Ray Stevens: New Year's Eve 2020...

Well, now, we've officially made it to the part of the day where it begins to start feeling like New Year's Eve. I woke up early this morning and wrote a blog entry that I published at some point...I think it was around 7:30am. I was awake some of the day...saw some of the College Football Bowl games. I watched a majority of the Arizona Bowl...and I saw some of the early part of the Liberty Bowl and I watched some of the Armed Forces Bowl (it ended in a brawl between Tulsa and Mississippi State). Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Notre Dame will all appear in Bowl games on New Year's Day tomorrow. I'm definitely going to try and get some sleep tonight following the New Year's Eve ball drop into 2021 so I won't be tired and groggy tomorrow when those four teams take the field. I'm also going to try and catch the Cincinnati Bearcats bowl game...they take the field at Noon tomorrow in the Peach Bowl. The Citrus Bowl begins at 1pm tomorrow. The Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl are scheduled for tomorrow evening/night. Those two games plus a couple of others will be must-see television for me! In my earlier blog entry today I mentioned that I might return later or I may wait until New Year's Day to write another blog entry. I find myself here in the process of writing what is going to be my last blog entry of 2020 and I'm going to be embedding some New Year's Eve themed video clips from Ray Stevens. The first of these video clips were uploaded last year. We have Ray Stevens singing "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" and then we'll see him and his band in another performance from the CabaRay Nashville television show deliver "Let's Have a Party".

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" emerged in 1947 from the pen of a legendary songwriter named Frank Loesser. He had a lengthy string of hits in that time period...both as a songwriter of pop music and as an author of songs for a series of hit musicals. In addition to the song that Ray's singing in the above video clip Loesser was also responsible for "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and "I Don't Want to Walk Without You". When I researched this song I came across information from the writer's daughter that Frank Loesser was annoyed that the song became tied to New Year's Eve simply due to it's title. I guess from his point of view if a song is tied to a holiday then it's only going to be heard/talked about once a year. I'd known of the song for a number of years but didn't know a lot about it's creation until I decided to look up information about the song. When you watch the video clip you'll see the band and harmony singers in their party hats. These performances, as mentioned, come from the New Year's Eve episode of Ray's CabaRay Nashville television series. In contrast to the melancholy "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" here's the upbeat "Let's Have a Party"...the camera pans around and shows the audience who are also decked out in New Year's Eve attire...

Now, following those two 2019 uploads, we have an upload that hit YouTube earlier today from the New Year's Eve episode of Ray's television series. In this video clip the focus is entirely on Ray's band as they perform their rendition of an instrumental called "Ram Bunk Shush"...

The members of Ray's CabaRay Nashville band are: Jerry Kimbrough (electric guitar), Tommy White (steel guitar), Mike Noble (acoustic guitar), Scott Weckerly (drums), Jon Hamrick (keyboard), Denis Solee (saxophone), and Jim Ferguson (bass). Those are the core musicians for the show. There are some episodes where Buddy Skipper sets in which gives the band two saxophone players. Jon Hamrick also plays the banjo if a song calls for it. Steve Gibson appeared as a band member and played electric guitar...a video clip of him performing "Sugarfoot Rag" on Ray's television show is on YouTube. It's nine minutes till midnight...I'm going to go and tune in to a New Year's Eve show and watch the ball drop and metaphorically crush the year 2020!!  

Ray Stevens and my New Year's Eve blog entry...

Well, just like Christmas Eve, the feel of it being New Year's Eve doesn't exactly start to kick in until later this evening. I recall in blog's past I'd post some of the humorous drinking songs that Ray Stevens has recorded in his career since New Year's Eve has long been tied to wild celebrations and drinking and I still may write another blog entry later today with some of those songs but I'm waiting to see what Ray is going to post on his social media pages. I don't know if he's going to post the video of him singing "Happy Hour" or if he'll post an audio of his rendition of "Little Brown Jug" or if he'll post footage from the New Year's Eve episode of his CabaRay Nashville television show. 

Ray posted several images and video uploads between by previous blog entry on Christmas Day and today. One of the posts was an image of an orange van dedicated to "The Streak". The van has the song title on it's window and the cartoon image of Ray from the 1992 music video and along the side it has the phrase 'boogity-boogity' written on it. If you frequent Ray's social media pages, as I do, you've seen the van by now. He posted images of it back on December 28th. He also uploaded video content from his television show celebrating the birthday of Steve Wariner (December 25th) and Suzy Bogguss (December 30th). Ray's 1987 halftime performance during the Liberty Bowl had been uploaded in it's entirety several years ago...but a clip from it of Ray singing "America the Beautiful" was uploaded on December 29th. The Liberty Bowl featuring Ray Stevens hosting the halftime show was played on December 29, 1987. This year's Liberty Bowl is going to air later today at 4pm. 

Earlier this morning I was editing photo's for future use on this blog...some of the images are of a 1990 compilation of Ray Stevens songs called Everything is Beautiful and Other Hits. The collection contains 8 recordings...the cassette copy features 5 songs on Side One and 3 songs on Side Two. The collection was reissued on CD in 1992. I didn't like the color used in the 1992 reissue...the 1990 cassette release had a dark green color but the 1992 CD had no color to it. The collection, as you can see, was issued on RCA in conjunction with one of their subsidiaries, BMG. The RCA lightning bolt logo used on the release was part of a nostalgic wave running through the record company at the time. I once had the cassette copy in my collection but I had to throw it away after the reel of tape got tangled up inside a tape player I was using...and if you're familiar with cassette tape slang this sort of thing was described as "the machine ate the tape". Fortunately I've only had that kind of experience a couple of times and only once with a Ray Stevens cassette. The blank cassette tapes that used to be sold for home recording were notorious for malfunctioning within months...but I think this maybe had more to do with the brand name of blank cassette tape I was buying. Although I mentioned that I didn't like the color of the CD cover I like the photo of Ray and the RCA lightning bolt graphic. When I got the cassette version in 1990 the photo of Ray was brand new to me...the pose of him seated in a casual manner...it had me thinking that the photo originated at some point in the early 1980s. I don't know when the photo originated...but since the collection is tied to RCA I've always thought that the photo originated in the early 1980s when Ray recorded for that label. 

Since I posted an image of the 1992 CD copy it's only natural that I post an image of the 1990 cassette. Now then...look at the cassette cover and then look up at the CD cover. I can't be the only person that prefers the graphics seen on the cassette when compared to the CD. The songs on this collection are: "The Streak", "Mr. Businessman", "Misty", "Gitarzan", "Freddie Feelgood", "Everything is Beautiful", "The Moonlight Special", and "Shriner's Convention". One of the peculiar things about the 1990 cassette is that the songs that Ray wrote/co-wrote are credited under his birthname rather than his professional name. I was a teenager in 1990 and had no idea that Ray's birthname happened to be Harold Ray Ragsdale...and so it was baffling to see the last name, Ragsdale, instead of Stevens. I actually thought the record label mistakenly put the wrong name in the songwriter credits. I didn't know much about Ray's lengthy career and I didn't know much personal information about him in those years. The only thing I knew about him were the songs featured in the small amount of his tapes that I had at the time. I didn't start finding out much in-depth information about his career until I joined his fan club in 1994 (the club closed down in 2002). In the fan club kit that was mailed to me there was an album discography among the various papers and newsletters. I looked over that album discography and was stunned to learn that he'd been releasing albums since 1962...and as I got older I began tracking down his vinyl albums since cassette copies were either not available or were no longer available. As a fan of Ray Stevens I was growing more and more interested in hearing what are called 'album tracks'. I'd salivate, not literally, but I'd salivate at the idea of one day getting my hands on the vinyl albums of Ray Stevens so I could hear the songs that weren't put on compilation albums. When I seen that there was a 1976 album from Ray called Just for the Record, for example, I couldn't wait to one day get that album so I could hear songs that had such titles as "Gimme a Smile" and "OM". I think, subconsciously, I wanted to get the 1976 album because that's the year I was born...but, of course, because it's Ray Stevens that's the other major reason I wanted to get my hands on the album!! 

