It's me once again!! Those of you who have been fans of Ray Stevens for more than 30 years will know that the 1990s were a decade of opportunity for Ray and a decade full of overdue recognition. He kicked off the decade on a new record label, Curb/Capitol Records. The major news, though, came later in 1990 when he announced the construction of a new music theater in Branson, Missouri. Ray released two back to back studio albums on Curb/Capitol in 1990 and 1991: Lend Me Your Ears and Number One with a Bullet. Curb Records also released two compilation albums on Ray in 1990 and 1991: His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits (a Gold record) and Greatest Hits. In the latter half of 1991 Ray opened The Ray Stevens Theatre in Branson, Missouri. It's first season ran through the end of 1991. It was in the interim that he produced some brand new music videos...for it was the 1990s that saw Ray move into the business of video production.
His own label, Clyde Records, financed a couple of VHS video tapes in 1992: Amazing Rolling Revue and Comedy Video Classics. The rolling revue VHS was sold through Ray's fan club and at the gift shop at his theatre. The second VHS, however, was marketed on television...to unexpected and unprecedented success in the field of VHS marketing and sales. Curb Records began distributing the classics VHS to retail stores in 1993 and sales from the VHS caused it to shoot to number one on Billboard's Top Video chart and it remained in or near the Top-10 for more than a year. Ray, in the meantime, was busy with concerts at his Branson theatre. 1993 had marked Ray's third consecutive season of concerts at the theatre...on the direct market front there was a brand new VHS, Ray Stevens Live!, and an additional VHS available through his fan club and theatre gift shop titled More Ray Stevens Live!. 1993 also saw the release of a new audio album, Classic Ray Stevens.
This album, in spite of it's title, features 10 brand new recordings. It's the album that contained the debut of "If Ten Percent is Good Enough for Jesus", a song that re-emerged in Ray's career 16 years later and became a hit all over again. It also features his rendition of "The Bricklayer's Song" as well as songs with such titles as "The Higher Education of Ole Blue", "The All-American Two Week Summer Family Vacation", and "If You and Yo' Folks Like Me and My Folks". The 1993 album also features a quirky song about an over-zealous security guard at a shopping center, a guard that the locals call "Super Cop". He's a combination Barney Fife and Police Academy's Tackleberry rolled into one. At the conclusion of the 1993 concert season Ray closed down his Branson theater and put it on the selling block in 1994. The same year he appeared on an episode of Music City Tonight, hosted by Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase, and he performed "The Motel Song" and "Super Cop". The 1994 performance of "Super Cop" is below...
It was on this episode in which Ray was presented a stack of awards for the sales of Comedy Video Classics. The VHS sold over 3,000,000 copies (direct mail and retail) and the two hosts kept handing him Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum, and Triple Platinum awards in recognition of it's success. A much larger plaque was presented to Ray showing Billboard magazine named it their Video of the Year. 1994 saw the retail release of the Ray Stevens Live! VHS and it had nearly a similar run of success on Billboard's Top Video chart as Comedy Video Classics. There were numerous weeks in which the two VHS tapes crossed paths with one another on the weekly chart...often flip-flopping chart positions per week. I make note of that just to illustrate the phenomenal success Ray was having with VHS tape in the early and mid 1990s. Ironically there was never a music video made of "Super Cop"...all that exists are two television appearances where he performed the song. The 1994 performance on Music City Tonight seen above and a 1993 performance on Nashville Now...in that 1993 performance Ray was escorted on stage by security guards, if memory serves me correct.
Showing posts with label 1994. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1994. Show all posts
July 8, 2020
September 15, 2019
Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Eighteen...
As we left off in Part Seventeen I was mentioning the happenings in Ray's career during the month of December in 1994. The final issue of Country Weekly magazine for the year featured a major news article on Ray and within it's pages officially released the news surrounding a movie he'd been working on during the latter half of 1994. The magazine, for those interested in seeking it out on-line, is the December 27, 1994 issue with Tanya Tucker on the cover. There's a small notation in the lower right hand side promoting the news article on Ray.
The filming had began in November of 1994 and so the information within the news article, which came complete with photo's of Ray from the set and in various costumes, was subject to change. The information provided turned out to be almost accurate. There is a section of the article which makes mention of the various cameo appearances by Ray's music industry friends and it states that both Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase would be making cameo appearances. However, an unforeseen illness prevented Lorianne from participating but Charlie was seen briefly as a reporter that popped up on a television screen relaying information about political correctness running rampant in America. Ironically several months prior to this issue of Country Weekly being released Ray was a special guest on Ralph Emery's syndicated radio series, Take Five for Country Music, in which Ralph asked Ray if the rumors were true that he was working on a movie of some kind. This interview took place months before filming began in November of 1994 and so Ray said there was no truth to those rumors...but obviously Ray wasn't going to reveal whatever was going on behind the scenes or whatever might be happening in the coming weeks or months in his career due to it potentially spoiling the public impact of whatever it was he may be working on. I was a member of Ray's fan club beginning in 1994 and in the newsletters that we received throughout the first half of 1995 the movie was referred to by the acronym: LFSDMCV. The letters stood for Long-Form Story-Driven Music Comedy Video which is how the project was referred to within the fan club newsletters due to it not officially having a title yet.
