Ray Stevens: Branson continues to appreciate Ray...

Hello Ray Stevens fans! It slipped under my radar and I suppose it slipped by your radar, too, but just a few minutes ago while browsing on-line search engines for Ray Stevens content I came across a news item posted by Branson Tri-Lakes News where the Mayor of Branson, Missouri declared July 11, 2023 as Ray Stevens Day. I don't know why the webpage is only now showing up in search results. If it had been online sooner I would've made mention of it a month ago. 

This is a fascinating bit of information due to the fact that 2023 marks the 30th year since Ray closed down his theatre (for the first time) in Branson. The legacy of his theater will forever live on through a couple of video releases: Ray Stevens Live! and More Ray Stevens Live!. When Ray opened up his theater in the summer of 1991 it had been under construction for a number of months... news began surfacing late in 1990 that he was set to open a theater in Branson in 1991. This theater, for those unaware, was designed by Ray and he also had it built...it wasn't a situation where Ray had moved into an already existing venue. 

Ray performed there during the concert/tourist seasons of 1991, 1992, and 1993. He left the theater after finishing up the 1993 season but he didn't sell the theater...instead, he rented the theater to a group of executives that operated a music show called Country Tonite. Their music show headlined Ray's theater for 10 years (!) until 2004. Ray returned to Branson to headline his theater once again. Prior to Ray's theater opening up for the 2005 concert season, in 2004, he had the interior redecorated and he installed some new features like a mammoth electronically controlled bust of a gorilla that would rise up from the floor and lift Ray, while seated at the piano, in the air during a performance!!. 

Ray's return to Branson took up the 2005 and 2006 concert seasons. Now, following the 2006 season, Ray left his Branson theater for the second time and officially put the theater up for sale. It was purchased by RFD-TV within a few years of it going on the market. Ray returned to Branson a few more times in the coming years... first, to perform during a 6-week engagement at The Welk Resort Theatre (2010) as well as a series of tribute/memorial concerts at the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre (2012) and in 2015 he briefly re-appeared in Branson for an appearance at the Moon River Theater. The local news headlines in Branson for that brief 2015 return triumphantly declared that 'Ray Stevens returns home to Branson'. 

However, with the exception of the few and far between re-appearances, his days of being an owner of a Branson theater had come to an end when he put his own theater up for sale in 2006. As many of you know Ray opened up a new kind of venue in 2018 called the CabaRay and it's in West Nashville. It's an intimate venue and Ray based it's interior design on numerous venues he performed in during his years playing the Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs in the '70s and '80s. Do you want to know something fascinating? After all this time there usually isn't a day that doesn't go by that some fan on his social media pages doesn't ask if he's ever going to return to Branson or do anymore concerts down there. So, happy belated Ray Stevens Day. It's plain to see the town of Branson still appreciates your brand of entertainment.

Ray Stevens: Collin Raye sings "Love, Me" on CabaRay Nashville...

Hello Ray Stevens fans! If you were listening to country radio in the 1990s you were going to hear the songs of Collin Raye. I remember when he came onto the scene in 1991 with a song called "All I Can Be is a Sweet Memory" from the pen of Harlan Howard. It's a song that I associated with Conway Twitty...he'd recorded it in 1985. Collin had a Top-40 country hit with the song in 1991...and his very next release, "Love, Me", would reach number one early in 1992. It's the birthday of Collin Raye and when he appeared on Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville "Love, Me" was one of the songs he performed. Collin had a string of Top-10 hits starting with "Love, Me" in late 1991/early 1992 and running through "Couldn't Last a Moment" in 2000. On Collin's birthday last year Ray uploaded a clip from CabaRay Nashville of the interview he did of Collin and the performance of "My Kind of Girl". This year the video clip is "Love, Me"...

Ray Stevens: Patriotism and "There's a Star Spangled Banner"...

In keeping with my tradition I post one or several blog entries centering around Independence Day with a Ray Stevens connection. I've posted about the two versions of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" several times over the decade...but in case you're new to the music of Ray Stevens and aren't even aware of this song then this blog entry will explain some things. Ray co-wrote, with Buddy Kalb, "There's a Star Spangled Banner" and it appeared on Ray's 1989 album for MCA Records, Beside Myself. The song told about an American P.O.W. in Beirut and how his hope for freedom never disappeared thanks to his pride and patriotism in the U.S. Flag and the military. It's a pretty emotional, moving ballad about the flag. Ray partially re-wrote the song in 1991 and recorded an alternate version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" for Curb Records. The first half of the song tells a different story. In 1989 we're told about the P.O.W. in Beirut but in the 1991 rendition we're told about all of the various battles that the U.S. Flag has appeared in throughout the course of history. When Ray re-recorded the song in 1991 for the Curb Records Greatest Hits album the Gulf War and the aftermath was still in the headlines. There was a lengthy build-up in the fall of 1990 and the U.S. Military entered the war on January 17th 1991 in the Persian Gulf. A cease fire occurred a month later, February 28th 1991, but the instability in the region continues. In the meantime, though, the ceasefire in February 1991 enabled a declaration of victory for the U.S. as our military completed what it's stated mission had been and the patriotism that was all around was hard to miss. As mentioned Curb Records issued a Greatest Hits album on Ray. The album hit in April 1991 and it included the alternate rendition of "There's a Star Spangled Banner". Now, then, I'm going to embed the audio track of the 1989 recording of the song and then I'll be posting a link to the audio of the 1991 recording.

Wasn't that 1989 recording of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" incredible?? Now, don't forget to click the link below and listen to the 1991 alternate recording...it's just as riveting but with an entirely different story about the U.S. Flag...you're going to love both takes on "There's a Star Spangled Banner".

1991 Recording

Ray Stevens: Branson...June 15th 1991...

It's a really hot 80 degree day on this June 15th...it was exactly 30 years ago in 1991 that Ray Stevens had the grand opening of his Branson, Missouri theater. Ray's theater had a tremendous impact on the town's economy and, if truth be told, inspired other performers to open up theaters and make Branson, Missouri a tourist destination. Branson's theater district, if I recall correctly, originally began with just a couple of venues popping up. The Baldknobbers, Boxcar Willie (the first nationally known performer to open a theater in Branson), and later on Roy Clark...from there music venues began to sprout...Ray Stevens became interested in the town in 1990. Soon after Mickey Gilley, Jim Stafford, Mel Tillis, Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, Tony Orlando, Shoji Tabuchi, and local performers set up performance venues. A two lane highway filled with theaters and other types of entertainment prompted chronic traffic jams according to local reports. 