I'd look at the titles of Ray Stevens songs and wonder how they sounded. There's a song on his Nashville album titled "Float". When I seen it as a song title I'd wonder what in the world the song could be about...but then I got the vinyl album and discovered "Float" is an instrumental. "Fish Eat Sleep" is another unusual song title on that 1973 album. The album also contains "Love Me Longer", from the pen of Layng Martine. Now, in the early 1990s and long before I began building my Ray Stevens vinyl collection, and before I discovered Ray's album discography, I'd seen an early 1980's episode of Hee Haw on The Nashville Network. On this episode Ray sang "Love Me Longer" and at that point in time I thought it was a song on one of his albums from the early '80s. However, once I seen the album discography and seen the song titles on each of his albums, I learned that "Love Me Longer" had originally been recorded by Ray in 1973. 

This blog entry has certainly went in directions I wasn't anticipating when I began writing it a little before 6am this morning!! It's nearing 7:30am...I'm sure I'll write another blog entry at some point later today. Happy early New Year's Eve!!! 

Ray Stevens and the Upcoming New Year...2021

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans and those that drop by out of curiosity. Earlier this month I did a somewhat brief look ahead into the next year when I found out that brand new music will be forthcoming from Ray in the first half of next year. This blog entry, however, is my annual lookback on the year that's coming to an end and a look ahead into the next year. Now, as many of you can probably already guess, I'm going to start things off by making one of the most predictable announcements...and that announcement is: I can't wait for 2020 to come to and end!! I don't typically say things like that but with the kind of year we've experienced and had to endure who out there isn't longing for 2020 to come to an end?? 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, for those out there who want to get cute, it's not technically a full year yet (that will happen this coming March) but the bottom line is the year of 2020 will be no more this coming Friday morning at the stroke of Midnight!! I don't drink alcohol but I'm sure there will be hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of people who will celebrate rather heartily among their friends/family on New Year's Eve as everyone is looking forward to putting 2020 in the rear view mirror. 

 

One of the things that I'm hoping will be put to an end in 2021 is the psychologically destructive mind games that the pandemic has afforded a handful of power hungry State Governors and legislatures across the country to engage in. There have been approvals of several COVID-19 vaccines over the last couple of weeks and there have been a lot of vaccinations already. As mentioned, this coming March, it will mark 1 year since the country was upended economically and psychologically by the presence of this COVID virus. In the past 9 months phrases that had never been uttered before have become over-used in 2020: COVID-19, social distance, flatten the curve, stop the spread, and then there's the word, pandemic, which has been used in historical context but in 2020 it become part of everyday language. Oh, and facemasks became an over-used word in 2020. Retail stores and some restaurants shown off the sign: No Shoes, No Shirt, No Facemask, No Service. I have a nagging suspicion that another phrase will be added to that list in the coming weeks where it'll read: No Shoes, No Shirt, No Proof of Vaccination, No Service. I'm hoping it won't become like that but with the fearmongering that's been going on for almost a year it's likely going to push stores, restaurants, and public entertainment venues to discriminate on the basis of whether or not you've been vaccinated. The science shows that the most vulnerable are those over 65 and those with some sort of underlying medical condition...in a country with more than 300,000,000 people the fatality count is below half a million...but statistics like that don't enter into the minds of the power hungry State Governors of which there are many.

In the hopes that COVID-19 will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future, let's also hope that when entertainment venues are given the clearance to begin to allow large gatherings of people inside again, that the psychological damage that's been inflicted on some pockets of the population won't have impacted them so much that they've become afraid to go out in public or be among a crowd of people. There will come a day when life will be back to normal, human nature will dictate that, and businesses both large and small will need the public to feel safe and be convinced "they won't get COVID" if they're seated close to other people inside a sports arena, inside a restaurant, or if they're attending a concert. I know it's not possible to wave a magic wand in 2021 and pretend as if 2020 never existed...although such a thing is probably the single biggest fantasy of many people...but then again there's no reason why 2021 should be a carbon copy of 2020 (believe it or not that's what some medical 'experts' are wishing for!). Ray's COVID-19 hit music video, "The Quarantine Song", has gotten 2.6 million unique views. I hadn't written a blog entry highlighting this jump in unique views because of my recent postings surrounding Christmas. The video was definitely a huge success for Ray Stevens in 2020...and recently Curb Records issued an Mp3 of the song.  

So, then, what's in store for the legendary Ray Stevens in 2021?? We know that he'll be releasing new music in the early part of 2021...correspondence told me several weeks ago that some new music videos will also be on the horizon in the first half of 2021. He is also expected to release a massive box set collection on Curb Records in 2021. If you watched the video I embedded several blogs ago where Ray is interviewed at the Musicians Hall of Fame he spoke about this upcoming box set collection. The interview was conducted by the Musicians Hall of Fame director, Joe Chambers. In the meantime, though, there hasn't been any kind of announcement made of when his CabaRay showroom will re-open. He attempted a re-open this past October when Nashville, specifically, lifted some of their lockdown orders but the strict protocols being enforced by local health departments negatively impacted the people from having a great experience and so after one concert he closed down the showroom for a second time. I'm sure he'll re-open the CabaRay at some point early in 2021 and it'll feature a lengthier run of concerts (as it did in 2018 and 2019). I feel almost certain that he isn't going to re-open it until the limited capacity mandates are lifted, the piano bar can be re-opened, and the tables don't have to be spread apart by 6 feet. I'll be on the look-out, as usual, for all things Ray Stevens on the internet and let's hope 2021 will be way better than 2020!! Unless there's any kind of breaking news such as Ray putting out brand new video content I more than likely will compose my next fan created Ray Stevens blog entry on New Year's Eve or on New Year's Day.  

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Jingle Bells"...

Merry Christmas to all the Ray Stevens fans out there!! I do want to begin this blog entry, though, with sad news. Earlier this morning in Nashville, Tennessee a man-made explosion destroyed a number of buildings in the downtown area. The news reports say the explosion come from an R.V. parked in the area. There were only a few injuries to people because most of the buildings in that area were empty...with it being Christmas Day. I'm sure the security cameras in that heavily congested area will identify whoever exited the R.V.

In my personal opinion I say the explosion was an act of local terrorism of some kind...but to dwell on the explosion on Christmas Day would give the culprit what they want...and so in continuing with the Christmas themed blog entries I'm going to be embedding an audio clip of "Jingle Bells" and it's performed in a way that only Ray Stevens could dream up! The Christmas album you see in the photo is from 2009 and it's titled, Ray Stevens Christmas. It was Ray's second Christmas album and unlike his first Christmas album in 1997 this 2009 release contains all serious recordings. The 2009 collection from Ray Stevens features an assortment of Christmas standards like "Jingle Bells", "White Christmas", "I'll Be Home for Christmas", and "Winter Wonderland" as well as "Silent Night". As is the norm of every album that includes a majority of cover songs from Ray Stevens the recordings are all arranged differently from what you might be familiar with. These kinds of projects allow Ray to demonstrate his music arranging prowess...and with "Jingle Bells" he offers a much different music arrangement and he even adds in a few extra lines to solidify it's a Ray Stevens recording above all else. Here's the "Jingle Bells" audio clip... 