In the VHS world there's Short Form and Long Form video content. If I recall correctly a Short Form video is any VHS that has a running time of roughly 20 minutes or less while Long Form is obviously a VHS that has a running time of well over half an hour.
In the spring of 1995 one of the former record labels that Ray was signed to, Warner Brothers, at long last re-released a good dose of his recordings from the late 1970s. The material had been out of print since the early 1980s and so having this material in print again went a long way at introducing all of the newer fans that Ray picked up in the 1990s as a result of Branson and the music videos to his obscure Warner Brothers material from nearly 20 years earlier. Ray's first release for that label arrived in 1976 and so it was 19 years, technically. The label issued three separate compilation albums on Ray beginning in April of 1995: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. The titles of two of those compilations are somewhat misleading, though. The Cornball release featured three recordings you could consider novelty/comedy among the 10 songs featured. The one called The Serious Side of Ray Stevens would lead some to believe that the other two collections contain only novelty/comedy songs. It was only a minor annoyance because the bottom line, for me, was finally being able to hear a good sampling of his Warner Brothers recordings. I, at the time, had no record player and no vinyl albums or singles at all...and so those 1995 projects were a goldmine for me.
Why am I including this kind of commentary in a blog series meant to showcase the talents of Ray Stevens and his lengthy career path to the Country Music Hall of Fame? In case you're asking yourselves that question the answer is simple. I want this mini-blog series I've been working on to have a personal touch...instead of it coming off strictly as a stat by stat detailing of his career...and so at various moments in the first seventeen chapters of this I've attempted to personalize the overview by adding in remarks and highlighting things that may get overlooked or omitted from professional writers as well as historians.
In June of 1995 Ray was once again nominated as Comedian of the Year at the Music City News awards. Unfortunately Ray lost to stand-up comedian Jeff Foxworthy who had taken country music outlets by storm with his redneck routine, which wasn't new, but it had never been marketed directly to the country music audiences. It would have been Ray's 10th consecutive win and based on the staying power of his 1992 and 1993 VHS releases he should have taken home the trophy for a 10th straight year but it wasn't to be. Country Weekly readers, however, named Ray their Favorite Comedian in that publication's awards ceremony in 1995. Their ceremony was called the Golden Pick Awards.
The movie that Ray had been filming since November of 1994 finally made it's way onto VHS in the late summer/early fall of 1995 as Get Serious!. The video was sold through direct marketing just as his previous VHS releases and it became another major hit with television viewers. The commercials ran on fewer cable television channels than the previous two releases in 1992 and 1993 but it nevertheless became a successful VHS...with commercials receiving the most air-time on The Nashville Network...selling hundreds of thousands of VHS tapes to a built-in audience more or less. The movie has a running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes and it combines a conventional motion picture with music video insertions which is why the film was referred to with that kind of descriptive acronym of Long-Form Story-Driven Music Comedy Video.
There are ten brand new music videos featured within the movie...some of them are "Gitarzan", "The Woogie Boogie", "Dudley Dorite", "I Used to Be Crazy", "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?", and "Ahab the Arab". Ray's co-star, Connie Freeman, portrayed Charlene MacKenzie in the film. The character, for those that are devoted fans of Ray, should be familiar. The character originated in a 1988 recording from Ray telling the story of attempting to teach a deaf woman how to drive. Charlene, throughout the movie at the most inopportune times, has trouble hearing. The two of them perform a song and dance routine in chicken costumes...the song performed being "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", a Ray Stevens original...not to be confused with the pop song of the same name from the 1940s.
The plot of the movie centers around political correctness and the music videos aid in the telling of the story of Ray being on the run from protesters and local police...even the fictional record label Ray is signed to in the movie is after him for breach of contract. The record label executive, played by Paul Lynde impressionist Michael Airington, wants Ray to get serious with his recordings and come off more like an operatic Pavarotti rather than coming off like a clown but Ray adamantly refuses and the battle is on. I should point out that music industry conglomeration is also touched upon in the movie. Ray is signed to a label called Integrity Records which, at the movie's beginning, is shown being taken over by a company operating out of Japan called Sosumi Records (pronounced So-Sue-Me). The Integrity Records company sign in the front lawn is literally chainsawed from view to make way for the sleeker looking Sosumi Records sign descending down from a crane. Ray is given the bad news about the takeover from his manager, The Colonel, portrayed by legendary comic storyteller Jerry Clower who makes his first of several appearances at the conclusion of the "Gitarzan" music video. The executive hired to oversee Sosumi, as mentioned, is committed in his quest to transform Ray into the Pavarotti of Country Music. Chet Atkins has a cameo attempting to play the accordion at the insistence of the new label executive. Meanwhile characters from his songs are portrayed as real people and they bring a lawsuit against Ray for defamation. George Lindsey appears as a Shriner prior to the beginning of the "Shriner's Convention" video and reveals the custom made dune buggy, The Mone Mobile, which Ray drives throughout the film. The lawyer in the courtroom scene is portrayed by fellow country comedian, James Gregory. As we get deeper into the movie there are cameo appearances by Johnny Russell and the comedy duo, Williams and Ree. The movie is completely entertaining and in my opinion was a ground-breaking concept...a new twist on the movie musical.
