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...