Ray Stevens began building his theater in the latter half of 1990 and it was ready for business on June 15, 1991. Ray had been performing a series of concerts at Roy Clark's Celebrity Theater in Branson and it inspired him to think about opening up his own theater. Ray, having a secondary passion for architecture, designed the theater. Two VHS tapes were released in 1993 of a concert taped at Ray's theater. Ray Stevens Live! was sold over television and became a Platinum selling VHS. It was released to retail outlets by Curb Records in 1994. The second half of the concert was sold as More Ray Stevens Live! and was only available through Ray's fan club (fan club members received catalog pamphlets in the mail with an attached order form). The More Ray Stevens Live! VHS was also sold at the theater's gift shop. The following television commercial aired in 1992...

Ray performed two shows a day, 6 days a week at his Branson theater. The theater would close down each year just prior to Christmas and then re-open in the late spring the following year. Ray kept this schedule during the 1991, 1992, and 1993 seasons...and he closed down his theater following the 1993 season and put it up for sale. The property wasn't immediately purchased and so Ray became a landlord and rented out the venue to an organization that presented a series called Country Tonite. 

Ray was no stranger at being a landlord...he owned and rented out property in and around the Music Row area in Nashville for several decades. He was often co-owner of property with Chet Atkins. Anyway, the Country Tonite program occupied the Ray Stevens theater in Branson from 1994 until 2004. Shortly after the Country Tonite program vacated the theater in 2004 Ray decided to do some interior redecoration and and he began performing concerts at his theater once again by the summer of 2005. Ray didn't do the 2 shows a day, 6 days a week schedule he once did...this time the schedule was way more relaxed. 

He ended up doing two seasons worth of concerts (2005 and 2006) before ultimately selling the theater. Since then Ray has returned to Branson several times for limited performances at other artist's theaters but this and all other touring came to an end in 2018 when his CabaRay showroom opened in Nashville. Those wanting to see Ray Stevens in concert will have to visit his CabaRay showroom when it re-opens this September. 

Ray Stevens: Kung Fu Chickens at 30...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! We're one day from the birthday of Ray Stevens...and yes I'll be posting a birthday blog entry tomorrow on the 24th to celebrate. In today's blog entry, though, it's time to take a look back to a comedy album released 30 years ago in 1991. Ray was incredibly busy in 1991...he had a theater built in Branson, Missouri and it opened to the public in the summer of 1991. Ray spent the summer months (tourist season) in Branson and spent the off-season in Nashville, Tennessee. The comedy album he released in 1991 was titled Number One with a Bullet. 

The album contains 10 songs with 9 of those songs written or co-written by Buddy Kalb. This is the comedy album that contained the first appearances of "Power Tools", "You Gotta Have a Hat", "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens", and "Workin' for the Japanese". The album also contains "Tabloid News" which bits of that song found it's way onto an unsold television pilot Ray taped in 1991 called Amazing Rolling Revue. This pilot was issued on VHS in 1992. The pilot contained a sketch that spotlighted the alien character, Zoltar, from "Tabloid News". "You Gotta Have a Hat" is a song commenting on the trend in country music where almost all new country singers wore cowboy hats. There were so many new country singers popping up in the late '80s and early '90s, some wearing cowboy hats and some not, that a phrase was coined in the early '90s called 'Hat Acts'. A couple of country singers that didn't wear cowboy hats actually went out on tour together as 'The No Hats Tour'. Ray's song exaggerated the hat trend as he sang of finding instant fame and wealth simply by wearing a hat while he sang. In concert he would wear a big foam cowboy hat while he sang that particular song. If you'd ever seen Ray Stevens in concert or if he's on a television show and he happens to sing "The Streak" one of the recurring sight gags is his wearing of a yellow CAT hat. This was the first Ray Stevens album to feature Ray wearing a CAT hat on the cover even though his wearing of that style of hat goes back to the 1970s. Ray performed "Power Tools" on an episode of The Statler Brothers Show and during that performance a pre-recorded clip of Ray acting out a portion of the song, in music video fashion, was aired. In that performance he's wearing a CAT hat. In 1992 the familiar photo on his Comedy Video Classics VHS shows Ray in a CAT hat as well. The performance from The Statler Brothers Show was uploaded onto YouTube in 2014 and I've embedded that performance below... 

Ray also has a limited animation music video of "Power Tools" available on YouTube. It's purely a coincidence that Ray's 1991 comedy album contains a song called "Power Tools"...in the fall of 1991 the sitcom, Home Improvement, debuted. That series was basically a spoof of the do-it-yourself home construction show, This Old House. The connecting theme in those two television shows and Ray's "Power Tools" is exaggerated machismo and do-it-yourself pride. Even though it's coincidental that "Power Tools" appears on Ray's 1991 comedy album it probably wasn't coincidental when Curb Records issued it as a single early in 1992 due to Home Improvement becoming wildly popular. The most eye-catching song on the 1991 comedy album is "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens". The song, just in case you didn't know, is a spoof of the animated cartoon series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ray's song, however, tells the story of four chickens that grow up to become crime fighters after having gained super strength from drinking contaminated water near a nuclear power plant and watching Kung Fu movies most of their lives. Ray sang this song during an appearance on a Salute to the Troops special on CBS in 1991. An animated music video of that song is on YouTube, too, and I've embedded it below...