Christmas music re-arranging is sometimes a hands-off subject because millions of people prefer to want to hear the traditional way in which Christmas songs are performed...so if someone messes around with what's considered a beloved classic there's a risk of offending a certain segment of the population. Then there are those who want to hear different arrangements and variations on Christmas songs. I've never had any specific way in which I want to hear "White Christmas", as an example. I grew up with two distinctive renditions...one by Bing Crosby (the all-time classic) and another by Elvis Presley (another all-time classic). The Drifters, a rhythm and blues group that Ray often cites as an influence, recorded a version of "White Christmas", too. Ray tips his Santa hat to the Drifters with his rendition of "White Christmas"...doing an excellent impression of the vocal group. His harmony singers are on hand as Santa's helpers in the music video...and yes, there are some comical overtones to be sure...but it's not a comedy video at all. The music video debuted on YouTube on December 3, 2012 and it's gotten over 300,000 unique views. It's gotten YouTube commentary every year since it debuted and this year is no different.  

Ray Stevens: Christmas jokes...

In this blog entry it's a couple of Christmas themed jokes from Ray Stevens. The jokes come from Ray's television series, CabaRay Nashville. If you're familiar with his locally syndicated PBS series you'll know he typically closes the show with a joke prior to the closing credits. The other day his social media platforms featured a Christmas joke and about an hour ago another Christmas joke was uploaded. These jokes come from his Christmas episode of CabaRay Nashville. Up first is a Christmas divorce joke about a couple that's been married for over 50 years and the phone conversation the father had with his son...

You'll never know what sort of joke Ray will close the show with. The other joke involves the tale of a bad kid on Christmas and how his parents rather him write an apology letter to Jesus rather than Santa Claus. I don't know if Ray will be uploading anymore Christmas-themed videos tomorrow or not. I didn't think he would upload a second Christmas joke but yet he did...and because he's uploaded two I decided to spotlight both of them in one blog entry. The video above was uploaded to Ray's YouTube channel almost a week ago. It's been seen by over 12,000 people. I'm sure the video below will get just as many unique views throughout the rest of the night and into Christmas Day. 

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville performance: "Nightmare Before Christmas"...

Well, here I am once again composing a blog entry about Ray Stevens...and on Christmas Eve! Well, you knew I'd do that sort of thing and I'm likely going to write some blog entries on Christmas Day tomorrow. In keeping with the Christmas colorization text the last blog entry I wrote was in bold, red text and as you can see this text is in bold, blue text. Will my next blog entry be bold and green? It might be...but let's focus on the blog entry I'm currently writing. Earlier today a video of Ray Stevens performing "Nightmare Before Christmas" on his CabaRay Nashville television show was uploaded onto YouTube. A couple of blog entries ago I made mention of the official music video and how it had reached 1,000,000 unique views. In this performance he sticks close to the recorded version...I mention this because he sometimes likes to change words or emphasize specific words in a performance that he didn't emphasize in the recording. Ray speaks about his distaste for political correctness prior to his performance of "Nightmare Before Christmas". 

Ray Stevens audio clip: "King of Christmas"...

Hello all once again!! I decided to get into the text colors for the first time this Christmas season and this is a form of red. I'm using bold print so it shows up better. I might, by blog entry's end, decide to change the text to another Christmas time color...perhaps bold print blue or green. In this blog entry I'm embedding an audio clip of "King of Christmas" which appeared on a Ray Stevens CD in 2000 titled Ear Candy. This CD/cassette was only sold through his fan club and it contained 10 novelty songs...well, 9 novelty songs and one ballad. A lot of the songs on this 2000 release shown up two years later on a Curb Records album Ray released titled Osama Yo' Mama. Curb Records had, at the time, much wider distribution than Independent labels such as Clyde Records (Ray's own label). So, when Curb released Ray's Osama Yo' Mama album in 2002 with most of the songs from Ear Candy on it, one of the songs from Ear Candy that didn't get included on 2002's Osama Yo' Mama album was "King of Christmas". That recording, however, later re-surfaced in 2006 on the 3-CD Box Set project that Curb released (Ray's Clyde Records had previously released it in 2005). "King of Christmas" is a funny tale of a man who encounters an Elvis Santa Claus in his house on Christmas Eve...the sleigh is a long pink Cadillac and the story abounds in Elvis pop-culture references. I wish Ear Candy would've gotten wider distribution if just to have the cover art get a lot of publicity...it's one of his funniest...but, as mentioned, most of the songs on that comedy album from 2000 resurfaced in 2002 on Osama Yo' Mama. Anyway, though...here's "King of Christmas"!

Ray Stevens audio clip: "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"...

Earlier today Ray Stevens uploaded an audio of his recording of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". The novelty song goes back to 1952...brought into the category of Christmas novelty songs by Jimmy Boyd. The song's been covered by a wide range of recording artists over the decades...in some cases there have been parody songs of it...ironic given that "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus", in it's original form, was meant to be a novelty song. The eye catching title of the song made it an automatic novelty...and while it's more of a cute song rather than a laugh out loud fest it often found itself on compilation collections of Christmas novelty songs. The plot of the song is a boy, on Christmas Eve, walks downstairs when he's suppose to be asleep. He sees Santa kissing his mother underneath a mistletoe. It baffles the boy as to why his mom is kissing someone other than dad...not realizing it's his father dressed as Santa. If you appreciate the song then you'll understand it's suppose to be sung from a little boy's point of view. If you're a cynic or just someone that hates novelty songs entirely then you're not even going to understand the point of the song or anything else about it. When Ray recorded the song he sang it straight...he didn't perform it in a little boy voice. Here is Ray Stevens singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"...

Ray Stevens: The 1970 George 'Goober' Lindsey Sketches...

Oh it's me once more!! Several days ago was the birthday of the late entertainer, George Lindsey. (December 17, 1928 - May 6, 2012). He had a varied career...television, movies, stand-up comedy...and for most of that career he was known primarily for his role as Goober Pyle on The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry RFD, and Hee Haw. He had a serious, charitable side that didn't get a lot of national publicity and he appeared in his fair share of dramatic work in films but it's his comedy and the 'Goober' character that cemented his claim to fame. In the screen cap off to the left you can see Ray anticipating something crazy and wild to come forth from George Lindsey. You'll see the results in the video embed at the bottom of this blog entry. He and Ray Stevens were good friends...in Ray's memoir he writes about their friendship and how he and George were both members of a small group of people that met most Saturday mornings at a local restaurant for breakfast. It was informally called the Nashville Breakfast Club and based on the description/stories about the group contained in Ray's memoir I think Ray was the leader of the group. In the summer of 1970 Ray Stevens hosted an NBC program for Andy Williams. In those days variety show hosts went on vacation during the summer months and rather than show reruns all summer the networks would have fill-in hosts take over. The fill-in hosts were usually part of the regular cast if it happened to be an ensemble show and sometimes a fill-in would be a popular guest star familiar to the audience. Ray Stevens happened to be the most popular recurring guest on Andy's television show. Andy had made his return to weekly television in 1969 and throughout the 1969-1970 television season the guest that received the most fan mail and attention was Ray Stevens. Ray was chosen to be the host of the upcoming summer show for Andy Williams (debuting in late May of 1970). Ray had an ensemble cast (which included British singer, Lulu; 'Mama' Cass Elliot of The Mama's and the Papa's; and comedian Steve Martin among others). The show also featured guest stars and one of those making several appearances happened to be George Lindsey.

