looking very studious at the piano. I'll be posting that photo a little later on in this blog entry. A lot of commentary on Ray's social media pages centers around the piano. Ray has appeared on stage and in video with a very distinctive red piano...he has numerous red pianos. One of them appears in his music video of "Freddie Feelgood". The red piano became very popular with his fans back in the early 1990s when he owned and operated his own theater in Branson, Missouri. Millions of people came through Branson during that time period and the red piano was certainly an eye catcher. The millions that purchased his 1993 VHS tape, Ray Stevens Live!, seen the red piano for the first time. He has also appeared with the more traditional black colored piano in some of his music videos but it's rare that he appears behind a white piano. If you remember some of the early publicity photo's at the CabaRay showroom there's some photos of him sitting behind a white piano. He changed it to the more familiar looking red piano soon after. I think the audiences/fans began asking him during autograph and photo sessions at the CabaRay of whatever happened to the red piano. When the two music videos debut tomorrow morning at 9am Eastern I'll be embedding them in a blog entry. I'll also be sharing that blog on social media sites in addition to adding commentary about the music videos on Ray's social media sites. It's playing out to be a very busy Monday morning! Here's the photo of Ray Stevens from the early '70s and I put it in a side-by-side frame with the photo of Ray from the 2020 music video...

Ray Stevens: Lulu sings on the 1970 Ray Stevens Summer Show...

Hello all once more!!! This is one of the longer gaps of time that I've spent away from the blog page and a lot of it has to do with the nearly week long election cycle. I was gripped with the drama just like everyone else wondering what the conclusion would be...we still don't officially know...we know who the media has picked as the winner but I'm holding out all options for the current President to, if not win, at least find out if any fraudulent activity took place.

In this blog entry I'm going to embed a video clip from the 1970 summer show Ray Stevens hosted for Andy Williams. One of Ray's regular cast members was Lulu, a Scottish born singer, whose multi-talented as a singer, actress, businesswoman, and television personality. I don't follow her career in-depth enough to know if she's a multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and a songwriter, too. If so she'd be something like a female Ray Stevens. If you're familiar with the James Bond movies which I am...my brother has almost every James Bond movie from the first one with Sean Connery through 'Tomorrow Never Dies' with Pierce Brosnan, I think? He may have the rest of the series of films that Pierce starred in. It's been awhile since I seen his James Bond collection. 

But anyway, those familiar with those movies may remember Lulu as the singer of the theme song to The Man with the Golden Gun. She was also the singer of the theme song for To Sir, With Love years earlier in 1967. She had a number of hit songs on the United Kingdom music charts dating back to 1964 prior to her theme song rendition of "To Sir, With Love". That single enabled her to have an international fan base and for several years she routinely hit in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia with a succession of recordings. In 1969 her recording of a song titled "Boom Bang-a-Bang" was named the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. That single nearly eclipsed the popularity of her 1967 single, "To Sir, With Love". The follow-up to "Boom Bang-a-Bang" arrived early in 1970...titled "Oh Me Oh My I'm a Fool for You Baby". 

Lulu recently celebrated a birthday...born on November 3rd. So, now that I've explained to some of you who Lulu happens to be, in case you didn't know, here now is Lulu from 1970...she appears in a brief comical sketch with Ray, first, and then sings "Oh Me Oh My"...

Ray Stevens: Everything's Golden...

It's me once more!! I checked the Amazon site earlier today and my customer review of the 50th anniversary recording of "Everything is Beautiful" was published. I was beginning to wonder if it would get published given that I'd written it a few hours after I purchased the Mp3 on October 30th. Now then, all I'm awaiting is the review I wrote of the "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley to show up on the Amazon site. Perhaps it'll appear later today or sometime tomorrow. The Mp3 of "Everything is Beautiful" can be purchased on Amazon by clicking HERE. Awareness for the single was created through a couple of Ray's social media accounts but it lacked a YouTube clip promoting the Mp3's availability even though a promo clip was posted on Ray's Facebook page. The YouTube video clips from Ray Stevens tend to be the ones that are picked up and shared throughout the internet. I don't exactly know why. It may have something to do with the URL coding of Facebook video content compared to YouTube video coding or it simply might be the fact that YouTube is a video hosting site whereas Facebook is a community where the overall majority on that platform post messages rather than deliberately look up videos to watch. I know it's a pain to embed video content from Facebook on here...that's why I embed YouTube video. 