In the photo below I'm emulating the Ray Stevens pose, obviously. The album's closing song, "Workin' for the Japanese", was actually the first single release in 1991. In a move that can only be described as a cave-in to political correctness on the part of country radio programmers Ray's single was striking a chord with the public but because of the popularity that the song was obtaining it made advertisers nervous...fearing that some of the public would boycott products being sold on country radio stations if they played "Workin' for the Japanese"...and so the song was removed from playlists and pretty much unofficially banned from airplay. I refer to it as 'unofficially' because there wasn't any kind of official statement regarding the song from any country radio representative...it was simply a case of the song not getting anymore airplay...and as far as the singles charts go it was in the middle of the country chart at the time of it's abrupt removal from playlists. The song is quite harmless...it's about economics and how the American economy had become too dependent on the Japanese and how the American economy was growing more and more in danger of being overtaken, globally, by the Japanese when it came to manufacturing, technology, and education. In hindsight it's a song that addressed an uncomfortable truth, in 1991, but a truth that wasn't ready to be confronted/acknowledged by the political and economic leaders in place back then. I would also like to mention that the 1991 comedy album also features the debut of "Juanita and the Kids" which, years later, become a very popular music video on YouTube. A re-recorded rendition of "The Pirate Song" is on the 1991 album, too. 30 years later Ray Stevens is still number one to a lot of us. 

My Ray Stevens birthday post will be arriving tomorrow!! I'll likely begin writing it at some point after 11pm tonight...and then publish it after midnight when it turns January 24th.  

Ray Stevens: 1991 theater sketch...

I was never able to see any concerts, in person, of Ray Stevens when he was in Branson, Missouri at his theater. He performed at his former theater in Branson for a total of five non-consecutive seasons: 1991, 1992, 1993, 2005, and 2006. I have his 1993 VHS releases, Ray Stevens Live! and More Ray Stevens Live!. Those two VHS tapes consist of a full-length Ray Stevens concert from 1992 broken in two parts. If you have Ray Stevens Live! you'll know that parts of the concert feature fade outs and fade-ins. The footage not seen on Ray Stevens Live! is shown on the sequel. In the concert performances Ray utilized a jumbo screen. Comical sketches would often play on this screen either during intermission or in the concert itself if a song required a lot of production to pull off in a live setting. When he performed "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O." the opening portion of the song with the field reporter and eyewitness was shown on the video screen. He taped a black and white parody of James Bond. These are things you can see on Ray Stevens Live!. Yesterday the social media sites of Ray Stevens uploaded a 1991 comedy sketch, shot in black and white, of a couple lost in Branson after being stuck in a traffic jam and they end up breaking into a theater. Little do they know it's the Ray Stevens Theatre...and little do they know who Ray Stevens is...



I can't tell who the woman is but the guy I recognize from Ray's 1995 movie, Get Serious!. The guy played Harv Newland in the movie.

Ray Stevens: Collin Raye CabaRay Nashville performance...

Hello all again! It's 15 minutes until midnight as I begin typing this so let me squeeze in a birthday post centering around Collin Raye and his guest appearance on the Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville television show (which airs in local syndication on PBS stations). Born August 22, 1960 the country music artist, as you can see, turns 60 today. He came to fame in country music in 1991 during the New Country/Young Country wave that was sweeping over country music. It had started in the late 1980s but by the early 1990s it was unstoppable. Collin's first single, "All I Can Be is a Sweet Memory", comes from the pen of the late songwriting legend, Harlan Howard. It hit in 1991...but I first heard that song on a 1985 album from Conway Twitty called Chasin' Rainbows.

Ray Stevens and Collin Raye; CabaRay Nashville

Collin's breakthrough song was the follow-up which hit number one, "Love, Me". He has 21 Top-10 Country hits and 14 of them hit the Top-10 in consecutive order between late 1991 through early 1996. "Love, Me" hit number one here in the U.S. and in Canada early in 1992. He'd have three more number one hits in the U.S. and three additional number one hits in Canada. In 1997 he was part of a trio recording, "The Gift", which became an Adult-Contemporary smash hit (peaking at #3). The main artist on that recording was pianist Jim Brickman but Collin was credited as one of two soloists, the other being Susan Ashton. Collin's 21st and final Top-10 Country hit was "Couldn't Last a Moment" in 2000 (a number one in Canada). The trio of Brickman/Raye/Ashton reunited in 2003 for "Peace", which hit the Adult-Contemporary Top-20.

Okay, I think I've written enough of a backstory on Collin Raye...what about his appearance on Ray's show?? Here it is...



Collin spoke a lot about his early years and his time in Branson, Missouri. The song he performs, "My Kind of Girl", hit number one in early 1995. 

Ray Stevens: 1991 performance of I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.

One of the funniest comedy songs from Ray Stevens came along in 1989 titled "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.". The song itself tackles the tabloid driven newspaper stories where people claim to have either spotted Elvis at a fast-food restaurant or seen him in bizarre places long after his 1977 death. The concert performance of the song was one of Ray's most elaborate. It almost always began with the lights being dimmed and a prerecorded video clip of Ray playing the part of a news anchor, a reporter, and the witness himself would be shown to the audience. Upon the conclusion of the video clip the lights would come up and Ray would start singing the song.

The video clip below, from 1991, is one of those elaborate performances. The prop of a gigantic U.F.O. was part of the stage performances. In this particular video you'll see one of the song's writers, Buddy Kalb, playing the part of the reporter. The dialogue performed in the opening sequence isn't the dialogue performed on the 1989 recording. In this 1991 reenactment Buddy's reporter character uses nearly word for word dialogue found in Ray's 1974 recording, "The Streak", instead of using the reporter dialogue heard on Ray's 1989 studio recording of "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.". Ray, playing the role of the witness, offers different dialogue in this 1991 sketch than what's heard in the 1989 recording. In the 1989 recording the witness who claims to have seen a U.F.O. was out in the woods camping with his wife in a Winnebago. In this 1991 performance the witness claims to have seen the U.F.O. hovering over a fast-food restaurant while awaiting food to take to his wife, Ethel. It's my guess that Ray had gotten a lot of audience feedback over how the witness in the 1989 recording sounded so much like the witness who seen "The Streak" in 1974 that they (Ray and Buddy) decided to re-write the opening part of the song to make it appear that the U.F.O. witness is the same man who seen "The Streak".