Earlier this month Ray issued a video clip featuring several comedy sketches of George Lindsey from the 1970 summer show. There aren't too many people that realize George provided vocals for several Walt Disney animated films...in addition to this I'll bet it's a little known national fact that every year the University of North Alabama hosts a George Lindsey Film Festival. The annual event began in 1998. There were also numerous charitable events and scholarships in George's name...charitable events that raised hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars for various organizations through celebrity golf tournaments and other celebrity sports events. In 2012 the George S. Lindsey Theatre was completed. George had known about the building being under construction and it's eventual grand opening prior to his passing away on May 6, 2012 at age 83. In case you're wondering the University of North Alabama is the college George Lindsey attended and began his acting journey. In the screen cap it's Ray Stevens reacting to something George said. I have another screen cap of Ray in the midst of hysterical laughter as he reacts to an outright silly bit of absurdity hurled his way from George...who happens to wear a strange hat while delivering the remarks. There's footage of Ray and George bantering as well as extended sketches of George playing the part of the large singing group who doesn't seem to fit in too well. Those sketches are funny...but don't be surprised if you don't catch yourself feeling sad by how much George's character wants to fit in but always comes up on the losing end. 

 

Ray Stevens and Lee Roy Parnell sing "Workin' Man Blues"...

It's me once more and I'm here to embed a video clip of Ray Stevens and Lee Roy Parnell singing a duet of the Merle Haggard song, "Workin' Man Blues". Today is the birthday of Lee Roy...born on December 21, 1956 in Abilene, Texas. Ironically he was raised in a town called Stephenville, Texas. The clip from a 2018 episode of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...it features Lee Roy discussing his arrival in Nashville in the 1980s and his involvement in the songwriting aspect of country music. He remarks how he got a job at Polygram Publishing...and how it eventually led to his arrival at Arista Records. Lee Roy was among the musicians playing on Ray's 1990 album, Lend Me Your Ears. In fact, the episode guest starring Lee Roy featured Ray opening the show with "Barbeque", a song from that 1990 album. In this clip, however, Ray and Lee Roy perform a duet of "Workin' Man Blues". Lee Roy had previously recorded the song as a trio with Steve Wariner and Diamond Rio for a Merle Haggard tribute album. The performance was issued as a music video in the early 1990s. 

 

Ray Stevens: "Nightmare Before Christmas" reaches 1,000,000 unique views...

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans!! We're slowly making our way to Christmas Day...it's this coming Friday! The pandemic has more or less mandated commercial television to not run many, if any, overly festive Christmas commercials because of the medical establishment's "warnings" of large get togethers. There's been several COVID-19 style Christmas commercials...one of the commercials show laptop computer screens with a collection of people on it...promoting some kind of isolated Christmas celebration among family. I know there's some out there who will actually attempt to have what they're calling a virtual Christmas but that won't be taking place in my house. We plan on having our usual Christmas dinner and I know well in advance I'll be watching whatever football games are airing...so Christmas Day 2020 won't be any different here. Now, of course, it helps that the only people at our Christmas Dinner are close relatives who we're pretty sure aren't out and about and on the town and therefore potential carriers of the virus. So, yes, we're taking precautions...as any family should...but we're not going to let any sort of Government over-reach ruin the holiday season.

Now, then, Ray's music video of "Nightmare Before Christmas" slowly amassed 1,000,000 unique views recently. The video made it's debut on November 3, 2010. A number of Ray's songs as well as his music videos have very long shelf lives...it's a testament to Ray's creative abilities first of all and secondly it's a testament to his enduring appeal. It's also a testament to his skills as a marketer in that he knew that Christmas music would receive annual activity and that there would perhaps be some sort of an audience awaiting the Christmas comedy videos year after year. In a television special on Ray Stevens that aired in the late 1990s on The Nashville Network the subject of durability and longevity came up. Ray remarked that quite a few of his albums crept along and eventually became Gold or Platinum with little to no mainstream hype or hardly any radio publicity. His success continues to mystify and baffle the so-called hip music critics...and given that his music video output on the internet has become so successful and omnipresent through YouTube and Facebook, it's generated one of the largest followings of a performer known almost exclusively as a 'comedian' or 'novelty singer'. His YouTube videos have collectively gotten more than 131,000,000 unique views since he opened his YouTube channel in 2009. I rounded the number rather than post specifics. If you visit his YouTube channel's 'About' section you'll see the most recent total of unique views his video content has received.

A couple of days ago I posted a blog entry where I highlighted "Nightmare Before Christmas" nearing the 1,000,000 mark. After I published that blog entry I went over to YouTube and refreshed the video statistics and at that time the video had pushed into the 1,000,000 level with a unique view total of 1,000,216. Today, before I began composing this blog entry, I looked at the recent unique views for the video and now it's got 1,019,578. There have been a couple of people, myself included, that have been posting links to the video on social media sites. I'd like to think I played a small part in re-introducing the video and helping it rack up an additional 18,000 or so unique views these last couple of days. 

The video features several camera tricks...in several scenes we see Ray Stevens playing three parts: Santa Claus, The Judge, and the hyper Prosecutor. A camera trick enabled Ray to appear on screen side by side by side. He'd done this sort of thing earlier in his music video for "Freddie Feelgood" where all five members of the band (all played by Ray Stevens) appeared on screen at the same time. The song originated in 1997 on Ray's first Christmas album titled Christmas Through a Different Window. Once Ray opened up his video hosting channel on YouTube he began issuing direct-to-YouTube video content in addition to posting music videos from the past that had originally only been available on VHS tape. This music video debuted, as previously mentioned, in November 2010. YouTube and Facebook have been good for Ray Stevens these past 11 years...his YouTube channel came along in July 2009. I don't know when his official Facebook page debuted...but I'd say it's been around just as long as his Facebook page. It took 10 years for this music video to get to 1,000,000 unique views...talk about durability!! In a future blog entry I might post a screen cap of Ray Stevens from the music video where he's on screen as Santa, the Judge, and the Prosecutor. I know you'll love the song/video in case you've never seen it before.

Ray Stevens: "Merry Christmas" 8 years later...

The exact date was December 22, 2012 so I'm two days early...but 8 years ago the Country Music Hall of Fame member, Ray Stevens, released a new music video titled "Merry Christmas". The song gets to the point of what Christmas is all about and, overall, it's a defiant stance against a hostile politically correct culture that prefers to say Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings as to not single out/celebrate any specific religion...that religion being Christianity...and in this song Ray belts out the pride of celebrating Christmas and saying the phrase, "Merry Christmas". Ray takes the point of view that he doesn't discriminate against other religions and he doesn't protest any sort of religious celebration yet Christianity, and the saying of the phrase, "Merry Christmas", has long been under attack...but in spite of all that he's going to continue to say "Merry Christmas". When Ray issued the music video in 2012 it was only available as a video...the song would eventually receive placement on Ray's 2016 Christmas album, Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. Now, then, from the pen of Ray Stevens comes the pointed, Christmas commentary in song, "Merry Christmas"...share this one with all of your on-line friends...in addition to the silly, comical Christmas songs Ray Stevens has recorded over the years.

