Ray Stevens: 12 All Time Greats cassette

Trick or treat!! Oh yes, it's Halloween!!!

I decided to kick off this blog entry, as you can see, with Halloween/pumpkin coloring. However, this blog entry isn't entirely about any Halloween song from Ray Stevens, in particular, it's more about a rare treat I come across while browsing eBay a few minutes ago. While I was looking through the section listing cassette tapes I came across a release titled Funny Man with 12 All Time Great Greats written across the top of the cassette cover art as you can see off to the right. 

The photo of Ray should be familiar to a lot of you. There have been a couple of CD releases on Ray that have used this photo or one very similar...both being taken, obviously, at the same photo session. Those similar looking photos appear on a few 3-CD collections...one titled The Incredible World of Ray Stevens. Anyway, this 12 All Time Greats was released in 1996 on the MCA Special Products label. The track list appears to have been selected entirely at random...jumping from mid 1980s to late 1980s and back again. I highlight this because it's a rarity...so rare that even I had never known of it's existence until I came across it on eBay. There are 6 recordings per side...and if you're knowledgeable about Ray Stevens compilations you'll immediately notice the inclusion of recordings from 1988 and 1989. I highlight that due to the fact that most, but not all, but most compilation releases on Ray that have come along since the late 1980s and into the 1990s often omit recordings from his 1988 and 1989 albums. There's another compilation that came along titled Legendary Ray Stevens. It's track list, much like the one featured on Funny Man/12 All Time Greats, includes overlooked recordings from his MCA years. The Legendary Ray Stevens also contains 12 recordings and the bulk of those come from the latter half of the 1980s. I have no confirmation about this but it's my assumption that Legendary Ray Stevens and this 12 All Time Greats are companion releases...although each title was released several years apart. Legendary Ray Stevens was released on MCA Special Products in 1994 and, as mentioned, 12 All Time Greats was released in 1996. The similarities of both titles containing 12 recordings and that most of them come from that late 1980s time period leads me to believe they're companion releases. In case anyone has trouble reading the track list of the 1996 cassette here are the song titles:

1. I Used To Be Crazy (1989)

2. Surfin' U.S.S.R. (1988)

3. Armchair Quarterback (1985)

4. Joggin' (1984)

5. Southern Air (1986; with Jerry Clower and Minnie Pearl)

6. Bad (1988)

7. I'm Kissin' You Goodbye (1984)

8. The Pirate Song (1985)

9. Punk Country Love (1985)

10. The Booger Man (1988)

11. Another Fine Mess (1989)

12. Ethelene The Truckstop Queen (1988)

The track list of 1994's Legendary Ray Stevens is as follows:

1. Mississippi Squirrel Revival (1984)

2. Erik the Awful (1984)

3. The Monkees (1984)

4. Stuck on You (1989)

5. There's a Star Spangled Banner (1989)

6. Would Jesus Wear a Rolex? (1987)

7. It's Me Again, Margaret (1984)

8. Your Bozo's Back Again (1989)

9. I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O. (1989)

10. The Flies of Texas (1987)

11. Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy on Me (1987)

12. Gourmet Restaurant (1987)

Track 10 on the 12 All Time Greats, "The Booger Man", is one of the recordings that is considered a Halloween song. There have been times in the past where, during various Halloween seasons, Ray would perform the song on various guest appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. Here's the 1988 recording from his comedy album I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like...

Ray Stevens: October 1985 appearance on "Nashville Now"...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! Now, do I have an extremely wonderful treat in store for you all in this blog entry! Earlier today what I consider an extremely rare episode of Nashville Now from October 1985 made it's debut on YouTube. The episode, as far as I'm concerned, carries that rare title because it probably hasn't been seen since it's original airing almost 40 years ago but more importantly is it brings together Ray Stevens and Roger Miller for an extensive period of time. The show's host, Ralph Emery, was on vacation and so the guest host happened to be Roger Miller. I'm sure all of you reading this are aware of who Roger Miller is/was. He was a singer/songwriter who also had a knack for writing humorous songs. A lot of his humor/novelty songs were in what some might call the ditty category...often fast paced and laced with a lot of addictive scat singing and lyrics that go by so fast it's sometimes difficult to catch all of the little one liners and jokes. Roger once hosted his own network show on NBC in the fall of 1966...and we all know Ray was a recurring guest and summer host for Andy Williams...and so they both had a lot of experience on camera. 

Ray performed two songs on the episode. The first, "Vacation Bible School", and the other was his current single at the time, "The Haircut Song". Roger promoted Ray's 1985 album, I Have Returned. An irony is that the episode aired in October 1985 but it would be another 5 months or so before the album would reach it's peak of number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart in the spring of 1986. Another irony is Roger opened the show with the whimsical "A Hand for the Hog"...whereas Ray, on the I Have Returned album, recorded a song called "Kiss a Pig". 

The episode was basically dominated by both the guest host, Roger Miller, and guest star Ray Stevens. The other guests were actress Nicolette Larson who had a music career at the time, and a duo called the Vega Brothers. Throughout the episode during the interview portions Ray and Roger come across like a comedy duo or comedic rivals...cracking jokes and telling one liners in the hopes of trying to make the other laugh or to out-zany the other with one wild story after another. Roger's joke about why Willie Nelson crossed the road had the two of them in a brief fit of laughter. Some may feel a bit uneasy with Roger's very loose style but if you're familiar with him then it won't come across that way...anytime I'd seen him on TV he always come off as a bundle of nerves yet there's no denying his talents. 

He sings several songs in the episode, of course. The highlight is "River in the Rain" from the Big River musical, a production that brought him several Tony Awards. He closed the show singing "King of the Road". I am deliberately brief with this overview because I don't want to give everything away and to fully appreciate the chemistry that Ray and Roger had on this episode it's best to just provide a link to the episode and tell you to treasure and savor the episode. Two legendary figures sharing the stage and having a big time doing so. Here's the LINK. 

Ray Stevens: Eye Catching Song Titles and More...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! I touched on this topic more than a decade ago so it's long since been buried in the archives so I thought I'd bring the topic back.. and that's the topic of funny/strange/eye-catching song titles that have appeared on the albums of Ray Stevens over the decades. It may not have hit you yet but the legendary Ray Stevens has entertained us for nearly 8 decades: '50s, '60s, '70s, 80s, 90s, 00's, 10's, and since 2020 we can now include the '20s. Mathematically, as you can see, he's three years into that 8th decade of entertainment. Ray's 1973 album, Nashville, is first in this blog entry about eye catching song titles. On that particular release, which is a non-comedy album, we have songs titled "Destroyed", "Fish Eat Sleep", and "Float". 

1978's There Is Something On Your Mind isn't a comedy album from Ray Stevens. However, it's an album that if you're not familiar with the songs you'd think some of them were comical due to their titles. The title track has some humorous moments which are much more notable within the final minutes when Ray launches into the frantic monologue describing the mindset of the guy who learns that he's the victim of a woman's cheating. Elsewhere on the 1978 album are songs with titles such as "Money Honey", "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash", and a trio of medley performances referred to as trilogies. The one medley with what some would consider a comical title is "Banned in Boston Trilogy". This performance features a medley of three songs that Ray, in the liner notes of the vinyl album, said were originally banned on numerous radio stations. The songs in the medley are "Sixty Minute Man", "Work With Me Annie", and "Annie Had a Baby". The 1978 album wasn't heavily promoted at all but had it been it would've most likely been described as a covers album of '50s and '60s rhythm and blues... a music format which Ray is a big fan of. In the written introduction found above Ray's photo on the vinyl release he, and I'm paraphrasing, made the album to bring some seriousness back to the music that he feels had gotten lost or downplayed due to a lot of the then current parodies of the 1950's/1960's time period. 

On the 1980 Shriners Convention album, which is a comedy album, eye-catching song titles are plentiful. The one that grabs the eye most often is "Put It In Your Ear". Now, leave it to Ray Stevens to record a song with a title like that but vocally perform it as a serious love ballad. The song's writer is Layng Martine, Jr. The 1980 album also has songs with these titles: "Coin Machine", "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me", "The Dooright Family", and "The Watch Song". In 1984 Ray began the phase of his career where he intentionally began marketing himself as a comic performer. Although comedy/novelty had come to define him in the minds of many music listeners well before 1984 it was something he actively worked against... always wanting to show that he could write, sing, and perform serious works as well. Then, in 1984, he figured that if comedy and off-the-wall music is what the general public want from him then that's what he'll give them. Ray had signed to MCA Records in 1984. All but one of the albums Ray recorded during the years 1984 through 1989 were all comedy. His 1989 album was half comedy, half serious ballads. 