That performance is from the 1992 VHS, Amazing Rolling Revue. That was the title of a 1991 unsold television pilot Ray produced and since it wasn't picked up by any network Ray decided to issue the 1991 unsold pilot on VHS in 1992 through his fan club. It wasn't sold through nationwide television advertisements and so it wasn't as well known as some of his other VHS releases at that time. Ray had earlier performed "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O." on the 1989 edition of the Music City News Country Awards. It's my belief that it was the first time Ray performed the song on stage and in that performance it included the gigantic U.F.O. and the pink aliens running all over the place. In the stage performances in Branson, Missouri in the early '90s Ray would be in an Elvis suit while performing the song. Ray appeared as fictional anchorman Stan Blather in the pre-recorded video clip that played before the start of the song in the Branson performances. Ray portrayed the reporter, too, as he had in the 1989 recording; and the witness, also played in the video by Ray, returned to being a camper in the woods in a Winnebago with his wife.

I don't know if Ray continued performing this song after he left Branson in 1993. I don't think he performed it during his brief return during the 2005 and 2006 seasons...and he never performed it in the concerts I'd been lucky enough to attend. I seen him in Mount Vernon, Kentucky at Renfro Valley in 2008; Nashville, Indiana at The Little Nashville Opry in 2009; and on the West Side of Nashville at the CabaRay in 2018.

Ray Stevens: His latest On-line Activities...

Well, here I am again writing another fan created blog entry about Ray Stevens. There have been numerous on-line video posts within the last several days...and when I posted my previous blog entry I purposely left out a video clip because I wanted to highlight it later in another blog entry...and this is the one. The video clip is of Ray in 1992 at his former theater in Branson, Missouri performing "You Gotta Have a Hat". The performance became part of his 1993 VHS home video, Ray Stevens Live!. The song is about the Hat Acts in country music...there had always been country music artists that wore cowboy hats but during a specific time frame from 1989 to 1994 nearly all New Country artists wore cowboy hats. There were so many that critics coined the phrase 'Hat Acts'. There were just as many that came along without hats, too. The song primarily creates the scenario of what might happen should Ray Stevens, with a lengthy reputation for comedy, suddenly began wearing a cowboy hat in an attempt to generate sex appeal and record sales. In order to keep the mood light and playful, though, Ray performs most of the song in a peculiar style of cowboy hat.



Jumping back 31 years from that 1992 performance we have an audio clip of Ray's 1961 recording, "When You Wish Upon a Star". This recording was found on the B-side of a single that Mercury issued on Ray titled "Scratch My Back ( I Love It)" in October 1961. The B-side wasn't placed on Ray's first studio album for Mercury in 1962 and it's remained on vinyl as a B-side. The audio's been uploaded onto the internet several times prior to Ray officially uploading the audio a couple of days ago...but if you want the recording on vinyl you'd have to search for "Scratch My Back (I Love It)". Ray's rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star" is bluesy...which you'll be able to tell right away from the music intro and his phrasing. It's the same song associated with the Disney company...the song debuted in 1940 in the animated film, Pinocchio, performed by Cliff Edwards (voice of Jiminy Cricket). Here's the bluesy Ray Stevens performance...



On a slight technical note I'm a blogger who pays attention to the numbers surrounding this fan created blog page and when I wrote my previous entry on February 16th the Stat Counter numbers shown 10,502 page views. A couple of days later I returned to read some of my older posts to see if there were any kind of grammatical errors, etc. and I glanced over at the Stat Counter tracker and the page view total had dropped by at least 200...it shown the page views at a little more than 10,300 whereas a couple of days earlier they were at 10,502. How can your page view statistics drop!? I thought they could only increase as time goes by. Anyway, this morning the page view was sitting at 10,534 but had there not have been a cut in page views for whatever reason those numbers should be in the 10,700 range. I hadn't found any explanation about it...my own theory is the tracking program eliminated false views generated by some sort of social media bot, I think that's the correct terminology? I'm not a technical wizard by any means...but I know simple mathematics and could see a subtraction of my page view total...but back to the focus of this blog...

Here's Ray Stevens live on stage at the CabaRay performing the country music classic, "Abilene", popularized by George Hamilton IV. In the video clip Ray tells of the song and points out the photo on the wall of the song's writer, John D. Loudermilk, in addition to steel guitarist, Pete Drake, and famed session musician/string wizard, Bergen White, as well as a photo of George Hamilton IV.



A new upload of one of Ray's vintage television commercials for Flav-O-Rich emerged on-line back on February 20th. In this clip Ray and a kid are sitting on a porch and the kid asks where ice cream comes from. Ray replies and then the kid wonders if Flav-O-Rich is the place that Ray is 'always singing about'. Ray confirms it's true and then asks the kid if he'd like to hear him sing a jingle...



Does anyone know if Flav-O-Rich is still in existence? I've come across numerous contradictions all over the internet...some websites declare the company no longer exists and other sites say it was bought out by Borden...but if you look up the Flav-O-Rich company on-line it gives a physical address and location...headquartered in London, Kentucky...but then other websites give that address and location to the Borden Dairy Company of Kentucky. An image I came across of a gallon of milk with a label brand of Flav-O-Rich states it was distributed by Borden...but then there's a story that says Borden filed for bankruptcy just last month. Whatever the case...Ray had a lengthy run as spokesman for Farm Best/Flav-O-Rich throughout the latter half of the 1970s and into the first half of the 1980s.

Ray Stevens: Tabloid News partial video...

In some of the video uploads from Ray Stevens this year their origins go back to a particular project from the early 1990s called Amazing Rolling Revue. This project saw it's release on VHS in 1992 and at that point in time was only available for order through his fan club and at the gift shop at his former theater in Branson, Missouri. It wasn't one of the VHS tapes being sold over television and newspaper advertisements.

The concept behind the Amazing Rolling Revue, for those unfamiliar, is a nightclub on wheels...the joke being that the performances are held inside a tour bus whose interior is designed to look like a performance venue. Since the show is suppose to take place inside tour bus there are a lot of deliberately shaky camera effects...including a scene where the entire audience and Ray begin to nearly lose their balance as the bus takes curves at top speed. Why? The driver of the revue is none other than Darrel Waltrip...famed auto racer. As you can see on the front side of the VHS there are several people credited: Chet Atkins, Sylvia, and Darrel Waltrip. The sketches that include all three have since been uploaded onto YouTube. The overall structure of this show is much like his current series, Rayality TV, a hodgepodge mix of sketches and music performances interwoven seemingly at random. In the case of Amazing Rolling Revue there's a performance of "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O."...and there's a commercial for Chet's Hands, a product consisting of replica's of Chet Atkins' hands which are to be used by those wanting to play the guitar like Chet. Ray, in character as a huckster, demonstrates the manner in which the product is to be used. The commercial features a cameo from Chet who is none too thrilled that his hands are being exploited in such a disgraceful manner and he exacts his revenge. A group referred to as The Itty Bitty Squirt Band performs a sped-up rendition of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". I was a member of Ray's fan club from 1994 until it shut down in 2002. I didn't join the work force until 1996 and so most of what I had in my personal collection of Ray Stevens items at that point in time were things my grandfather had either previously bought for himself, or had bought for me, or what my parent's had gotten me for Christmas. I didn't get a copy of Amazing Rolling Revue until years later...it came up for sale on an on-line site at some point in the mid 2000s. You can still find copies of this VHS for sale on-line if you search for it.