Ray Stevens: Janie Fricke CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello all once more! Ray Stevens uploaded a video performance today of Janie Fricke singing "Do Me With Love" from her guest appearance on CabaRay Nashville. Today happens to be her birthday. Janie's hit songs go back to the late '70s and on into the mid '80s. The majority of her recordings happened to be for Columbia Records...they issued albums and singles on her from 1977 until 1989. The record producer on some of those early Columbia recordings happened to be Billy Sherrill. He also happened to be the record producer of almost all of the country singers signed to Columbia and it's subsidiary label, Epic. Janie's record producer throughout much of the 1980's, though, was Bob Montgomery who happened to be a co-producer of Ray's 1982 RCA album, Don't Laugh Now. Janie recorded jingles and demo recordings...she sang harmony and provided female vocals in several recordings released on Columbia by Johnny Duncan. Her voice can be heard on the Johnny Duncan hits, "Stranger", "Come a Little Bit Closer", and "Thinkin' of a Rendezvous" as well as the Charlie Rich mega hit, "On My Knees". The Johnny Duncan singles were issued on Columbia whereas the Charlie Rich songs were issued on Epic. Billy Sherrill is closely associated with a style of country music called 'countrypolitan' where the music sounds like it belongs on stage at the Metropolitan Opera House instead of the Grand Ole Opry. I like the sound but country purists aren't too fond of it. Janie was once a cast-member of The Statler Brothers Show in the early 1990s. When Ray's CabaRay showroom re-opens at some point in 2021 look for photo's of Billy Sherrill on the wall and see the red leather booth. Ray named each of the red leather booths in the CabaRay after a legendary record producer. 

Ray Stevens: "Nightmare Before Christmas" is nearing a million unique views...

Well, here we are one week before Christmas!! I embedded several Ray Stevens Christmas songs earlier this month and since we're one week away from Christmas I decided to embed another Christmas song from Ray, "Nightmare Before Christmas"...

I'll explain the reason I'm focusing on this particular video and it has to do with it's unique view count as of this writing. The video for "Nightmare Before Christmas" sits near 1,000,000 unique views! In blog's past whenever I'd announce that a video is nearing a million unique views there would be separation of several thousand between the current unique view count and what was needed to reach 1,000,000 but in this case the "Nightmare Before Christmas" music video just needs 7 more unique views to reach the plateau of 1,000,000!! Once this happens it will be added to Ray's list of million-view YouTube videos. He has quite a few...many of those videos have multi-million unique views, to be specific. So, as I type this, the most recent unique views for "Nightmare Before Christmas" is 999,993...take a look below...now, isn't that an eye catching visual?? The video is sitting there...aching to reach 1,000,000...let's all collectively wish for the video to vault past 1,000,000 unique views...a Christmas gift for ourselves is seeing another Ray Stevens video reach a million unique views.

I'm sure by the time I finish writing this blog entry, publish it, and then share it on social media the video will have surpassed 1,000,000 because I'd heard years ago that unique view totals are always fluid and are updated hourly and so the video may have officially passed the million mark as I'm writing this but the view count on the video's official YouTube page hasn't updated yet. The song comes from Ray's 1997 comedy Christmas album, Christmas Through a Different Window. The music video was released on YouTube in 2010.

Ray Stevens performs "Erik the Awful"...

Hello once again!! In 1984 Ray Stevens signed with MCA Records and unlike previous times in Ray's distinguished recording career this partnership revolved around the marketing of Ray Stevens as a country comedian. Ray had, for a couple of decades, been a recording artist of all types of music. He was mostly marketed as a pop singer because the music he recorded wasn't tied down to just one specific style...and when eclecticism becomes part of any recording artist's repertoire then it becomes something of a nightmare for a marketing team or even a record label when it comes to defining your music. Ray recorded songs that fell into the categories of pop, country, gospel, adult-contemporary, and novelty throughout the '60s and '70s. An overview of his recording career to that point in time shown that his most endearing songs were the comical ones and so Ray decided to market himself strictly in a comical direction on records. In live concerts he remained eclectic and performed all types of songs but as far as his recordings were concerned he delivered comedy...his debut album for MCA in 1984 was his first comedy album in four years, going back to 1980's Shriner's Convention (RCA). In between the release of that 1980 comedy album and the release of his debut album for MCA in 1984 he'd released three non-comedy studio albums: One More Last Chance (1981 RCA); Don't Laugh Now (1982 RCA); and Me (1983 Mercury).

Ray's 1984 album, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, ultimately hit the Top-10 on the Country Album chart in the first half of 1985. It was also one of the top selling country albums of the year...eventually certified Gold and later, Platinum, for album sales. It was his first album to be certified Gold and then certified Platinum. Ray had sold millions of singles in his career up to that point but none of his albums had reached the sales thresholds of Gold or Platinum until 1985. A lot of recording artists relied more heavily on the sales and publicity of the single rather than sales of the album...and so the marketing and promotional departments of record companies spent more time promoting single releases rather than albums. Their logic had them thinking that singles are purchased by a general audience whereas an album is purchased by a singer's fanbase. Sales of albums began to ratchet up in the 1980's whereas the sales of singles began to decline...listeners began preferring an entire album's worth of songs from a singer rather than a single release of two recordings: the A side featured the song intended to be the hit while the B side featured a randomly selected album track. In addition to the album's sales the 1984 album is also noted in Ray's career as containing the debut appearances of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and "It's Me Again, Margaret", a couple of songs that have long since become all-time classics in his career. 

One of the songs that didn't get as much attention from that album is "Erik the Awful". Ray is in character as Erik in the screen cap above. Ray tells the story of an evil Viking who aimlessly sails all over the globe to pillage and plunder wherever he drops anchor. Ray made an official music video of the song in 2002...a combination live-action/limited animation production. In the music video Ray plays the role of a historian (in a designer bathrobe) who tells us the misadventures of "Erik the Awful". That video was embedded in this fan created blog years ago...but this video clip I'm embedding in this blog entry is from a 1984 television performance of "Erik the Awful". It's fabulous...expect no less from Ray Stevens...

     

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" hits 2.5 million unique views...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I took a look at the numbers for "The Quarantine Song" and it's gotten 2,502,146 unique views...and this is a pickup of 93,422 in the last couple of days. When I posted a previous blog about "The Quarantine Song" it had accumulated 2,408,724 unique views. The COVID-19 vaccine is starting to be administered and here's hoping commonly heard phrases like pandemic, social distance, flatten the curve, and stop the spread will be a thing of the past soon. I have a nagging suspicion that those in power aren't too eager to give it up...which is why, in some States, the local officials there are throwing nothing but cold water on the vaccine roll-out. If anything threatens a scientist or politician's power of control over a people, like the roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine certainly can, the more hesitant a Governor or Mayor will become in the roll-out. Several media outlets are deliberately misleading people about the vaccine and sewing doubts about it. The doubts were being sewn earlier in the year...but once the announcement was made that a vaccine had been approved by the FDA the politically driven skepticism ratcheted up. "The Quarantine Song" is available as an Mp3 for those of you, like myself, that also like to have Ray Stevens songs in your audio library rather than only in your video library. You can purchase your Mp3 by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens: Moe Bandy sings "Bandy the Rodeo Clown"...

Well, a little bit of confusion came along early yesterday afternoon on Ray's social media sites. Moe Bandy was given a 'happy birthday' shout out but his birthday isn't until February 12th. So, this is an early birthday greeting...it's a performance and interview of Moe Bandy during his appearance on the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television series. The show airs on local PBS stations. A couple of blog entries ago I listed some local PBS stations that carry Ray's show. One thing to keep in mind is every PBS station has their own line-up of episodes. An episode that's airing on a PBS station in Tennessee might not be the same episode airing on another Tennessee PBS station...or on a Kentucky PBS station, etc. and so there's always been an effort to tell the people to check their local PBS stations for time and episode in their area. The video clip is located below. Moe Bandy is one of the legendary figures in country music...but specifically the bulk of his music represents a honky-tonk flavor...and for the longest time he had a reputation for being the king of what's known as cheating songs. He recorded a wide variety of songs, though. He had a strong following in the Christian/gospel market which morphed into him becoming a long-standing entertainer in Branson, Missouri at his Americana Theater. The showroom was named for one of his hits, "Americana", which endeared him, mostly, to those who attended conservative-minded political functions and this led to his performances at rallies and campaign events for Republican candidates.  