Some of the eye catching and possibly strange song titles on those comedy albums were: "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Erik the Awful", "Ned Nostril", "Punk Country Love", "Kiss a Pig", "Hugo the Human Cannonball", "Bionie and the Robotics", "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat", "Dudley Dorite of the Highway Patrol", "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?", "Three Legged Man", "Cool Down Willard", "Language, Nudity, Violence, and Sex", "Booger Man", "Blood and Suede", "Mama's in the Sky With Elvis", "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.", "I Used To Be Crazy", and "The Woogie Boogie".

What I've noticed for years is what I call the Ray Stevens fanbase vernacular. This is when a fan of Ray's will speak in short hand and never say the exact title of a song but will refer to the song by it's subject matter or some lyric they remember. It's mostly a phenomenon on the internet by those who discover Ray's songs through the music videos that have been added to many video hosting sites. A lot those people perhaps have no idea of who Ray actually is and simply know of him by way of some video they've come across on social media sites. This segment of society more than likely will refer to Ray's 2010 music video, "Come to the U.S.A.", as the anti-illegal immigration song rather than by it's actual name. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" is often simply called "The Squirrel Song".. and I've seen online commentary from those that have seen Ray in concert and they'll inevitably say something like "Yes!! I saw Ray Stevens in concert and I'm glad he sang the song about the squirrel". The 1993 song, "If 10 Percent is Good Enough for Jesus", is referred to by people as "the Ray Stevens song about Jesus and taxes". Another potential example is his 2021 recording, "Dis-Connected". I call it a potential example because earlier today Ray spotlighted the audio recording on his social media sites. In time I'm sure "Dis-Connected" will be referred to as "that Ray Stevens song about online dating".  

Ray Stevens sings "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at Telethon...

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! I was aware of this video upload several weeks ago but I was waiting until Ray added it to his official YouTube channel before I embedded it. The video is from 1985 and it's Ray Stevens singing "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" at a Cerebral Palsy telethon. I looked up the telethon and couldn't find too much about it...as you'll see in the video clip Ray's singing at the Grand Ole Opry. There's a series of telephone numbers...of course they've long since been disconnected. The only thing I've been able to find out is there was a Cerebral Palsy telethon that took place in 1985...airing in the latter part of January...called Weekend with the Stars Telethon. The telethon ran 21 hours. I am making the assumption that Ray's performance comes from that particular telethon. National telethons almost always have cut-away location segments from other parts of the country...and in the Nashville segment Ray Stevens was featured. Now, if this performance does indeed come from that January 1985 telethon, then "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" was in it's early stages of single availability. It was issued as a single late in December of 1984 after some country and pop disc jockeys began playing the song from Ray's album, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. It wasn't meant to be a single but it was becoming a top requested song...so much so that an official single was released and by the end of January 1985 it was on the national charts...it's a song that still remains part of Ray's set-list in his concerts to this day.

Ray Stevens sings "Santa Claus is Watching You"...

Hello once again!! Ten days until Christmas and earlier today Ray Stevens uploaded a performance he gave of "Santa Claus is Watching You" on an episode of Nashville Now. There wasn't a specific year given as to when this was recorded. In the beginning of the video, briefly, you'll see the Nashville Now desk and Ralph Emery and what appears to be his frequent puppet sidekick, Shotgun Red. The set is decorated for Christmas and Ralph's desk is from the late 1980's time period. I've seen this performance before...and it was described as a late 1980's performance at that time as well...but it could also come from Christmas time 1990. I wish I knew specific years of what the set looked like on Nashville Now. I only have vague time frames. The desk is gray as are the couches...and so I'd pinpoint this appearance as being December 1989 or December 1990. I know that it's not from the mid 1980s because Ralph's desk and the chairs during that time period were brown. Here's the performance uploaded today from Nashville Now in the late 1980s.

Ray has several video performances on his YouTube channel of "Santa Claus is Watching You" and he also has an audio track of the song. The song has an interesting history. It was written and recorded by Ray in 1962. Mercury Records released it as a single and it became one of the Christmas hits of 1962. That recording was largely aimed at children...and a lot of the lyrics catered to a younger audience. I'm sure parents of children in 1962 got a kick out of the novelty song and would play it so their kids could hear Ray's warning about Santa's watching so be nice to your parents and classmates. In 1985 Ray re-recorded the song. He kept the basic hook lines and imagery of the original (the list of reindeer expanded greatly in the 1985 recording) but he changed nearly all of the lyrics. The song went from being a cute warning for kids to be on their best behavior because Santa's watching to a hilarious song about a wife who better remain faithful and true to her husband because Santa's watching. 

Ray turned the song into his first ever music video in 1985. It became a Christmas music video standard on The Nashville Network...often making their Top-10 most played Christmas music video lists in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. 

Another performance by Ray of "Santa Claus is Watching You" on YouTube is from 1989...on a Christmas special hosted by Ralph Emery. In the performance he's joined by hand puppet, JoJo. You may remember JoJo from Ray's television commercial for Get The Best of Ray Stevens. JoJo appears during the snippet of "Gitarzan". JoJo also appears on Ray's 1995 movie, Get Serious!, as a speed zone informant. Whenever in the movie Ray appeared in his yellow car JoJo often popped out from underneath the dashboard to tell him the speed zone. You'll notice when watching that Ray's performance includes the use of a click track...meaning that someone off stage in the sound department dubbed in Ray's falsetto phrase "He's everywhere! He's everywhere!!" during the live performance to make it look as if JoJo is 'speaking' but there are several camera angles that show Ray's mouth closed when JoJo 'speaks'. 

Ray has, for decades, put lots and lots of sound effects and unusual sounds on the many novelty songs he's recorded...and in order to come as close to possible of matching a studio recording in a live setting is to have some of the sound effects and other voices dubbed into the live performance. Ray uses multi-tracking whenever he makes records...the vocal and every instrument is recorded on separate tracks...and during production everything is mixed. He'd use a click track during live performances of "Sex Symbols", for example. His lines for Julio, which were recorded on a separate track, would be played back in concert as Ray sang his lines live while operating the mouth movements of Julio. Some people, because Ray sang the song in concerts and on television with a dummy at his side, have mistakenly thought Ray to be a legitimate ventriloquist. Here's Ray and JoJo from 1989... 

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Punk Country Love"...

Oh hello once again!! As we step into September I start off the month by announcing that it looks as if I'm on pace to match or go past my all-time blog entry total in a given year. I've been actively writing this fan created Ray Stevens blog page since 2008 and it was 2010 that seen me write 212 individual blog entries. I hadn't cracked the 200 number since. I looked over at the statistics and seen that this blog entry is my 195th of the year!! This being September it means I'll more than likely match 212 and go beyond that this year. If you do the math it means that 17 additional blog entries after this one puts me at a tie with 212...the 18th blog entry will give me 213 for the year and enable 2020 to surpass 2010 as having the most fan created blog entries.

Now...on we go with the focus of this blog entry: a 1985 recording by Ray Stevens titled "Punk Country Love". It comes from the pen of Ray Stevens, Buddy Kalb, and Carlene Kalb and originally appeared on the 1985 album, I Have Returned. The song was issued as the B-side of his single, "The Haircut Song". The B-side may perhaps be one of the most lyrically nutty novelty songs Ray has ever recorded as he sings about a rural couple who discover the wild punk life in San Francisco while looking through a magazine the husband found along the side of the road.

The husband (later revealed to be named Eugene) tells his wife, Junie May, that he's become inspired by all of this punk rock stuff and they, too, need to embrace the punk lifestyle so he goes through a list of things they'll need to do in order to accomplish the task. One of the things he suggests is getting his teeth chrome plated and for fun they should staple the chickens together, stick safety pins in the sow, snort boiled okra...and all kinds of other hysterical things in an attempt to go punk.

Ray Stevens: Mid 1980s television commercials...

It's me once again! Earlier today Ray Stevens uploaded one of his mid 1980s television commercials for a local Toyota dealer in Nashville, TN. I don't know if the commercial is from 1985 or 1986...could be 1984 or 1987. One thing is certain: it's the mid 1980s. He uploaded another mid 1980s commercial he did for Nashville's Toyota not too long ago...but this one is officially referred to on YouTube as Toyota Commercial 2. Note the special guests that appear in the commercial playing the bouncers. They look like Wrestlers but I can't think of their names.



The one he uploaded back on May 1st is below...



The two commercials had originally appeared on YouTube 6 years ago in a single upload. As you can tell the previously uploaded commercials were re-uploaded, but this time, separately. Ray also uploaded a Flav-O-Rich television commercial from the early 1980s. It features another boy, this one with dark hair, acting as his son. In a previous upload a boy with lighter hair was acting as his son. The message in both of those commercials are largely the same...there's an abundance of saccharine in the presentation of the commercial as is typically the case when children take center stage in commercials. In a previous commercial Ray and the kid spoke of frozen cows...this time they discuss a busy cow...