Anyway...a video clip from this VHS hit YouTube yesterday. It's the sketch referred to as "The National Supermarket Check-Out Examiner"...it's a partial music video for a 1991 recording from Ray titled "Tabloid News". It's anyone's guess as to why the song was officially titled "Tabloid News" on the 1991 album, a phrase not heard in the actual performance, but we hear "The National Supermarket Check-Out Examiner" several times throughout the full performance of the song. In the full version of the song Ray tells of three tabloid headlines...the one used for the partial music video centers around an anonymous Alabama woman who gives birth to an alien that she names Zoltar. The alien has an insatiable appetite for electricity as you'll see in the video clip. The song's writer, Buddy Kalb, can be seen as one of the reader's of the tabloid newspaper as well as Zoltar himself. Ray's brother, John, is the other guy in the video reading the tabloid newspaper.

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 Sixteen...

I touched on this compilation album in the closing of Part Fifteen. This was the first project released on Ray Stevens by Curb Records in 1990. It eventually went Gold (sales of 500,000) and it introduced the classics from Ray Stevens to the new decade and newer fans. Ray's first studio album for the label arrived in July of 1990 by the name of Lend Me Your Ears. On the album's cover we see Ray in classic attire from the Shakespeare play, Julius Cesar, holding a rabbit in front of Nashville's replica of the Parthenon. The album title is an obvious reference to the phrase heard in the play but it also doubles as a request to take a listen to this album. The comedy album features several songs that were turned into live action music videos including a couple that were, years later, turned into limited animation music videos. A very large life-size poster advertising the album accompanied Ray on several television appearances on The Nashville Network. The two brand new music videos were "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and "Sittin' Up With the Dead". In the case of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" he turned the song into a manic parody...similar in style of one of his music heroes, Spike Jones. The fast-paced music video became a hit on The Nashville Network's two television programs centered on music videos: Video Morning and Video PM. It was the second time in Ray's career where he recorded a song from the pen of Kris Kristofferson...the first happened to be in 1969 with "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". The record label represented a merger between Curb Records and Capitol Records...professionally Lend Me Your Ears marked Ray's 'return' to the Capitol Records roster...after having recorded a few songs for the label in 1958...but technically the album is credited to the merged label of Curb/Capitol.

The label had issued a promo single for disc jockeys of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" along with "Sittin' Up With the Dead", which you see off to the right. A promo single almost always featured the same song on both the A and B side. The latter song dealt with a legendary Southern tradition of taking care of the recently departed until an undertaker was able to take over and or the local funeral home shown up to take over. The story takes place in the past...with a lot of the music video intentionally shot in black and white to mirror the nostalgic overtone of the song. The music video was a hit as well...not necessarily in the same stratosphere as "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...but it had a visual impact on television viewers of The Nashville Network all the same. The year, 1990, marked not only the start of a new decade but it also represented one of those crossroads in his professional career. It also signaled a major shift in the marketing of country music. The business end of country music saw the ultimate change when record labels began decreasing the availability of vinyl albums and vinyl singles in favor of cassette and CD. Music consumers rarely had the opportunity to purchase a single anymore...the labels began increasingly supplying retail stores with full length albums rather than also offering single releases. The single releases remained available to disc jockeys and those in the music industry but they were rapidly disappearing from retail stores. The music video had become, since the mid to late 1980s, an important promotional item for the sales of albums. Ray, by the end of 1990, had released four music videos in his career to that point. Earlier in the year he won his fifth straight Comedian of the Year honor from the readers of Music City News magazine and viewers of The Nashville Network.

Ray's association with direct marketing...also referred to as telemarketing and direct mail...as you know goes back to the late 1980s. He tapped into a television audience in 1987 when MCA and company issued Get The Best of Ray Stevens. The album sold hundreds of thousands of copies and was rewarded a Gold album. The sales of albums advertised through television or print advertisements, rather than retail store sales, had lower thresholds. A Gold album for a direct mail project is indicative of more than 50,000 copies sold...and Platinum represents 100,000. Ray arranged and produced this project on Boots Randolph in 1990...a collection simply titled Boots...and it was released on Ray's Clyde Records label. The television commercial features Ray and others seated in an intimate venue...re-creating the image of a nightclub...as they offer testimonials while Boots is on stage performing. The television commercial, I think, is still available to view on YouTube.

Ray's second studio album for Curb/Capitol arrived in 1991 titled Number One with a Bullet. Ray appeared on the album cover wearing his familiar CAT hat and holding a very large bullet. The comedy songs range from the absurd to the demented to the sophistication of social commentary. Some of the song titles from the album are: "Tabloid News", "You Gotta Have a Hat", "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens", and "The Sheik of R and B". The latter recording is a pun on the title of a 1920's pop song called "The Sheik of Araby"...but for comical purposes the song's concept was completely changed and it's about a modern-day Sheik consumed with rhythm and blues. Buddy Kalb is credited as the writer or the co-writer on nine of the ten songs. Ray and Buddy had pretty much co-authored Ray's 1989 album, Beside Myself. Ray was a co-writer on nine of the ten songs on that 1989 album, by the way.