Some of his hit songs have titles like: "I Cheated Me Right out of You", "She's Not Really Cheatin'", "I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs Today", his duet with Janie Fricke, "It's a Cheatin' Situation", and then "Don't Anyone Make Love at Home Anymore?". Those are just a few of the hard country, cheatin' songs that Moe Bandy is known and beloved for. In this video clip he and Ray discuss Moe's rise to fame in country music and his influences/idols. I had previously uploaded a video clip of Moe and Ray singing "Just Good Ol' Boys", a duet that was originally a massive hit for Moe and frequent singing partner, Joe Stampley. The two of them won several duo awards and were billed as Moe and Joe. Here's the interview and performance of "Bandy the Rodeo Clown"...

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" hits 2.4 million unique views...

Hello all...a quick blog entry on this early Sunday morning. I glanced over the YouTube unique view statistics for "The Quarantine Song" by Ray Stevens and it's leaped up another level and now has 2.4 million unique views. The specific number is 2,408,724! The last couple of days, as you readers know, I've been busy writing blog entries focusing on the Mp3 release of "The Quarantine Song" and so I hadn't checked in on the video until a couple of minutes ago. The video, having debuted in May of this year, is still being discovered as you can see from the growing number of unique views it continues to rack up. It's getting to the phase now where more and more people are clicking the video from wherever it's being embedded or whatever device they're using to be on-line and they're not actually seeing or bothering to read the video description or it's details and so quite a number of recent comments about the video have people wondering why it's coming out now rather than months earlier...but of course the video did emerge months ago...back in May of this year. So, aside from that petty annoyance of YouTube viewers not reading the video description, as a fan of Ray Stevens I continue to champion all of his songs and promote everything he's recorded. That's what I do...and will continue to do. Here's that smash video hit from multi-talented Ray Stevens... "The Quarantine Song"... 

Ray Stevens: My purchase of "The Quarantine Song" Mp3...

Well, hello all...I'm not in the raging panic that I happened to be in when I wrote my previous blog entry. If you go back and read the previous blog entry you'll see me in panic mode...freaking out over not being able to purchase the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" just as soon as it hit Midnight. In that blog I made the argument that it's December 11th so why isn't the Mp3 available for purchase, etc. All kinds of things were going through my mind. You want to know something else? I was awake until a little bit past 3am and Amazon was still showing the Mp3 not yet available for purchase. I gave up and fell asleep sometime after that. I woke up later in the day and checked Amazon and, finally, the product page shown that it was available for purchase. So, after a few updates with my Account, I purchased "The Quarantine Song" and listened to it. I then wrote a review on Amazon that isn't published yet. I should've copied and pasted it here on my blog but I didn't think of doing that. I was still in a euphoria that I finally was able to purchase the Mp3 that I completely forgot to copy/paste my review. I'll probably copy it when it's published and paste it here in a future blog entry. The thing that consumers/fans should know is that this is a brand new recording exclusively for Curb Records. It's not an audio copy of the music video performance from Larry's Country Diner. The music video originated in May and it's gotten more than 2,000,000 unique views on YouTube...but this Mp3 is a new audio recording of the song with a slightly different music accompaniment. 

If you have the vocal performance from the music video burned into your memory as I do you'll notice the difference in this Mp3 recording right away. The most obvious difference is in the vocal phrasing. In the performance in the music video he phrases some of the lyrics differently than in the Curb Records recording. You can purchase the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" by clicking HERE.

Ray Stevens: "The Quarantine Song" now on Mp3...

Hello one and all...several days ago I made mention that I'd heard that Curb Records was going to issue an Mp3 of the Ray Stevens COVID-19 comedy video, "The Quarantine Song". I had heard this bit of information on a radio show Ray guest starred on in early November that had only made it to the internet for on-line listening in early December. I hadn't seen any mention of the Mp3 in any other on-line site and until this morning Amazon wasn't showing it on their site but now they are. The radio interview where the host mentioned this December 11th release happened on WZON radio. The Mp3, at the moment, is listed on the Amazon page for digital downloads but on the product page it states that it won't be available until December 11, 2020. I thought it might be a typo and so I went ahead and clicked the purchase link and I was taken to something that resembled an error page...and as of this writing I haven't been able to purchase the Mp3 yet. 

Here's the lovely promotional photo being used over there on the Amazon product page...as you know the photo comes from the video performance of the song. The face mask and gloves are clearly visible in the photo. I'd remarked on Ray's social media sites that the song is now part of his audio catalog with Curb Records. Ray had previously recorded for Curb Records several times and they issued/distributed a number of DVD's of his limited animation music videos along the way, too, in addition to the audio recordings. 

The bizarre part about all of this is here where I'm at it's 12:56am as I type this and so it's technically December 11th...so why is Amazon showing a message that the Mp3 won't be available until December 11th when I'm in December 11th already here in the Eastern time zone. Anyway, I think I know what the issue is. A couple of months ago when Curb Records issued the 50th Anniversary Mp3 of "Everything is Beautiful" I was able to purchase the Mp3 right after it turned Midnight here. However, I was not able to post a review of the single on Amazon until after 3am Eastern time, 12am in the West. So, I'm thinking that I'll be able to purchase the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" once it turns 3am here. I say this because out on the West Coast where Amazon's headquartered there's a 3 hour time difference. This is the message on the product page at the moment...keep in mind it's 1:05am, December 11, 2020 as I type this and the Amazon product page still shows this alert...

I'm curious if anyone else has ever had this sort of issue of attempting to purchase an Mp3 on the date it shows it's available but yet are unable to purchase it. Since I'm sort of a night owl I'll be awake at 3am and I'll re-try purchasing the Mp3 at that time. Once I'm able to purchase the Mp3 I'll make mention of it in a future blog entry later today.

Ray Stevens: Official video upload of "Close Enough to Perfect"...

Hello all...it's me once again!! Several months ago I had featured a duet between Ray Stevens and Sylvia, "Close Enough to Perfect", and I included some screen-caps and a link to where you could watch the video. The video had been uploaded previously and I shared it with all of you in a blog entry. Now I'm going to share it all with you once again because it's become part of the official Ray Stevens YouTube channel. The Music City News Top Hits of the Year happened to be a syndicated program that honored the songwriters who wrote the previous year's biggest songs. Ray used to host, co-host, or frequently perform on the various awards programs presented by Music City News. It's the Music City News organization that held a fan-voted awards event every year in Nashville and typically centered around Fan Fair week when a lot of the performers and the fans were in Nashville...fans sent in their choice of 'Best Male Artist', 'Best Female Artist', 'Favorite Duo', 'Favorite Group', etc. etc through the mail. In the early years it was done through the mail by subscribers of the magazine but later on the awards became a major event on television and soon the voting opened up to subscribers and non-subscribers through a national 1-800 number advertised on television. 