Ray Stevens: Feathered Fanfare...

It's been a scorching hot couple of days here!! I'd been awaiting my roof repair for a couple of days and today the workers shown up and replaced the shingles. The shingles had been on the roof since we bought the house 20 years ago. Well, enough of the personal discussion...it's time to discuss the reason you're reading this and the reason why I'm writing this fan created blog...time to discuss Country Music Hall of Fame member, Ray Stevens!!

Several days ago Ray's social media sites put up an audio of his 1985 recording, "Thus Cacked Henrietta". The title of this blog entry is in reference to the music often referred to as a fanfare in a longer piece of music from Richard Strauss in the late 1800s. If you've ever seen the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, then you'll immediately recognize the music. It's closely associated with Elvis, too.

The music was released as "Also sprach Zarathustra" and while Ray keeps the arrangement of the fanfare intact he comically performs as a choir of chickens...much in the same way he did "In the Mood" and it's B-side, "Classical Cluck", late in 1976. On that vinyl single the performance was credited as the Henhouse Five Plus Too. "Sunrise" is the official title of the fanfare in "Thus sprach Zarathustra". Ray's "Thus Cacked Henrietta" was his final recording from the choir of chickens and additional farm animals. He would go on to incorporate chickens in later recordings but this was his third and, to date, final chicken clucking performance.

Ray Stevens: I Have Returned...this week in 1986...

One of the funniest Ray Stevens recordings, "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone", was part of an album that was released in the latter half of 1985. I Have Returned hit late in the year on the heels of He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, which had seen it's release hit the Country Top-10 and eventually receive Gold certification (half a million in sales). The bulk of that 1984 album's success took up most of 1985 and so in the fall of 1985 along came the follow-up, I Have Returned. The novelty album began a slow climb up the Billboard Country chart and peaked at Number One for the week ending March 15, 1986. It, too, would eventually become a Gold record. Earlier today on Ray's social media sites an audio of the full version of "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone" emerged. An edited copy of this song appears on the MCA 1987 album, Greatest Hits, Volume Two. It's the single release, radio edit of the song. The album version is broken in two parts and that is what you'll hear below...



I Have Returned:
1. Thus Cacked Henrietta
2. Hugo the Human Cannonball
3. Vacation Bible School
4. Armchair Quarterback
5. The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone, Part One
6. The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone, Part Two
7. Kiss a Pig
8. The Haircut Song
9. The Pirate Song
10. Punk Country Love
11. Santa Claus is Watching You

Ray Stevens and Sylvia: Close Enough to Perfect...

Hello one and all...welcome to the last day of February...and I'm sure all the Ray Stevens fans are glad to see March right around the corner. The month of March will be something of a busy month for Ray...for it's the month that Season Three of CabaRay concerts gets underway. The first concert of the season is March 12th...so we still have a couple of weeks left before the showroom re-opens. The bulk of activity will be the CabaRay concerts, of course, but let's not forget that later in the month Ray will appear in Cookeville, Tennessee at the Leslie Town Centre at the annual WCTE dinner. The event will be held on March 24th. WCTE is the PBS affiliate handling national distribution of Ray's locally syndicated television series, CabaRay Nashville. I don't know how many local PBS stations air his television series but I know it airs here, regionally, on KET2 each Saturday night at 8pm.

There have been a couple of YouTube video clips uploaded featuring vintage Ray Stevens performances from the early 1980s. The two video's are uploaded by Ron Newcomer. One of the video clips, uploaded on February 26th, is from a Music City News program taped early in 1983 called Music City News Top Hits of the Year...co-hosting with Ray Stevens is Tammy Wynette. The two perform a duet, "We've Got the Music in Music City". This television special, specific performances I should clarify, had been released on DVD quite a number of years ago and I own a copy of it...but Ron's upload omits Ray's solo performance of "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" from that special. Ray's performance is on the DVD copy that I have. I don't know if Ron deliberately edited it out prior to his uploading the footage onto the internet or if he didn't tape that performance when he was recording the show in 1983. I left a question over on the video's YouTube page asking about Ray's performance not being part of the footage. Whatever the case you can watch performances from that 1983 television special when you click HERE. The upload also features the tribute to Marty Robbins and you'll see footage of Marty and see Ray and Tammy serve as hosts of the tribute segment. However, the DVD that I have, doesn't include the Marty Robbins tribute segment.

Ray Stevens and Sylvia

On February 27th performances from 1984's edition of Top Hits of the Year were uploaded onto YouTube. In this edition Ray and Sylvia perform "Close Enough to Perfect", a hit for Alabama a year earlier. Ray performs "My Dad"...a rarity...but the performance features some lyrical and musical omissions that I believe must have been dictated due to time constraints. The Top Hits of the Year series from Music City News focused on the hit songs of the previous year. The show was locally syndicated and typically aired within the first couple of months of the new year. Ray had recorded his Me album for Mercury Records in 1983 but publicity/promotion was practically non-existent until the first half of 1984. "My Dad" is from that 1983 album...issued as a single in 1984...and performed by Ray on the 1984 telecast.

In the photo to the left Ray Stevens is singing his heart out on his Mercury Records single from mid 1984, "My Dad". You can watch Ray and Sylvia perform "Close Enough to Perfect" and watch him perform "My Dad" when you click this LINK. The screen cap is from his performance of "My Dad". I could have captured more but I chose that image...it demonstrates the emotion and feeling he packed into the performance...and made it look effortless. It's long been said that a trait of the truly gifted and talented is the art of making hard work look effortless. Ray continues to make it look effortless...and on March 12th his CabaRay showroom opens it's third season of concert performances. You can find out all the information when you click HERE. The website, TripAdvisor, awarded the CabaRay a Certificate of Excellence in 2019 based upon the positive feedback from travelers. As of this writing there have been 158 reviews of the venue. This number is broken up into various categories: Excellent, Very Good, Average, Poor, and Terrible. The response, so far, has Excellent leading the pack with 136 while 15 rate it Very Good. This leaves 7 more traveler ratings. 3 people rated their experience Average, 1 person rated it Poor, and 3 people gave their experience a Terrible rating. I don't have the time to go through the pages and pages of reviews to find the negative commentary...I wish I could...maybe later I'll sift through all the pages and see exactly why someone would come away with a negative experience; but with 158 reviews total on TripAdvisor and 151 of them either being Excellent or Very Good I don't necessarily think the negative experience of 7 people needs dissecting...that feedback opinion is definitely in the minority.

Ray Stevens: Vintage YouTube Uploads...

Ralph Emery and Ray Stevens, 1979

Hello once more! There have been a couple of vintage video clips uploaded onto YouTube since my last blog entry and I'm embedding both of them below. The first clip is a full length episode of the television series, Pop! Goes the Country, from 1979. Well, I should say that it was taped in 1979 but it aired early in 1980. Ralph Emery hosted this series for it's first six and a half seasons beginning in 1974. In the episode Ray opens the show with his rendition of "You Are So Beautiful", a Top-20 country hit for him in 1976. After a brief interview with Ralph the next performance is an abbreviated "Save Me From Myself", an inspirational song Ray wrote for his 1977 album, Feel the Music. The other special guest is a singer that went by one name, Dottsy. She sings a couple of songs on this episode and is interviewed, too. Ray speaks about his recent sleepless night in a hotel during a Shriner's convention and this leads into a performance of "Shriner's Convention". There are several internet sites that state this episode was broadcast in February of 1980 and it's always been my assumption that the episode had to have been taped in the latter half of 1979 in order for it be ready for air by February 1980. I've always wanted to know the exact month/year this episode was taped because, as a detailed fan of Ray's, I'd like to know if this was Ray's first on-air performance of the song. He performed the song in a 1979 made for TV movie called Concrete Cowboys, too, and so I've never really discovered which performance came first...the made for TV movie or the episode of Pop! Goes the Country. I'd uploaded a performance of "Shriner's Convention" from this episode many blog entries ago but this is the full-length episode.



In this next video clip it's a 1985 interview on a local show titled Talk of the Town. Ray was newly signed to MCA Records and in the very early stages of the reshaping of his career as a country comedian given the comedy songs are what the public at large recognizes him for. He explains in the interview that he'd started out singing love ballads and songs aimed at teenagers but when he issued a single called "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", a novelty, it gained a lot of attention and he feels it would've been his breakthrough hit had the copyright owners of the Sgt. Preston character not threatened a lawsuit. He then explained that his next release should be a comedy recording and so in 1961 along came "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills" and then in 1962 "Ahab the Arab" became the breakthrough hit he'd been waiting for and it set the stage for the career he's still enjoying.