The year, 1991, marked the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack (that coming December 7th) and so it was probably not a coincidence that the Japanese are referred to in a couple of comedy songs. "A Little Blue Haired Lady", a comedy song about slow drivers, features a brief impression by Ray of a Japanese Ambassador casually mentioning that he tried to get a message to the United States warning of the upcoming Pearl Harbor attack but he was stuck in traffic behind "A Little Blue Haired Lady"...or in the vocalization provided by Ray: 'a rittle brue haired rady'. The centerpiece of Japanese culture, though, arrives in the album's closing song...the social comment of "Working for the Japanese". The song was issued as a CD single by Curb/Capitol in 1991 and was on it's way at becoming something of a hit but political correctness and cold feet within the country music industry, as a whole, caused the untimely fate of the single and it stalled in the middle of the Country singles chart. It was his first appearance on the Country singles chart since 1988.

It was around this point in time that Ray was becoming actively involved in Branson, Missouri. He had appeared in Branson in the past...including many appearances at The Roy Clark Celebrity Theater...and it led to Ray's decision to build his own theater and it opened to the public in 1991. He had attempted to sell the idea of operating a theater in Nashville to the local business community but he later commented in his memoir that there wasn't any enthusiasm for a venue that could perhaps draw people away from the already established tourist destinations.

The Ray Stevens Theatre in Branson, Missouri ushered in a new wave of popularity for the singer. Oh, he was as popular as before, winning his sixth consecutive Comedian of the Year trophy from Music City News during the June 1991 awards show and he even co-hosted that year's edition of the Music City News Songwriter awards...but the theater down in Branson gave the locals and the region a chance to catch a Las Vegas-style concert performance at affordable prices and just his naturally gifted talents as an entertainer quickly led to his show becoming the most popular attraction in the small Ozark's town packed with more than two dozen theaters on a two lane highway. When Ray opened up the theater in 1991 the longest running venue's were still there and still being headlined by their originators. Boxcar Willie and Roy Clark were the first two major country music artists to open theaters...Roy's theater opened in 1983. Eventually theaters from the likes of Mel Tillis, Moe Bandy, Andy Williams, Glen Campbell, Tony Orlando, Jim Stafford, and Shoji Tabuchi just to name a few, would make their grand opening. The audits for attendance shown that Ray's two show a day, six days a week grind schedule enabled him to get the most opportunity for sell-outs with concert goers in the afternoon and traditional concert goers in the late evening. The town relied heavily on tourism...and so it was natural that the town was packed during summer months when adults usually took vacation from work. The overall age bracket for the concert seekers, I'd guess, was 35 and older...a lot of the venues received heavy flow of retirees and those more affluent...and it also didn't hurt that the headliners for almost every attraction had considerable longevity in the music industry. This meant that Branson received it's share of flack and criticism from music industry journalists and critics as a haven for the traditional and a mecca of old-fashioned entertainment. The Branson market successfully, for a brief period of time in the early to late '90s, rivaled Nashville as a premier live music destination. Branson's Highway 76 from a bird's eye view looked like Las Vegas...especially images captured at night...Branson was a sprawling big money machine and The Ray Stevens Theatre was the top destination. It is during his run in Branson that the concept of the music video became permanently linked to his career and how he had the idea of selling music videos to the public whereas, prior to this, a music video was not considered profit generating on their own and were treated simply as a marketing tool to promote the sales of an album. Ray felt that music videos could sell and his gamble paid off enormously during his second season of concerts at his theater in 1992. Ray's become a mogul of the VHS home video world...and we'll take a look at this unexpected but phenomenal phase of Ray's career in Part Seventeen!!

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: Comical Curb appeal...

It's something of a contagious pattern I've been on lately...looking back on the prolific career of Ray Stevens and spotlighting his music from the various record labels he recorded for over the decades. The one label that seemed to appreciate having Ray on it's roster was Curb Records. Yes, I know that Ray's career goes back to the late 1950s and he had success on every label he recorded for starting with Mercury Records in the early '60s but when I say I feel Curb appreciated Ray being on their roster I mean it from a distribution stand point...they issued numerous products on Ray throughout much of the 1990s and then, after his brief return to MCA (1996-1998), Curb began releasing material from Ray once again in the early 2000s...and this second run with Curb lasted into mid decade. The first release by Curb Records on Ray came in the form of His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits in the summer of 1990. This collection has since been certified Gold by the RIAA for 500,000 copies sold. As a testament to the enduring popularity of his 1984 hit, "It's Me Again, Margaret", Curb placed the publicity photo advertising that song on the album's cover. His first studio album for Curb arrived a couple of months later, Lend Me Your Ears. Photo sessions took place at Nashville's Centennial Park at the replica of The Parthenon. The album's title has a double reference. Visually it's a parody of Marc Antony from the Julius Cesar play, a character who made a speech in that play using the phrase 'lend me your ears', but the title also requests music consumers to purchase the album as in "lend me your ears...take a listen to my latest album...". Two music videos, "Sittin' Up With the Dead" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", emerged in 1990. They were a foreshadowing of things to come. Prior to those music video releases he had previously issued "Surfin' U.S.S.R." (1988) and "Santa Claus is Watching You" (1985) as music videos. The 1990 studio album also features "Barbecue" and "This Ain't Exactly What I Had in Mind"...which would later become animated music videos more than 10 years later.

Early in 1991 Curb issued a newly recorded version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner" from Ray. He had previously recorded the song for his 1989 album on MCA, Beside Myself. This 1991 re-recording for Curb kept the same chorus and music arrangement of the 1989 recording but the opening verse was different. This alternate take on "There's a Star Spangled Banner" was placed on the 1991 Greatest Hits compilation that Curb issued early in 1991. It's in panel two in the above collage. That compilation is deliberately heavy on serious, ballad recordings considering the fact that Curb's first project on Ray happened to be an all-comical compilation release. The only comical recordings on the 1991 hits album is 1987's "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" and 1969's "Along Came Jones". By the time Ray's second studio album for Curb came along construction had well been underway in Branson, Missouri for the opening of The Ray Stevens Theatre. This theater opened in 1991...becoming one of the most visited venues in the Ozarks during the summer tourist season...and his studio album arrived in the form of #1 With a Bullet.