Ray won 'Comedian of the Year' from the Music City News for 9 consecutive years. His first award arrived in 1986 and he continued winning in this category through 1994. The hold on this category by Ray Stevens came to an abrupt end in June 1995 when a well established stand-up comedian tickled the funny bones of those who voted in the annual awards program. The comic brought his nearly decade long schtick to the country music marketplace in the early '90s and the fans responded with their votes in 1995. Even though Ray didn't win 'Comedian of the Year' in 1995 from the Music City News he was voted 'Best Comedian' by a new publication, Country Weekly. This magazine created a fan-voted Golden Pick Award and Ray was named 'Best Comedian' by the Country Weekly organization in 1995...but let's back up to 1983! Ray Stevens and Sylvia performed "Close Enough to Perfect" on the telecast...a song written by Carl Chambers which had become a massive hit for the band, Alabama. The historic version of Music City News magazine went out of print in 2000. It was co-founded by country singer Faron Young in 1963 who sold his interests in the publication in the 1970s. The awards began in 1967 but a televised awards show never began until 1978. Country Weekly magazine was in publication from 1994 until 2016.  

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville 5th Anniversary...

It's me once again! I was going over the episode list of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television show and it dawned on me that I never highlighted the show's 5th anniversary last month. The reason it slipped my mind is because of the activity surrounding the 50th anniversary release of "Everything is Beautiful". Ray's television series, which runs 30 minutes, debuted on November 7, 2015. The series was originally titled Ray Stevens' Nashville and it followed the release of his 2014 memoir of the same name. The show's first 26 episodes aired on cable channel, RFD-TV, on November 7, 2015. The series left it's airwaves in December 2016. The show moved to local syndication on PBS in January 2017...and for the first 26 weeks in syndication the local PBS stations carrying Ray's show repeated the RFD episodes. 

The show's title changed to Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville beginning with it's move to local PBS stations in January 2017. Ray was in the process of having his CabaRay showroom built during the latter half of 2015 and throughout 2016...and it was expected that a grand opening of the showroom would occur early in 2017 but some technical/legal issues with the building permit caused the construction to be delayed from the start and so the showroom wasn't finished until the fall of 2017. The grand opening of the CabaRay happened in January 2018. All the while this was going on throughout 2017 and into 2018 local PBS stations were airing all new episodes of Ray's television show. In June of 2017 in nearly all of the local PBS markets airing his show viewers that had previously seen the RFD episodes were now going to be treated to brand new episodes. Ray and his crew throughout the latter half of 2016 and throughout much of 2017 and into early 2018 eventually produced 52 half hour episodes, specifically, for PBS and the earliest of the completed episodes began airing, as mentioned, in June of 2017. Ray taped 9 episodes at the CabaRay showroom early in 2018. 

All in all there have been 78 half hour episodes produced of the series and one behind-the-scenes special that aired during pledge break on several PBS stations. These 78 half hour episodes continue to air on local PBS stations scattered throughout the country. The bulk of the local PBS stations airing the show are in Tennessee but there are other local PBS stations across the country that are airing it. Some local PBS affiliates either carry it on their Statewide network or on a digital sub-channel. Here is an incomplete list of PBS stations currently airing Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. A couple of States air the show on their main PBS feed but the majority of the PBS stations are local affiliates that are geographically specific in nature and therefore the coverage is confined to a specific area within the State.  

WCVN (KET2- Covington, KY)

WCTE (Cookeville, TN)

WKNO (Memphis, TN)

WLJT (Martin, TN)

WETP 2.1 (Knoxville, TN)

NPT (Nashville, TN Public Television)

KOZK (Ozarks PBS- Springfield, MO)

KMOS (Springfield, MO)

KPTS (Wichita, KS)

KOOD (Central and Western Kansas)

APT (Alabama Public Television)

WSRE (Pensacola, FL)

SCE-TV (South Carolina Public Television)

PBS12 (Denver, CO) 

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)"...

Here I am again writing further fan created blog entries about the one and only, Ray Stevens. Earlier today the audio clip of one of Ray's Christmas comedy songs was uploaded onto his social media sites. The song, "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", comes from his 2016 Christmas CD titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. The song is in the cute category but the message in it almost always galvanizes pet lovers to address the procedure of declawing when it comes to cats. Some cat owners prefer their cat to be declawed while others think it's cruel. Now, since it's a Christmas song, it'll typically receive the bulk of it's video play several weeks per year and so I don't think any sort of lengthy on-line argument breakout in the video comments section over the declawing debate.  

When Ray was promoting the song, initially, back in 2016 it made the rounds of social media sites. The songwriters are Tommy Crawford and Taylor Craven and the Biloxi Sun Herald on-line newspaper did a write-up in December 2016 about the two writers and how their song ended up on the Ray Stevens album. I wrote a blog entry in December 2016 and in some lead-up blog entries late in November I spotlighted this song as well as Ray's Christmas album and the title track's music video. There hasn't been a music video produced for "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)" but the official audio was uploaded earlier today. 

In 2016 Ray uploaded a video clip discussing the song and how he came across it. Along side the audio clip of the song Ray highlighted the 2016 video clip, too, and so I'm also going to embed that 2016 video clip!  

Ray Stevens: A look into 2021...

Hello all once again!! I usually write a blog entry focusing on the upcoming year in the final week of December or on New Year's Eve...and I may still...if I decide to write another later this month I'll probably call it "Another look into 2021" or something like that. So many share the same sentiment that 2020 is a year that nobody wants to remember or a year that really never existed, etc. etc. but I'm going to look into the year ahead...looking at 2021 as it pertains to Ray Stevens. 

One of the things I am hoping for is his CabaRay showroom to get re-opened and back in business. He performed there only twice this entire calendar year. The showroom opened in 2018. He performed there nearly the entire calendar year of 2018 and then nearly all of 2019. He had the 2020 opening in March...the first concert being a fundraiser for Tennessee tornado victims...and not too long afterward the State Government ordered everything that they didn't view 'essential' as closed. The CabaRay was to re-open, at long last, in the fall of this year but after one performance Ray decided the experience of having his fans seated 'six feet apart', their having to wear face masks, combined with the other edicts put into place by the State's health department, he decided it wasn't fair to the customers to have to be put through that...and how that kind of 'safety protocol experience' could have a lasting negative impact. So, he closed down the showroom once more and explained that they'd re-open once they're allowed to operate at normal capacity with no restrictions.  

It's natural to believe that COVID-19 will be under control no later than late February/early March of 2021. In spite of the oppressive over-reach of many Governor's and local officials there's going to come a time when the pandemic fears are going to come to an end and widespread vaccine availability is being administered. Even in spite of those fears you should never, ever forgo traditional celebrations that bring people together. That is why I hope you all celebrated Thanksgiving and I hope you choose to celebrate Christmas and everything that comes with it...the Government or the healthcare system has no legal right to interfere and dictate our movement. They've been using COVID-19 as cover...as an excuse...to unleash unchecked power over society. Now, that's not a cynical point of view...if you follow things closely as I happen to do you'll see their behavior follows a pattern.

Now that I've vented about 2020 and all that it brought to the country let's finally look ahead, music-wise, at 2021 in the career of Ray Stevens! Ray recently signed a contract with Curb Records as most of you already know and the first release was the "Everything is Beautiful" 50th anniversary recording. Curb released an Mp3 of the full performance of the song and they also released a medley that featured "United We Stand". Ray recorded two music videos for the occasion. As of this writing the full performance of "Everything is Beautiful" has unique views that total 7.9K on YouTube while the "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" medley video has 6.3K. I'd heard that Curb Records was to issue "The Quarantine Song" as an Mp3 at some point in early December. We're on December 7th now...if what I'd heard is correct it should emerge no later than next week...I'll be on the lookout on the various on-line music stores. As of this moment that song is only available as a YouTube video...with over 2.2 million unique views!! Curb Records, sometime in early 2021, will be releasing Ray's box set covering Musical Highlights of the 20th Century. Ray sings his versions of hundreds of songs spanning decades. I believe very early in 2020 or late in 2019 Ray posted some images of himself at what appeared to be an amusement park and said it was part of a music video shoot. In those social media posts at the time he said it was for something called "The Co-Co Cabana Song". To date there hasn't been anymore news about that particular video.