Elsewhere in the interview he speaks of Buddy Kalb and how "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" wasn't the first choice for a single release but there was a demand for that particular song when disc jockeys started playing it, on their own, rather than playing the song that was being pushed as the album's first single...a practice referred to as unsolicited airplay. The interview takes place during the early phases of the squirrel's release as a single. The single made it's debut on the Billboard Country chart on December 8, 1984. How ironic that it makes it's chart debut six days after my birthday. I was born on December 2...so this single hit the chart six days after I turned 8 years old...and how ironic it is that it's the first song by Ray Stevens that I heard several years later as a pre-teen in a pizza place on a jukebox. But anyway...the single hit the country chart in December 1984 and it rose from it's number 76 debut to number 49 in three weeks time...and smashed it's way into the Top-40 during January 1985. In the meantime his debut album for MCA, which contained the squirrel song, hit the Country album chart in late December 1984.



The two of these vintage video clips are fascinating to watch. If you weren't even born yet when these interviews and performances from Ray Stevens took place then you're seeing something brand new. If you were born but were still a kid at the time (like myself) or hadn't migrated over to country music and re-discovered Ray Stevens all over again then these interviews and performances will be new to you as well. There's always been a lot of things written about Ray Stevens over the decades but it's always great to hear the legendary entertainer in his own words.

Ray Stevens sings his Christmas Classic...

Hello one and all...in this particular blog entry I'm embedding a recent video upload from Ray Stevens. This time around it's a video of him singing his Christmas classic, "Santa Claus is Watching You". This song, as long time Ray Stevens fans should already know, originated in 1962 and was issued as a single on Mercury Records. In that recording Ray sings about how children across the world better behave and do well in school because Santa's watching...he knows who's naughty and nice. The 1962 recording hit the Hot 100 that Christmas season. Ray wrote the song and in it's original lyrics he came up with the catchphrase "he's everywhere, he's everywhere!" and the inclusion of additional reindeer during the roll call. Aside from those two instances the rest of the song is aimed pretty much at children. Yes, as I've mentioned before, I like the 1962 recording but then Ray, several decades later, reworked the song into a tale of a relationship between two people in which the man warns his wife not to cheat on him because Santa's watching. This rendition hit in 1985...and in a pretty big way, too. It was featured on his MCA album that year, I Have Returned, and not only that it holds the distinction of being his very first music video. The 1985 version retained the "he's everywhere, he's everywhere!" catchphrase but hilariously added even more reindeer to the roll call. In the 1962 recording Rudolph was missing due to a dislocated hip he suffered in a Twist contest...in the 1985 version the missing Rudolph is said to be staking out a house at the order of Santa who's revealed to be working for the C.I.A. and attempting to catch adultery being committed. 

The single release featured a picture sleeve of Ray, as Santa, peaking out from behind a Christmas tree next to a chimney. The 1962 recording also came with a picture sleeve in which Ray is shown with his hand above his eyes as if he's looking into the distance at Santa. An illustration of Santa appears on the picture sleeve, too. Ray re-recorded the song in 1997 for his first ever Christmas album, Christmas Through a Different Window. It was a re-recording of the 1985 version...the rendition containing the most familiar set of lyrics. In the more familiar recording of the song there's a segment that features an extensive display of scat singing. You'll see this in the video clip below. Now, whenever the 1962 recording is made mention of on social media sites, a lot of people have a stunning reaction which, after all, is rather normal given how obscure the 1962 recording had become and how massively popular the 1985 reworked version became. I, too, immediately think of the 1985 version of the song whenever I think of "Santa Claus is Watching You" even though I know the 1962 recording with different lyrics exists. Ray, as far as I know, has never performed the lyrics contained in the 1962 recording on any television show. A performance from Ray on a Christmas episode of his television series, CabaRay Nashville, was uploaded onto YouTube yesterday. This joins another performance of the song that Ray uploaded several days prior from 30 years ago in 1989...but below is a performance of the song by Ray in 2017...to date his most recent video upload...

Ray Stevens of the Seven Seas...

Arriving on the internet yesterday and having reacted to it on YouTube and on other social media sites I'm now embedding the video clip on my fan created Ray Stevens blog...



The above performance comes from the early 1990s special, The Country Comedy Hour. If you remember, a couple of weeks ago, Ray uploaded several comical sketches of himself and Ruth Buzzi pulled from that same special. If you look closely you'll see Ruth Buzzi in the performance...as well as comedy duo Williams and Ree. In fact, Ruth is the pirate standing between the comedy duo. The three of them are the pirates with the most camera time (aside from the two character's that Ray is playing). I love the finale of the song...it comes across as the kind of song and dance routine you'd see on the Broadway stage complete with an arms spread wide finish. In an example of video trickery Ray appears side by side as both pirates standing in front of the crew during the finale. The only difference in the performance of the song and the recording is that in the recording the two pirates have a back and fourth conversation during the fade out of the song...with the feminine pirate suggesting a series of fine dining cuisine that the gruff pirate should try...all the suggestions naturally being met with disdain and disgust.  

"The Pirate Song" is a popular recording from Ray Stevens although it was never officially released as a single in the traditional sense. It is one of those examples of a Ray Stevens recording that became popular mostly through word of mouth, unsolicited airplay, and consumer discovery. The song dates back to 1985...it originally appeared on Ray's album, I Have Returned. That particular release being a Gold album and one that hit the top spot on Billboard's Country Album chart early in 1986...the song benefited from exposure generated from that album...however, the fact that a song originates on a Gold album doesn't necessarily mean it will generate a strong following of fans but "The Pirate Song" did. The song is a take off on the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Pirates of Penzance. The opera is mentioned within the lyrics of the song when a clearly feminine pirate rejects the lifestyle and formalities of the traditional pirate (complaining "I don't like it...") and insists upon singing and dancing instead. The song's subtitle, "I Want to Sing and Dance", is a phrase heard during the chorus.

Ray resurrected the song in 1991 for inclusion on his comedy album that year, Number One with a Bullet. The video clip embedded above, in my opinion, was taped at some point during this time period. As is the case with the comedy sketches Ray uploaded several weeks ago, in addition to this performance of "The Pirate Song", it's credited to a special called The Country Comedy Hour...something I've still not been able to find any information on. I don't know if it was a televised special or if it was a pilot that Ray did for a proposed television series...and so I'm careful not to refer to it as a televised special because, as of this writing, I have no idea if the show ever aired on TV or not. The fact that Ray takes center stage in these performances leads me to think it was a pilot for a television series...much like Amazing Rolling Revue happened to be. The only difference being that pilot seen a VHS release in 1992 and yet if The Country Comedy Hour turns out to have also been a pilot then, for a lot us, it'll perhaps remain a mystery as to why it had never gotten a release on VHS back then as well. In the photo seen below it's Ray in character as Long John Blackbeard Peg Leg Patch-eye Hook delivering one of his demands. Also in the photo is Bruce Williams (of the comedy duo, Williams and Ree).

Ray Stevens and Bruce Williams

The performance of the song, choreographically, is almost step for step how it was performed in the official music video. The official music video arrived in 2000 on a VHS from Ray titled Funniest Video Characters. It's the VHS that featured the much anticipated music video of "The Blue Cyclone"...that music video was anticipated by his fans so much that the cover of the VHS features Ray in a headlock from The Blue Cyclone to alert the fans that a music video for that song was included in the collection.

In the official video for "The Pirate Song" the quartet of pirates seen in the background are performed by shirtless John Ragsdale (Ray's brother), Buddy Kalb, Ralph Emery, and if I remember correctly a man named Randy Cullers. If it's him he's also the illustrator/animator of the Ray Stevens group. In the early '90s performance embedded at the top of this blog entry the trio of pirates are Bruce Williams, Ruth Buzzi, and Terry Ree. There are a few visual differences in the costumes worn by the pirates in the early '90s performance and the 2000 music video but, as said, the choreography literally remains the same. It's an early example of Ray's mastery of video production...and that mastery is one of the things highlighted on his Country Music Hall of Fame plaque.

Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Thirteen...

When we left off in Part Twelve I mentioned the happenings in the career of Ray Stevens in the early part of 1985. MCA Records had issued "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" as a single late in 1984 due to overwhelming demand from disc jockeys. The single, from the pen of Buddy Kalb and his wife, Carlene, would go on to reach the Top-20 on the Country chart by the spring of 1985 which resulted in larger sales for the album it appeared on, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens.