Two recordings were promoted as singles from that release. "Working for the Japanese" hit the charts and looked as if it could've had something of a decent chart life but then, out of the blue, radio programmers began removing it from their playlists as it was gaining momentum. So, yes, it was totally unfair to Ray and everyone involved behind the scenes...to play a song and then to pull it from the airwaves on the basis of perceived 'offensive overtones' is actually offensive in itself. Nevertheless it's one of my favorite songs that Ray recorded. The second single release arrived early in 1992, "Power Tools", which is actually the lead-off track on the album. Ironic that the first single from the album is the final track but the follow-up is the lead-off track. The 1991 studio album would be re-visited by Ray several times in the coming years. "You Gotta Have a Hat", while not officially promoted as a single, became a popular song in his concerts at the Branson theater in the early '90s due to it being a comment on the Hat Acts in country music at the time. "Tabloid News", a song that I always thought would make a great music video, hasn't become a music video but pieces of the song have become catchphrases among Ray's fans. A partial music video happened to emerge, though, on one of the VHS home videos. The sketch/video is referred to as the National Supermarket Checkout Examiner which, by the way, is the fictional name of the tabloid Ray sings about in the song. "Power Tools" and "Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens" would eventually become animated music videos more than a decade later.

Ray's original run with Curb Records (1990-1996) coincided with his meteoric rise in Branson, Missouri along side a phenomenal series of VHS home video projects released through his own label, Clyde Records, and advertised through mail order by way of television commercials and print ads. I'm not going to touch on the VHS releases too much because those were strictly the product of his own label and weren't associated with Curb Records but I'll offer the commentary that those VHS projects more or less reinvented the career of Ray Stevens and with hundreds of thousands of sales (we're talking Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum certifications in the world of home video) but with those kinds of sales numbers for home video products in the early to mid 1990s he logically began to shift more of his focus away from audio recording and more into video marketing. Print advertisements for the VHS projects appeared in a variety of daily and weekly newspapers and I even seen an ad for one of the home video's in an issue of TV Guide. That goes to show you how far reaching the impact of those home videos were and the effort put into the marketing. The phenomenal success of those VHS home videos, coupled with the success of his Branson theater, it's easy to see why a new studio album from Ray Stevens wouldn't arrive until 1993 (roughly two years after the release of 1991's #1 With a Bullet).

The third studio album on Curb Records from Ray is Classic Ray Stevens from 1993. As you can see from the album's cover art it's a reference to classical music...complete with a bust of Ray sitting on top of the piano next to a rose and violin. The sheet music reads 'Concerto for Cornball' if I'm remembering correctly. Oh yes...I'm so detailed that I wanted to find out what was written on the sheet music way back when I first purchased the album. Anyway...this studio album has long been misidentified on so many websites as a compilation album due to it's title. If you visit an on-line music store Classic Ray Stevens is usually placed in the section labeled as compilation or greatest hits and it rarely appears among the albums in the studio album discographies of Ray Stevens found on those on-line music stores. Some sites refer to compilation albums as a sampler...and I've found Classic Ray Stevens listed/described as a sampler...it goes without saying but this sort of thing causes music consumers to assume that the songs on that album had all been previously released at some point. Songs from the 1993 album that became popular among his fans include: "Super Cop", "The Motel Song", and the lead-off track, "If Ten Percent Is Good Enough for Jesus". The lead-off track, ironically, became a much bigger hit for Ray nearly 20 years later (!!) when it was re-recorded and then, ultimately, released as an on-line music video in 2010. The video is a concert performance of the song from The Welk Theater. After the release and subsequent promotion of Classic Ray Stevens the remainder of Ray's time with Curb Records was filled out with a couple of non-studio projects. It was also, in 1993, the year that Ray closed down his Branson, Missouri theater. The closing came as a shock, obviously, to fans and probably the Chamber of Commerce and tourist companies as well. The venue had been a constant success for three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993) where he performed two shows a day for six days a week during the summer tourist seasons. However, as Ray pointed out in subsequent interviews, the idea of having a theater backfired on him simply because of the pace he was working...it became exhaustive. He never felt having a theater was a terrible idea and he loved the performance aspect but he often remarked in interviews that if he would ever re-open his theater he'd not carry such a demanding workload of 2 shows a day, 6 days a week again. Curb Records issued an audio version of Ray Stevens Live! in 1995.

One of their other releases that year happened to be something of a retrospective of his time with the label titled 20 Comedy Hits. It features 20 songs...four of the songs are classics from the 1970s, one is the performance of "Shriner's Convention" from the Ray Stevens Live! VHS and CD, while the remaining fifteen songs come from his three studio albums for Curb Records. This was followed by Great Gospel Songs in 1996. That compilation was a collection of gospel recordings Ray did in the early 1970s and originally found on the 1972 album, Turn Your Radio On. The 1996 project tacked on a couple of additional songs from his Everything is Beautiful album from 1970. As a teenager just out of high school in the mid '90s and no access to vinyl or turntables or the early years of the internet it was a goldmine of an album, Great Gospel Songs. My personal collection of Ray Stevens items at that time was nothing to write home about. I had a lot of his cassette tapes and the VHS projects but nothing on vinyl...I didn't even know the names of any of his albums prior to 1984 at that point in time. It was only after I began corresponding with Ray's office staff via letter writing that I was sent a discography of his studio albums from 1962 to the present...but anyway...following the release of Great Gospel Songs in 1996 he left Curb Records. A home video mail order project he released in 1995 would become available in retail stores in the latter half of 1996 and distributed by MCA, the label he recorded for during the latter half of the 1980s (1984-1989).

Ray would release two studio albums for MCA in 1997 before exiting the label the following year. After several years being represented by his own label, Clyde, Ray found himself on Curb Records for a second time in 2001 under the most tragic reasons imaginable. On September 11, 2001 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York. Several other hijacked planes crashed en route to other destinations on 9/11. The man behind these attacks was identified as Osama bin Laden. The wave of patriotism that swept across America in the weeks and months after 9/11 was something I'd never seen before. Country music, more than any other genre, helped in the healing process by performing songs...many focusing around 9/11...and many of these recordings were also used for charitable causes. Ray added a comical contribution with "Osama Yo' Mama" toward the end of 2001. It was released as a single-only backed with his rendition of "United We Stand". In the collage's above I provided an image of the single release and the album release. The artwork for each release is the same...only difference being is the 10 song album has a banner behind the illustration of Ray that reads The Album. The single release became a sales success throughout the latter half of 2001 and well into 2002. It charted on Billboard's Country Single Sales chart for half a year and was certified Gold. The 2002 album contained 7 recordings from 2000 that had previously appeared on a Clyde Records release, Ear Candy, in addition to "Osama Yo' Mama" and "United We Stand" from late 2001. The only recording not previously released was "Freudian Slip". In discographies his 2002 project is listed as Osama Yo' Mama: The Album. Curb later re-released "United We Stand" as a CD single backed with "Everything Is Beautiful" in 2002.