As you see off to the left hand side of the screen Ray Stevens was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame last year. He was part of the Class of 2019 which also included Brooks and Dunn along with record producer Jerry Bradley. Ray's election to this particular Hall of Fame was a long time coming...long overdue...but finally it happened. There's been a long and lengthy battle for generations when it comes to the measure of a recording artist's popularity or impact. You can be a recording artist with tens of millions of records sold and more often than not those kinds of statistics will ensure Hall of Fame placement at some point. Like in baseball or Pro football, their Halls of Fame typically factor in statistics like total amount of hits, home runs, doubles, triples...if it's a pitcher the number of strikeouts, complete games, shut out's, perfect games...in football it's typically how many touchdown passes and how many yards a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver accumulated. On the defensive side of football, statistics for how many sacks did someone on the defensive line get on an opposing quarterback, or, how many forced fumbles or interceptions a defensive player induced. In addition to the stats of athletes being a factor in Hall of Fame voting there's also the conversation of whether or not a baseball player either made it to the World Series or had any kind of positive impact in a World Series in their career...in football it applies to the Super Bowl. If you "get a ring", as the slang expression goes when describing winning a championship, then that's almost a definite sign you'll be in the Hall of Fame one day. Baseball's Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York and the Pro Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio. When it comes to the Country Music Hall of Fame there's certain rules and criteria, too, but they're not overly strict when it comes to the statistics. In country music as is the case in all forms of recorded music when we use the word 'statistics' we're referring to record sales, awards won, total number of hit albums and hit singles, concert ticket sales, etc. 

The Country Music Hall of Fame recognizes recording artists for those achievements, obviously, but they don't make it mandatory for inclusion into the Hall of Fame. You don't have to be a recording artist with tens of millions of albums sold or have a boatload of number one hits or even have that many hit records at all. You can find yourself a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame simply on your talents and the contributions you've made to the music industry...whether those contributions are widely known or only known to a select few. Ray Stevens fits largely into the latter category even though he's had his share of hit songs, hit albums, multi-platinum video productions, and his on-line video content has reached millions upon millions of people. Those accomplishments are the more widely known but there's an entirely different side of his career that's rooted behind the scenes and inside recording studios that once existed up and down Music Row in the '60s and early '70s. He's been a session musician and played on a wide variety of recordings for other artists. In addition to that he's a songwriter, song publisher, music arranger, and producer. He produced and arranged the music for recording acts on Monument Records and several low-budget Independent labels throughout the '60s. He produces and arranges his own recordings and up until sometime last year he recorded his songs in his own recording studio down on Music Row. He's since built and is recording in his new studio within the walls of his CabaRay showroom. This 50th anniversary rendition of "Everything is Beautiful" was recorded at Ray's CabaRay studio.

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Monster Mash"...

Oh yes, I know here in the East it's already 12:30am on November 1st but out in the West it's still October 31st and with that in mind there's a late entry into the Ray Stevens YouTube playlist for Halloween. This audio clip is of Ray's rendition of the all-time Halloween classic, "Monster Mash", which was originally a hit in 1962 by Bobby Pickett. The artist recorded the song in a vocalization resembling horror actor, Boris Karloff. The novelty was issued under the name of Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and the Crypt Kicker Five. The song is almost always guaranteed to be played on Halloween somewhere. In 2012 Ray issued his 9-CD box set, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. In this box set he recorded his versions of classic comedy and novelty songs and he added in some of his own songs, too. It's for this 2012 box set that he recorded his versions of "Monster Mash", "Purple People Eater", "Haunted House", and "Witch Doctor". Those songs usually make-up the Top-4 of Halloween favorites on Oldies formatted radio stations. Ray does his best impression of Karloff in his rendition of "Monster Mash"...yes, we all know it isn't Bobby 'Boris' Pickett, but Ray is one of the few people who can pull off a performance of the song in such a convincing manner and have it not come off like karaoke night at some local tavern somewhere.