The album features mostly all comedy and the on the album's cover Ray appears as Napoleon. The title of the album is based on the slang phrase 'he thinks he's Napoleon' but in this case we have Napoleon who thinks he's Ray Stevens. This wasn't the first comical looking album cover from Ray but it was the first in a series of eye catching art work tied into mostly historical imagery. On the back of the album it shows Napoleon Ray being chased by doctors with their intention of returning him to the asylum. As mentioned it's an all comedy album pretty much. One of the highlights of the album, though not released as a single, was his very funny version of the theme song heard on "The Monkees" television series. In the song Ray performs as an Austrian duo, Wolfgang and Fritzi. Elsewhere on the album is "Joggin'"; an ode to a pet dog named "Fred"; a bluesy version of "Furthermore", the original from Ray emerged in the early '60s as a fast-paced narrative; "Erik the Awful" is wonderful and then there's the most satirically clever song on the album, "Happy Hour".

The album was released in the latter half of 1984 coinciding with the rush release of "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" as a single. If you recall I mentioned in Part Twelve that the original debut single from the forthcoming album was "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" but after MCA went ahead and released the album as scheduled without the benefit of a hit single various disc jockeys took it upon themselves to play the album cut, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", rather than the official single release, "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye". He Thinks He's Ray Stevens would eventually climb all the way up and into the Top-10 on the Country album chart and eventually the album would be certified Platinum for a million in sales. A third single release from the album, "It's Me Again, Margaret", hit in the spring of 1985 backed with "Joggin'" which had originally appeared as the B-side of "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye". "It's Me Again, Margaret", in spite of it's surprisingly low peak position on the Country singles chart, has become one of Ray's most popular recordings...based almost entirely on the natural talents of Ray Stevens and how he delivered the song. It's long become a very memorable performance in Ray's stage shows which helped it become a beloved, integral part of his concerts. It's one of the examples of how Ray is able to have a very popular 'hit' song without it ever becoming some sort of high ranking 'radio hit'. I don't want to get into the weeds of detailing the differences in types of hit songs but there are recordings from artists that become what I refer to as word-of-mouth hits and then there's the recordings from artists that become radio hits.

The success of He Thinks He's Ray Stevens and it's two main singles, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" and "It's Me Again, Margaret", not only enabled Ray to benefit from a newfound marketing plan of country comedy but it increased his demand for personal appearances (concerts) and television. He had been doing television guest appearances at a steady pace since the mid 1970s and had added commercials for Farm Best and later, Flav-O-Rich, to his television exposure but by the early 1980s country music had a new outlet: The Nashville Network. This cable channel launched in 1983 and by 1985 it had become part of everyone's basic cable package. A lot of artists within country music both past and present as well as recording artists marketed country finally had their own national television channel. In year's past the only national exposure for country music artists were on off-network syndicated television programs which aired on the weekends or once a year awards shows such as those from the CMA and  ACM. As you could imagine Ray Stevens was one of the most visible recording artists during the early years of TNN (the famed acronym for The Nashville Network) and it didn't hurt that the nightly television program, Nashville Now, was hosted by one of Ray's longtime friends, Ralph Emery. The exposure that Ray was getting from his increased television appearances in addition to this newfound fame as a country comedian cemented the direction that his career would be taking for the foreseeable future. MCA released "The Haircut Song" in the fall of 1985...nearly a month before the release of Ray's second album for the label, I Have Returned. The novelty song became a hit (reaching the Country Top-50).

The single told the story of how risky it is to get a haircut while on the road...indicating that it's best to have a trusted barber because you'll never know the kind of haircut you'll end up receiving at the hands of a different, untested barber. The single release, for airplay consideration, is shorter than the recording that appears on the album. The album recording is 6 minutes, 11 seconds and the single release is 3 minutes, 59 seconds...might as well say 4 minutes. The single release edits out the visit to the barbershop in Los Angeles. In the full length recording Ray visits a barbershop in Butte, Montana and then a barbershop in Los Angeles and lastly a barbershop in an unidentified area in the Southern United States. The song is based on a stand-up comedy routine from Mike Nuen and with his permission Ray and Buddy Kalb turned the routine into a zany comedy song. Mike is credited as one of the writers due to the 'strange haircut' concept being his but Ray and Buddy actually wrote the song. The B-side is "Punk Country Love" from the pens of Ray Stevens, Buddy Kalb, and his wife, Carlene. After MCA released I Have Returned it mirrored the same kind of slow climb up the Country Album chart as He Thinks He's Ray Stevens. On the cover of the 1985 album Ray is dressed as Douglas MacArthur with his crew behind him depicting a famous image of the real MacArthur wading through the waters during WWII before proclaiming 'I have returned' once he reached the shore. On the back of this album it shows MacArthur (Ray) and his crew on a modern-day beach...visually wondering if they're where they're suppose to be. The album crawled and climbed it's way into the Top-10. Ray made his very first music video in 1985 for his re-recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You". It's not only a re-recording of his early 1960s single but it's nearly an entirely different song altogether. In the original the song it's definitely aimed at children while this 1985 version keeps the song's title and hook lines but the new lyrics reflect a love story where a jealous man warns his wife to remain faithful to him because Santa's watching and she won't get anything for Christmas if she makes his naughty list. MCA released it as a single and it came with a picture sleeve. It's one of Ray's most rarest commercial singles...and finding a copy with it's picture sleeve is even more rare.

In the latter half of 1985 Ray issued "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone" as a single. In fact it was issued as a single about a month after "Santa Claus is Watching You" and so both singles were more or less competing against one another in December of 1985. This very funny story of a couple of buddies that go to the local wrestling matches but end up in a lot of trouble benefited greatly from the resurgence of wrestling on a national level. WrestleMania, a kind of Fan Fair/CMA Music Fest of the wrestling world, began in 1985. The pay-per-view event aired in the spring of 1985...so by the time I Have Returned and "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone" emerged wrestling was one of the top societal interests with millions of fans hooked on the entertainment. Ray's recording, like "It's Me Again, Margaret", had previously been recorded. In Margaret's case the writer of the song, Paul Craft, originally recorded the song in 1974 and charted with it but it was not a very big sensation. The Cyclone had been recorded by one of it's writers, Glen Sutton, in 1978 as a B-side of "The Football Card". Ray's recording of "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone" appears in two parts on the album whereas the single release received major editing for obvious reasons. The single became a chart hit in early 1986...appearing in the Top-30 on the Country Single Sales chart in addition to it's appearance on the main Country Singles chart. The irony is while the single shown sufficient signs of sales and peaked within the Top-30 of Billboard's Country Single Sales chart the airplay didn't match the popularity of the single and so on the main singles chart it peaked outside the Top-40. This wasn't the first nor the last time that a Ray Stevens single became a hit with the public but was not embraced by radio. Ray's comedy album, I Have Returned, continued it's climb up the charts and for the week ending March 15, 1986 it was sitting at number one on the Country Album chart.

This achievement shocked most industry insiders and music critics alike...the idea of a 'comedy album' claiming such a position angered some even though it's sales enabled it to claim that position. It's an illustration of a music industry out of touch with Ray's popularity...a statement like that isn't meant to be an indictment on everyone within the music industry but there are plenty of glaring examples from Ray's career where popularity with record buyers didn't resonate with those in charge of programming radio playlists. The album became Ray's second in a row to receive certification for it's sales. I Have Returned was certified Gold for half a million copies sold. In June of 1986 the fan voted Music City News Country Awards took place. This event, by this time, had taken place annually since the late 1960s and was beginning to receive national exposure thanks to cable TV's expansion. The fan voted awards were the centerpiece of the annual Fan Fair event in Nashville. Ray was nominated and won in the category of Comedian of the Year at the June 1986 awards. He appeared on the cover of Music City News the same year and it was his first win at this awards program and he dominated this Comedian category for nearly a decade. This fan voted awards show soon became a very popular televised event and it allowed Ray to gain even more national exposure to perhaps compensate for the lack of support from radio. Ray's third album for MCA arrived a couple of months after his Comedian of the Year honor...and like the two albums before it...this third album was all-comedy and featured eye catching cover art. I will pick things up in Part Fourteen!

Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Twelve...

Hello once again!! As we move along the road leading up to the Country Music Hall of Fame induction of Ray Stevens we arrive in 1982. Ray was in the middle of his recording contract with RCA Records and had issued two studio albums, so far, for the company. A third studio album arrived in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This fabulous album blended country music, bluesy country music, and rock and roll flavors within the ten songs found on the album. The album's cover photo features Ray looking very serious and holding a smiling mask. The photo that appears on the back of the album has a smiling Ray Stevens holding a frowning mask. Ray, of course, was continuing to make music of a more serious nature and on this album he splits time between love ballads and uptempo love songs. The previous album featured heavy use of slow love ballads. The 1982 album kicks off with the uptempo "Such a Night" (a song Ray would use several decades later to open up his shows). RCA issued the first single from this album early in 1982...the love ballad "Written Down In My Heart". This single reached the Country Top-40 and if you happened to be a viewer of Barbara Mandrell's television show then you would've seen him perform this song in one of his appearances. The love ballad was backed with a mid-tempo love song, "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". In the production of this album Ray enlisted Bob Montgomery as a co-producer. This was the first time since 1969 that a Ray Stevens studio album featured a co-producer with Ray. The studio albums from 1970 to 1981 were produced solely by Ray.