That brings me to today...on his social media sites Ray posted some new photo's from another video shoot totally unrelated to the photo shoot from late last year/early this year. In commentary about the photo's it's mentioned that the finished video will emerge sometime in 2021.

One of my social media friends suggested that the video shoot might be for "Love Potion Number Nine"...and if you look at the costumes you'd probably think the same thing. I don't think it's for that song, however, because Ray recorded his version of it in 2012 for his Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music and had he wanted to make full length music videos for any of the songs he recorded for that 9-CD project he would've made them back then...at least that's my opinion. He could very well be making a comedy video of "Love Potion Number Nine" for all we know...but something tells me this photo is from some sort of brand new song. There are a couple of other photos that were released that don't feature Ray...one of them shows Buddy Kalb as a policeman, with Billy club in hand, which ties into the story told in "Love Potion Number Nine"...so we'll all have to wait and see what exactly the song is that these video shoot photos come from. If I find out anything more in-depth I'll write about it in a future blog post. 

Ray Stevens: Andy Williams performs on The Ray Stevens Summer Show...

I didn't know exactly if I should title this blog entry Andy Williams Sings on the Ray Stevens Show or Andy Williams performs on the 1970 Ray Stevens Summer Show, etc. I knew that whatever title I'd come up with would be wordy and so I settled on the title that I came up with. Andy Williams was a very important figure in the career of Ray Stevens. Andy allowed Ray to appear on several occasions on his NBC television series during the 1969-1970 season. The networks, by and large, didn't want to air repeats of variety shows during the summer months and so when the star of a show took off for the summer break there was the need for a replacement host. Andy and associates chose Ray Stevens to host the 1970 summer show. Ray had recently signed to Andy's record label, Barnaby, after a lengthy run on Monument Records, and Ray wanted his debut for the company to be a hit and something that could be used as a theme song for the upcoming summer show. In the video clip you'll hear Ray refer to Andy as "my daddy and the sweetheart of the south" and he says that about Andy out of respect. I say that because someone asked on one of Ray's social media accounts if Andy was Ray's father. The answer to that would be, no! Ray's father happened to be a man by the name of Willis. The show having Andy on as a guest lent itself to a lot of comedy because it was actually Andy's show that Ray was guest hosting during the summer break. The appearance gave Andy some jokes to level toward Ray...asking him how he's been doing since taking over the show, and as they begin to chit chat, music starts playing and the announcer tells us that the reason they're drowning out the conversation is because, frankly, they feel their chit chat is boring, which draws a lot of laughs but then, after the music stops, the scene ends with Andy asking Ray a question that had become a running joke throughout the 1970 summer series. Andy sings "One Day of Your Life" which was a huge hit for for him on the Adult-Contemporary chart...peaking in the runner-up position. It's more adult oriented and that's why it had it's greatest impact on radio formats that played pop music that adults preferred to listen to and purchase. Andy croons out the song in his typical delivery. The song is from the pen of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and it was issued as a single in June of 1970. The release came between Andy's version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "It's So Easy".  

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" hits 2.2 million unique views...

Hello all once again!! I was looking at the YouTube statistics for "The Quarantine Song" from Ray Stevens and it's gotten an increase of 42,574 unique views since my previous post back on December 1st. This addition enables the video to move into the 2.2 million plateau. The unique views the other day for the video were 2,169,872. As of this writing the video now sits at 2,212,446 unique views. I live in a State that has a somewhat reasonable Governor...like so many people I'm annoyed with COVID and fed up with the constant drumbeating from the media about COVID "cases" and how everyone should simply sit down and be quiet and not speak out or show anger towards the ridiculous over-reach of city and State Government...collectively on a power grab and using COVID-19 as cover. 

In a State on the other side of the country, California, the Los Angeles mayor wants to cancel everything and several Governors are discussing lock downs. I'm certain the L.A. mayor is not familiar with the classic 1966 cartoon, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch tried to steal Christmas but it came anyway. Pay attention to those that use the phrase "we need to prevent congregate settings"...they're basically advocating the closure of churches and in my opinion you can't get anymore twisted and sadistic than to suggest that sort of thing during Christmas season. 

As Governor's all over the country continue their power grab and hypocrisy there is always a place for laughter...and it comes in the form of "The Quarantine Song" from Ray Stevens...

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" hits 2.1 million unique views...

In this, my third blog entry of the day, I'm providing an update on the YouTube numbers for "The Quarantine Song" that Ray released back in May of this year during the first wave of COVID and the hysteria that followed with rationing of products and limited supplies of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and mandatory face mask wearing inside all retail stores. The song's title was slightly changed midway through it's appearance on the social media platforms...originally the song's title was "Quarantined" but then it was changed to "The Quarantine Song". Ray performed this song on an episode of Larry's Country Diner...and the cast of the show is who you hear laughing near the end of the clip. The video clip has moved past the 2.1 million plateau. As of this writing it's sitting at 2,169,872...as you can see I'm a bit late in reporting just exactly when the video crossed over into the 2.1 level given 69,872 unique views have already been accumulated by the time I started writing this blog entry! The unique views obtained on YouTube are separate from the views the video is getting on other social media sites. I know Facebook video views are counted differently than the method used on YouTube. As a result of this I stick with reporting the YouTube unique views. 

Ray Stevens: "Santa Claus is Watching You" 1962 audio clip...

Hello one and all it's me again with a second fan-created Ray Stevens blog entry on the first day of December! Yes, as was the case in the other blog entry, this one is Christmas oriented too. Ray released two video uploads on his social media platforms today. The first happened to be an audio clip of his 2009 recording of "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow". The second upload happened to be an audio clip of his 1962 recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You"!! I've written in past blog entries about Ray's original recording of that song and how it was lyrically aimed at children...when you listen to the song you'll understand the primary target. The 1962 recording is just as funny as the 1985 updated version that more people are familiar with. The 1985 re-recording includes a completely different storyline but it retains the song's title and some of the hook lines/catch-phrases like "he's everywhere! he's everywhere!" and the lengthy list of reindeer names. The storyline for the 1985 recording shifted to a more adult theme by having the man in the song warn his wife that she best not cheat on him because Santa's watching. The overall melody from the 1962 recording remains the same but, obviously, the 1985 re-recording features a completely updated sound in comparison to 1962. The 1962 recording appeared on the Hot 100 pop chart and due to it being a Christmas-themed novelty single it was among the top selling of it's time period. The 1985 re-recording benefitted from music video exposure in the early years of The Nashville Network and by the fact of it being on one of Ray's Gold albums, I Have Returned. The music video's inclusion in 1992's multi-platinum VHS Comedy Video Classics firmly established the 1985 version of the song a classic in Ray's career. Also, with a channel like The Nashville Network, Ray often found himself performing the 1985 version of "Santa Claus is Watching You" almost annually on Christmas-themed episodes of 'Nashville Now' or 'Crook and Chase'. 

If you've never heard the original 1962 recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You" then you're in for a treat! If you're only familiar with the single release on Mercury Records then you're also in for a treat because this is the unedited copy of "Santa Claus is Watching You". The single release is an edited copy of the song running 2 minutes, 17 seconds. The unedited copy, which you'll hear below, is 3 minutes and 15 seconds.