One of the things Curb began doing in 2002 is re-issuing previously released projects from Ray that he did for other record labels. One of those happened to be a DVD release of his 1992 VHS project, Comedy Video Classics. The release came a full decade after it's original debut and this lead Curb into distributing 2003's Complete Comedy Video Collection. That particular title was originally released on Clyde Records in 2003 but when it was released on Curb Records in 2004 a couple of music videos were added and one was omitted. The 2003 version contains 20 music videos which include "Thank You" and "Hello Mama" referred to on the packaging as Bonus Videos. The Curb Records release in 2004 features 21 music videos. "Santa Claus is Watching You", found on the Clyde Records release in 2003, is replaced with "Power Tools". An additional bonus video is added in the form of "Osama Yo' Mama". On the packaging it's referred to as an Extra Bonus. The release on Curb includes small lettering on the lower left hand side which reads DVD Video. The version released on Clyde Records lacks that feature. Another big story in the career of Ray Stevens at this point in time happened to be the announcement that he was re-opening his Branson, Missouri theater. He re-opened the theater in 2004 for another three season run (2004, 2005, and 2006). In 2005 Curb re-issued Ray's 1990 and 1991 studio albums in CD format. When Ray put together a 3-CD project called Box Set he released it on Clyde Records in 2005. Curb picked up the distribution early in 2006. The collection features a wide array of recordings by Ray from the 1990s and into the 2000s. It includes his early '90s re-recordings of songs like "The Streak", "Ahab the Arab", "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", etc. etc. The recordings of those songs found on Box Set were lifted from his music videos. The material he recorded for Curb and for his own label, Clyde, during the 1990s and 2000s are original. Box Set also features exclusive recordings not found anywhere else...such as "Driver's Education", "Kitty Cat's Revenge", "Family Funeral Fight", and several others. The following month Curb issued two DVD projects on Ray. Gourmet Restaurant and Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens feature limited animation music videos of several of Ray's previous recordings. Each DVD contains five animated videos.

Are you curious about panel two in the above collage? It's a CD single from 2006 titled "The New Battle of New Orleans" written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which Curb issued as a CD-only release. The song was originally written in it's entirety by Chuck Redden and his version can be found on-line. Ray and songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, partially rewrote the song by removing original lyrics and replacing them with different ones. The original is a strong R-rated composition with heavy criticisms aimed at local and national politicians but Ray and Buddy reconstructed the song. Following the summer 2006 tourist season Ray closed down his Branson theater for good and eventually sold it to RFD television. The company uses the facility to showcase their own stage productions...heavily promoted on their television network, of course. The third panel in the above collage is a photo of Ray holding one of his Comedian of the Year trophies. Ray was named Comedian of the Year by the readers of Music City News magazine for 9 consecutive years (1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994).

In 2008 Curb issued a budget priced Greatest Hits compilation on Ray sub-titled 50th Anniversary Collection. This project featured some of the re-recorded versions of several of his big hits originally found on the Box Set. The 2008 CD also features "Osama Yo' Mama" released earlier in the decade. Oddly enough the packaging of the CD had a release featuring two different head shots of Ray. In spite of the different cutouts of Ray on each CD both releases features the same songs. It's anybody's guess why Curb issued the compilation with two different images of Ray. Curb would then re-issue a couple of previously released CD's in early 2009. Hum It was originally released by MCA in 1997. It was the studio album that Ray released after he and Curb parted ways in 1996. Curb issued 1997's Hum It in Mp3 Digital Download format in April 2009 along with Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?, a CD that Ray originally issued on his Clyde Records label a year earlier in 2008. Following the distribution of those two projects in 2009 Ray and Curb Records parted ways for a second time. As one can clearly see the bulk of his time with Curb Records was largely spent in the realm of comedy video and DVD releases...more so during his second run with the label. Also, I find it interesting, that during both stints with Curb Records he found himself headlining his Branson, Missouri theater.

After parting company with Curb Records in 2009 Ray hasn't recorded for a major label since. Later on in the year he released a certain music video on-line via the hosting site, YouTube...and in closing I'd like to say some things about that music video because of it's major impact on Ray's career and the direction it took over the next several years (2010-2013).

That music video, "We The People", eventually spread like wildfire (this sort of thing was coined as 'going viral') and much like the mail order/direct market television commercials from the early '90s reinvented his career as a mogul of VHS home video this 2009 YouTube music video reinvented his career as an internet music video star...and for the next several years he created exclusive video content that he would upload on his YouTube channel. The exposure that these topically driven on-line videos received not only reinvented his career (cynics/critics referred to it as pandering) but it actually introduced him to thousands upon thousands of people who would otherwise have no idea who he was...so he was reaching audiences in ways he otherwise wouldn't have...and all this on-line exposure and discovery coming after more than 50 years as a recording artist.

Suffice it to say 2010 became the biggest year for Ray Stevens, as far as high profile coverage was concerned, since 2002 and he did it all without the aid of any major record label help or radio station airplay. Since 2010 Ray continued to release on-line music video content and occasionally he would release audio CDs...and even though the internet videos brought him a wave of exposure it was nothing like the exposure he'd later receive after jumping into television headfirst with a weekly music series...first airing on RFD-TV and then locally syndicated on PBS stations across the country. His CabaRay showroom opened in January of this year in West Nashville. This showroom has an even more spectacular design than the theater he owned and performed at in Branson and this time around he's working at a more relaxed pace...only two shows a week (Friday and Saturday nights). The television series is recorded in batches during marathon taping sessions a couple times a year...much like the production of Hee Haw (1969-1993) and Larry's Country Diner...and as a tie in with the title of this blog entry I'd say the CabaRay has tremendous curb appeal...and the interior is just as spectacular.