In the spring RCA Records issued "Where the Sun Don't Shine"...this particular song is given a southern gospel music arrangement and it's considered a novelty song as one would think when looking at the song's title...it's more than a novelty song, though...it's a break-up song more or less and Ray tells the woman what she can do with everything in the house she owns as well as her friends and family. This bouncy single made the Country charts in the summer of 1982 and it turned out to be Ray's final single release on RCA Records. The rest of the year consisted of Ray out on the road touring and appearing on various television programs. He had become a familiar face on the annual fan-voted Music City News awards telecast...co-hosting several of the telecasts dating back to 1980. The organization used to telecast a Songwriters Awards event...and given Ray being a songwriter as well as a music publisher he either co-hosted or performed on this telecast frequently throughout the early to mid 1980s. In the meantime the calendar rolled into 1983 and while Ray hadn't issued a single since the spring of 1982 nor an album since Don't Laugh Now, RCA was still obligated contractually to release a compilation album on Ray. This Greatest Hits arrived in the summer of 1983 and it made the Country album chart...but strangely enough RCA didn't fill the album with too many recent hits from Ray...instead they placed "Shriner's Convention" and "The Dooright Family" on the compilation album (both songs, on RCA, come from 1980) but the remainder of the album collects specific hit singles from the period of 1968 through 1975. Ray, in the meantime, signed a contract with Mercury Records...the label upon which he became a major recording artist in the early '60s. In the annual Fan Fair event (now called CMA Music Fest) Ray performed on stage during the Polygram Records show. Polygram is/was one of Mercury's subsidiary labels. Ray's latest studio album arrived in the latter half of 1983 with the unusual title of Me.  It reunited him, professionally, with Jerry Kennedy and the two of them are credited as the record producers of the 1983 album.

The album, as I've stated several times in this fan created blog, is one of my all-time favorites from Ray Stevens. Me comes across as such a departure from some of the albums he recorded in this era but I've never really been able to explain how so. There's a melancholy feel throughout the album...a number of love songs on here are about lost love...and the mood of the music goes hand in hand with the somberness. The album's first single, "Mary Lou Nights", is one of those bluesy country songs...with the harmonica taking center stage in the performance. The B-side, on the other hand, should have been an anthem for state tourism and adopted by the Chamber of Commerce as a jingle but it wasn't. The song I'm referring to is "A Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee". It's such a great song...the lyrics paint a portrait so well that it sounds like it was destined to be turned into a music video. It's very catchy...as is another song on here called "Game Show Love". No, it isn't a novelty song, even though music critics past and present may try and label it as such given the catchphrases and titles of game shows mentioned throughout. It's a break-up song, actually, about a man finally learning that the woman he's loved wasn't serious...it's all been a game to her. The album's lead-off song became the second single release from the album. The title of the song sounds like a novelty but when you listen to it you'll get goosebumps: "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out". The ballad featured "Game Show Love" as it's B-side on the single release. Not released as a single but an incredible song is "Special Anniversary". Mercury released a third and final single from the album in early 1984...the emotional "My Dad" from the pen of Dale Gonyea. "My Dad" was backed with "Me" on the single release. "My Dad" dealt with the importance of father's and it made an appearance on the Country singles chart in the first half of 1984 but it didn't reach the Top-40...and after the one album deal with Mercury Records it was time to shop around for another record label.

You might say that Ray was at a crossroads in his career at this point in time. Yes, for much of the 1960s, 1970s, and into the early 1980s he recorded his share of serious songs and he produced, arranged, recorded, published, and or played on many, many serious recordings of his own and for other recording artists...and yet even with all of this his public image was one of a comedian/novelty artist/clown. It might seem like an easy decision now or perhaps destiny but Ray decided to make a major career move in 1984. Some critics and historians may downplay this career decision as not 'major' but something done out of necessity or they may take another approach and determine it isn't much of a career move if one were to look at his public image. The change in music direction arrived in the late summer of 1984...pretty much 35 years ago this month. Ray had signed with MCA Records upon the conclusion of his Mercury contract and the early results shown up in September of 1984 with his first single release for the label...the uptempo, bluegrass flavored "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye". This single featured the satirical "Joggin'" as it's B-side (a novelty about joggers and exercise fanatics). A funny thing happened, though. MCA released his debut album for the label, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, in November of 1984. "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" was, frustratingly, still in the 'testing' stage at radio stations. Country disc jockeys began playing another song from the album on the air...the satirical "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". Well, one thing led to another, and MCA had a hit on their hands...one after the other word of mouth spread about this squirrel song and MCA issued it as a single in November of 1984. The B-side is "Ned Nostril", a song in which Ray does a Johnny Cash impression throughout. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" became such a hit that Country radio had no choice but to play it...and the results helped the single catapult into the Country Top-20 in early 1985 and the album became an enormous hit as well...and I'll get more into detail about the album and the resurgence in Ray's overall popularity when I pick things up in Part Thirteen.

Ray Stevens roasts J.D. Sumner...

Hello once again!! Last week Ray Stevens shared a video clip from 1985 where he roasted legendary gospel artist, J.D. Sumner. The roast took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and although I wouldn't dare to guess who all was in attendance I can say with certainty that I recognized The Statler Brothers as well as Jake Hess. I have no idea the emcee...I know of a gospel group, The Blackwood Brothers, and the emcee looks like a member of that group but, as said, I have no idea. The video clip was brand new to me when I seen it last week. I did a Google search for Ray Stevens + J.D. Sumner and discovered that there's a multi-part video clip series that had been uploaded onto YouTube last year. Now, obviously, because Ray wasn't tagged in any part of those video clips from April 2018 I had no idea of their existence.

If you visit YouTube and do a search for those two artists you'll find the clip I'll be embedding below plus you'll come across the various clips already in existence...well over 10 clips...from the 1985 roast. Those multi-part video clips were uploaded by username Bass Singer Eric Winston. In his series of video clips the one featuring Ray Stevens is Part 7 as I found out. The upload from Ray is featured below...



While I was watching the various parts of the extended video clips I seen a number of not too friendly comments. I can summarize their comments by saying the negative reaction stems from a belief, held by some, that gospel recording artists or those that are associated with gospel functions shouldn't present themselves in a secular fashion and that God should be the center of focus in any gathering. The notion of secularism at a gathering of largely gospel personalities obviously rubbed some the wrong way...even though the gala was clearly identified as a Roast and it wasn't promoted as some kind of gospel revival or gospel gathering. I shouldn't have to explain it but for those that aren't aware a Roast is an event filled with insult humor and embarrassing stories, some true and some made-up, directed at whoever the honored person happens to be. It's all done in fun. Simply put: those on YouTube that complained about this 1985 event do not know the concept behind Roasts.

Ray Stevens: Symphonic Chickens...

Good early Sunday morning...being a night-owl on the weekends due to my third shift work schedule through the week it's long been a habit of mine of being awake at night. So, technically, I'm not up with the roosters. I don't think they start to make their noise for another half an hour anyway. Poultry has long been a side dish in the career of Ray Stevens...now, to be specific, it's not something that's a constant but poultry nevertheless has a place in his career.

I guess it all goes back to late 1976...Ray had joined the Warner Brothers label in the latter half of 1975 and his debut album for the label, Just For the Record, arrived early in 1976. The album included a couple of Top-40 country singles in the form of "You Are So Beautiful" and "Honky Tonk Waltz". Ray had been on a serious, non-comedic streak ever since the early period of 1975, a period which followed his massive worldwide success of "The Streak" a year earlier. He closed out 1974 with a non-comedic Top-40 country hit single, "Everybody Needs a Rainbow". He had released a mostly covers album in 1975 titled Misty and named after one of his hit singles that year. The success of "Misty" led to an album filled with, mostly, his versions of pop music standards of the '30s and '40s. "Misty", "Indian Love Call", and "Young Love" were released as singles during 1975 with "Mockingbird Hill" issued early in 1976, I suppose to fill out some kind of contractual agreement with Barnaby Records, considering that Ray had by that time joined Warner Brothers. Later on Barnaby also issued "Lady of Spain" as a single and it Bubbled Under the Hot 100 in the summer of 1976 well after Ray had joined Warner Brothers. So, in essence, you had Barnaby Records issuing five commercial singles from the Misty album altogether. Anyway...in late 1976 Warner Brothers released "In the Mood"...a chicken-clucking performance by Ray and issued as The Hen House Five Plus Too. Ray, in interviews, often remarked that the song was only meant to be an inside joke among him and the band but somehow along the way executives at Warner Brothers heard the 'joke' and insisted that it be released as a single and that's exactly what happened.

Ray phonetically clucked "In the Mood" (previously a gigantic instrumental hit for Glen Miller in 1939) with the smallest of music accompaniment. I think Ray only used a piano, bass guitar, and a saxophone. The B-side of the single was "Classical Cluck", another chicken clucking recital, this time staged in a classical music presentation rather than a small, jazzy combo. The photo above, by the way, accompanied the single release in the Netherlands. The photo off to the right is the single release in America. In some parts of the world the single release of "In the Mood" was issued under Ray's name while a majority of the releases featured the fictional Hen House Five Plus Too credit. The single became a Top-40 country and Top-40 pop hit early in 1977...and it became a Top-40 hit in the United Kingdom as well. "In the Mood" marked quite a departure for Ray as you could guess. The idea of clucking an entire song like a chicken was too irresistible for music consumers to pass up...so it became a hit...quite a feather in his cap...and, of course, Ray's reputation as a 'singer of novelty songs' continued to grow with each successive novelty song success. The single wasn't placed on any forthcoming studio albums by Ray for Warner Brothers. I don't know if that was by design or if they simply wanted the song to remain a single-only release. Ray would visit the chicken theme several more times in his career. "Thus Cacked Henrietta", from 1985, was a brief clucking interpretation of the first minute and a half of an instrumental (referred to as a fanfare) called "Also Sprach Zarathustra" which can be heard in the opening credits of the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The half hour long instrumental originates from 1896 from the pen of Richard Strauss. Henrietta's interpretation is superb...and she receives background accompaniment from a sheep and a cow...a rooster brings the curtain down over the barn when he lets loose a mighty crow signaling the climax of the performance. "Thus Cacked Henrietta" can be found on Ray's 1985 album, I Have Returned. You can also find an audio track of it on YouTube. It's a very funny track...and you'll recognize the melody right away.

Since I don't live in the state of Tennessee or in the southern region of the United States I was never exposed to the television commercials that Ray Stevens appeared in. I've known of his involvement in commercials (particularly for Flav-o-Rich) and of course I knew of the nationally aired commercials for his home videos in the 1990s but that was it...and until a couple of weeks ago I had never seen one of his Flav-o-Rich commercials. Ray recently uploaded a video clip of one of his Flav-o-Rich commercials from the 1980s. I didn't know he did a regional commercial for McDonald's until this clip appeared on YouTube...the commercial is from 1989 and it was uploaded onto YouTube back in January of this year. I'm embedding it because of it's subject matter...Ray's singing about the franchise's latest item, the country style McChicken... 



In 1991 the chickens mounted a comeback in "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens", inspired by the ninja superhero turtles of Saturday morning television. In 2015 Ray recorded "Pickin' on the Chicken", a song from a chicken's point of view and the negative slang expressions derived from the chicken, and you can hear it on his Here We Go Again! comedy album.

A recording in 1995, however, is the featured attraction of this blog entry. The recording originated in his direct-to-VHS movie, Get Serious!, and it's a duet (a rare occurrence in his career). "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" is performed as an elaborate song-and-dance between Ray and co-star Connie Freeman. The performance takes place on the farm of the Three Legged Chicken ranch owned by Charlene's family (Connie was portraying the role of Charlene MacKenzie in the movie). Ray and Charlene are on the run from patrolman Dudley Dorite and Deputy Coy among others and they hide out, in this part of the movie, at the ranch. Deputy Coy (Tim Hubbard) thinks he sees some prowling in the chicken coop and so he goes to investigate. The small chicken coop comically houses a sprawling performance area for a lot of singing and dancing not only from Ray and Charlene but a chorus of dancing girls that appear from behind the row of chicken nests. All of the performers, as you'll see in the music video, wear chicken outfits. Coy is wearing a chicken themed hat he found hanging inside the coop.



Also something to keep in mind is the song's title. "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" was actually a catchphrase and it was eventually turned into a song and it became a hit in the 1940s for the recording artist, Louis Jordan. The hit song helped re-introduce the phrase and it became a slang expression all over again. Ray's song uses the same title but it contains entirely different melody and lyrics than the Louis Jordan recording. I say that because in the comment section for Ray's video someone erroneously stated that the song had been recorded earlier by Louis Jordan. The person making the comment apparently based his opinion entirely on the song's title and making the assumption that Ray was doing a cover version of Louis Jordan's hit...which obviously means that the person hadn't even heard Louis Jordan's recording or else he/she would've known they're two different songs with the same title. Oh well, a couple of days ago I left a comment over there anyhow and pointed out the small error.

The video was uploaded onto YouTube back on May 14th but I hadn't embedded it into a blog entry until now. It's gotten over 9,000 unique views as of this writing. Also, as of this writing, one of the menu items at Ray's CabaRay showroom in West Nashville is Airline Chicken Breast.

When you purchase CabaRay tickets you'll have the option of selecting a dinner from their menu if you choose floor seating. The balcony seats do not offer a dinner, obviously, but you can receive beverages. The presentation is based upon fine dining/casual dining...so you're not going to get a smorgasbord of entree's to choose from or have the opportunity to purchase pounds of fast food style of food and indulge in movie theater kinds of snacks. It's the kind of cuisine carrying the same kind of detailed visuals you might see in an upscale restaurant but without the snooty atmosphere that Ray sings about in 1987's "Gourmet Restaurant". When you click the link you'll notice for the month of May there's only three more concerts left: May 24, 25, and 31. The Wednesday tickets are for the taping of Larry's Country Diner, a television series on RFD-TV. The month of June consists of 10 concerts from Ray: June 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 27, 28, and 29. So, like most months, there are plenty of days to see Ray in concert at the CabaRay. June is traditionally referred to as Country Music month and with a lot of fans and tourists flocking to the area to take in a lot of exhibits and music performances I'll also suggest the travelers and tourists to take in a concert at the CabaRay when you're in Nashville in early June. The showroom is on 5724 River Road off of Charlotte Pike which you access from I-40. If you have a GPS device, great, but if you don't then obviously MapQuest the address from your starting point for a series of directions to take. Aside from the main performance area there's a piano bar and a gift shop. The showroom is in the Bellevue suburb of Nashville and yesterday the CabaRay had a presence in the Bellevue Community Picnic...a booth promoting the showroom was on display and the CabaRay served as one of the sponsors of the event. Those that stopped by the CabaRay booth were given chances to win tickets to an upcoming concert. I don't think Ray personally appeared at the booth given that Friday night he was busy performing at the CabaRay and on Saturday night he performed there...and so I don't think he was able to squeeze in an appearance at the picnic at any time on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon. Again, if he did make an appearance at the CabaRay booth, I'd like to see some photos uploaded on-line. His concerts get underway at 7:30pm but the venue opens it's doors at 5pm.

Ray Stevens uploads Vintage Commercial...

Hello all...yes, it's me posting a blog entry about Ray Stevens in the middle of the day!! This usually doesn't happen unless I find myself awake for some reason during daylight hours (being a night owl, third shift, overnight worker I'm not usually awake at 2:40pm). Anyway...I find myself awake and I decided to check the computer. I didn't have the computer on at all Wednesday due to severe storms that passed through here. I get onto the computer about 20 minutes ago and discover that Ray Stevens, yesterday, uploaded a vintage television commercial advertising Flav-O-Rich ice cream.



In blogs past I've written about Ray's former involvement with the dairy company and I've posted print advertisements from early 1980s newspapers that I'd come across on-line showing Ray endorsing the products but this is the first time the television commercials have been posted on-line. Well, just one commercial's been uploaded for now, but he did more...and hopefully some of the others will be posted at some point. I don't know the year that the commercial aired...I'm saying mid 1980s...perhaps as late as 1985? Also, I've never found out whether those commercials that aired on television were regional or national...I'm guessing the television commercials were regional/local while the print advertisements were national.

Ray Stevens and the abc's of RCA...

Hello one and all...as I made mention in a previous blog entry the current season of the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television series wrapped up a couple of weekends ago and so most of my blog entries are going to be more along the lines of the kind I used to do before I began devoting most of my time to writing reviews and comments of his television program.

A couple of blog entries ago I wrote about Ray's under-rated stay at Warner Brothers Records in the late 1970s (1976 through 1979) and I revealed a collage that I created revolving around his music of that period. You can read that blog by clicking HERE. I posted it back on July 10th but it's something that I'm going to periodically refer to from now on because of my desire to spotlight those recordings to anybody that visits this fan created blog page.

Although I don't really need to remind anyone I'll go ahead and do so for any new readers that come across the blog:

I celebrate/spotlight all areas of Ray Stevens career. I also take pride in the fact that I offer accurate, fact based information when it comes to albums, music videos, or appearances from both the past and present by Ray Stevens. I also never marginalize any aspect of his career. There are some music historians and music fans, in general, that only blog about the widely known aspects of Ray's career and offer very little else about him or they offer partially accurate information due to sloppy research. I came across a discography of Ray Stevens from some website...it was an image taken from one of those music guide books...that discography had more skips than a well worn vinyl album. Albums were omitted and some had the wrong year of release. Sloppy...sloppy...need I type it again? Sloppy!

But let's move along to the subject of this particular blog entry. I call it the abc's of RCA and I title it as such because I'm going to shift some focus onto his RCA recordings in the early 1980s. I've written on this subject before...my older blog entries indicate as much...but I like to update my commentary and revisit past subjects rather than let previous thoughts and analysis rest in the archives. These RCA recordings were on the heels of the under-rated Warner Brothers recordings and like the recordings on that label his RCA material is rarely, if ever, available for purchase in any detailed quantity.

The RCA years in the career timeline of Ray Stevens cover 1979 to 1983. Ray signed with RCA in the latter half of 1979 and he went to work on his first album for the label...the results surfaced very early in 1980 in the form of the single, "Shriner's Convention", in February. The comedy album, Shriner's Convention, surfaced as well. The single and the album both hit the Country Top-10. I have a vinyl copy of the 1980 album in addition to the cassette release. The single received a lot of publicity in various country music trade magazines of the time period and given that the song and album were devoted to comedy (his first comedy album in 6 years) it forever more cemented his image as a comedy/novelty act among country music consumers. Around the same time that "Shriner's Convention" was hitting in America RCA issued one of the tracks from the album as an international single. "Hey There" was issued as a single in Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany, and in the Netherlands. That single's B-side is "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me" which is also the B-side of "Shriner's Convention". I've never been able to find any chart data on "Hey There"...no data on chart statistics or what month the single was released...but there are plenty of images of the single available on-line and I'll post one of those images later in the blog entry.

Anyway, upon the fast climbing success of "Shriner's Convention", just as in times past, whenever Ray saw success with a comical project he'd almost immediately distance himself from it and return to serious, non-comedy recordings. After the meteoric success of "Shriner's Convention" and everything that came with it early in 1980 he ultimately began work on a serious follow-up. In the fall of 1980 Ray emerged with "Night Games". Sufficient enough time had lapsed between the release of the rollicking "Shriner's Convention" in February and "Night Games" in August. Ray performed "Night Games" on a 1980 television special honoring his long time friend and sometimes business associate, Chet Atkins. On this same television special he and Chet performed a rendition of "Frog Kissing" which Chet had a hit with in 1976. Ray produced, arranged, and published the recording session. In the era of the Urban Cowboy fad "Night Games" told the story of life in singles bars and the relationships that form in darkness but often vanish in the light of day. The song climbed into the Top-20 on the country music chart.

The B-side of "Night Games" is a love ballad called "Let's Do it Right This Time". Each of these recordings, from the pen of Buddy Kalb, appear on Ray's 1981 album, One More Last Chance.

As you see in the above collage in panel two Ray is dressed in cowboy attire with an alluring woman at his side. On the back of the album Ray appears in a casual shirt and wearing the cowboy hat that the alluring woman is wearing on the front of the album. I have the album on vinyl but not in cassette which is why there isn't a photo of myself and a cassette version. Prior to the release of his 1981 album, however, the title track was issued as a single in January 1981 and it eventually became a Top-40 hit on the country charts. "One More Last Chance" is a super recording...stellar use of steel guitar and electric guitar...and you've heard songs referred to before as a lover's plea...well, this one is a highly emotional lover's plea. So much was put into the production...it's also a lengthy recording. There are numerous lengthy recordings on this 1981 album...it's ballad heavy...but some are kind of uptempo but still lengthy. The B-side of "One More Last Chance" is "I Believe You Love Me".

It is such a great album and, for me, it remains a mystery as to why no further single releases or publicity arrived for the rest of the calendar year concerning the One More Last Chance album. If you were at the movies in the summer of 1981 you no doubt heard Ray singing on The Cannonball Run movie. He sang the theme song, "Cannonball", and a love ballad, "Just for the Hell of It". The movie opened in theaters on June 19, 1981. Prior to this he appeared on the soap opera, Texas, and performed "One More Last Chance" on camera. It's credited on-line as episode 217...the original air-date being June 10, 1981. So, no, it wasn't like 1981 was a bleak year or anything in his career. What turned out to be Ray's final studio album for RCA arrived early in 1982 in the form of Don't Laugh Now. This album was far less ballad heavy and it also represented some changes on the technical side. Ray enlisted a co-producer, Bob Montgomery, and on several recordings the arranger was Ron Oates. On practically every studio album by Ray Stevens dating back to 1970 Ray is credited as both producer and arranger...and the keyboard/piano/organ/synthesizer player.

On this album Ron Oates is credited with keyboards and is the credited arranger of "This Old Piano", "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love", and the album's first single, "Written Down in My Heart". Ray is credited as the arranger on the other seven recordings. The neon-like cover art in the lettering seen on the vinyl copy ties into the '50s era rock and roll feel of the album's lead-off track, "Such a Night", along side the abundance of electric guitars heard throughout the album. Yet, "Written Down in My Heart" is a soothing love ballad with just a few touches of electric guitar. The single hit the country music Top-40 in early 1982...the B-side is the mid-tempo "Country Boy, Country Club Girl". The last single RCA released on Ray appeared in the spring of 1982, "Where the Sun Don't Shine". This sing-a-long carries a southern gospel overtone in the music arrangement but the lyrics offer a humorous story about a man leaving a woman and offering parting advice in the form of the song's title. It made the country music charts but didn't crack the Top-40. Ray remained an RCA recording artist, contractually, into 1983.

The company released a Greatest Hits compilation on him that year which was comprised almost entirely of recordings of Ray from Monument Records and Barnaby Records (covering the years 1968 to 1975) but it tacked on two recordings from his 1980 debut album for RCA. "Shriner's Convention" and the album track, "The Dooright Family", appeared on the 1983 compilation. In hindsight RCA should have included the six single releases from Ray during his brief stay on RCA and then filled the remainder of the album with older songs but instead there are only two RCA recordings on 1983's Greatest Hits. "Hey There", interestingly, is never included on any compilation album even though we all can clearly see it was released as a commercial single but yet the equally hilarious recording, "The Dooright Family", which was never released as a commercial single, has long become prominent on several compilation albums. Ray even produced a music video of the song in 1995...so it's gained a reputation among fans as being a 'hit' song in spite of it never being commercially released as a single.

After Ray's RCA contract ended he went over to the Mercury label for one album (1983's Me) and then he signed with MCA about midway into 1984. During his stay at the label he enjoyed much sales success for the rest of the decade as he embraced the comical image he had tried so valiantly to distance himself from for pretty much his entire career up to that point.

RCA, in the meantime, released a compilation in 1985 called Collector's Series. A brief overview of Ray's time with the label...it features eight recordings chosen seemingly at random...from his three studio albums for the label. This title would be re-issued in 1987 with a slight change in song selection. In the 1985 copy it includes his 1981 hit, "One More Last Chance". In the re-issue in 1987 that song is omitted and replaced by the non-hit, but comical "Put It In Your Ear" from the 1980 Shriner's Convention album. I have the 1985 vinyl and cassette copy of Collector's Series.

I used to have the 1987 re-issue on cassette but the tape was eaten by a malfunctioning player. The image in the fourth panel in the collage is the CD copy of the 1987 release of Collector's Series. Even though this eight song RCA compilation provides only material from his RCA period in each release (1985 and 1987) each one omits a couple hit songs: "Night Games" and "Written Down in My Heart"...but because it spotlights the RCA recordings and since no other compilation that's come along features as many I consider Collector's Series an essential purchase for fans looking for early '80s recordings by Ray Stevens. The next best thing is seeking out his vinyl albums from that time period. Those vinyl albums are: Shriner's Convention (1980); One More Last Chance (1981); and Don't Laugh Now (1982).

Here are the commercial singles, year of release, and catalog number for Ray Stevens on RCA:

"Shriner's Convention"; 1980 PB-11911
"Hey There"; 1980 PB-9525
"Night Games"; 1980 PB-12069
"One More Last Chance"; 1981 PB-12170
"Written Down In My Heart"; 1982 PB-13038
"Where the Sun Don't Shine"; 1982 PB-13207