This is one of the various commercials for the VHS...it features Charlie Chase providing the voice-over. There were other commercials for the VHS airing concurrently which featured other voice over talent. Charlie's voice-over, though, includes the naming of some of the music videos found in the movie. The person that uploaded this commercial left a little bit of time at the end and we see an NFL promo appear on-screen as a football game was coming out of a commercial break. I did some research and found that the Cowboys and the Vikings played a football game on cable channel, TNT, on September 17, 1995...and if you were watching that game you would have seen this commercial...
A Get Serious! soundtrack was released in cassette format, made mention of in the commercial, and on this soundtrack is a full-length recording of "We Don't Take Nothin' off Nobody" which, in the movie, is only partially performed. In addition there was a VHS released documenting the behind the scenes making of the movie. That VHS is titled Ray Stevens Made a Movie?? Get Serious!!!. Now, in Part Nineteen, I'll be exploring in some detail Ray's career as it pertains to record labels and releases in 1996 and 1997...which included a return to a previous record label.
The filming had began in November of 1994 and so the information within the news article, which came complete with photo's of Ray from the set and in various costumes, was subject to change. The information provided turned out to be almost accurate. There is a section of the article which makes mention of the various cameo appearances by Ray's music industry friends and it states that both Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase would be making cameo appearances. However, an unforeseen illness prevented Lorianne from participating but Charlie was seen briefly as a reporter that popped up on a television screen relaying information about political correctness running rampant in America. Ironically several months prior to this issue of Country Weekly being released Ray was a special guest on Ralph Emery's syndicated radio series, Take Five for Country Music, in which Ralph asked Ray if the rumors were true that he was working on a movie of some kind. This interview took place months before filming began in November of 1994 and so Ray said there was no truth to those rumors...but obviously Ray wasn't going to reveal whatever was going on behind the scenes or whatever might be happening in the coming weeks or months in his career due to it potentially spoiling the public impact of whatever it was he may be working on. I was a member of Ray's fan club beginning in 1994 and in the newsletters that we received throughout the first half of 1995 the movie was referred to by the acronym: LFSDMCV. The letters stood for Long-Form Story-Driven Music Comedy Video which is how the project was referred to within the fan club newsletters due to it not officially having a title yet.
In the VHS world there's Short Form and Long Form video content. If I recall correctly a Short Form video is any VHS that has a running time of roughly 20 minutes or less while Long Form is obviously a VHS that has a running time of well over half an hour.
In the spring of 1995 one of the former record labels that Ray was signed to, Warner Brothers, at long last re-released a good dose of his recordings from the late 1970s. The material had been out of print since the early 1980s and so having this material in print again went a long way at introducing all of the newer fans that Ray picked up in the 1990s as a result of Branson and the music videos to his obscure Warner Brothers material from nearly 20 years earlier. Ray's first release for that label arrived in 1976 and so it was 19 years, technically. The label issued three separate compilation albums on Ray beginning in April of 1995: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. The titles of two of those compilations are somewhat misleading, though. The Cornball release featured three recordings you could consider novelty/comedy among the 10 songs featured. The one called The Serious Side of Ray Stevens would lead some to believe that the other two collections contain only novelty/comedy songs. It was only a minor annoyance because the bottom line, for me, was finally being able to hear a good sampling of his Warner Brothers recordings. I, at the time, had no record player and no vinyl albums or singles at all...and so those 1995 projects were a goldmine for me.
Why am I including this kind of commentary in a blog series meant to showcase the talents of Ray Stevens and his lengthy career path to the Country Music Hall of Fame? In case you're asking yourselves that question the answer is simple. I want this mini-blog series I've been working on to have a personal touch...instead of it coming off strictly as a stat by stat detailing of his career...and so at various moments in the first seventeen chapters of this I've attempted to personalize the overview by adding in remarks and highlighting things that may get overlooked or omitted from professional writers as well as historians.
In June of 1995 Ray was once again nominated as Comedian of the Year at the Music City News awards. Unfortunately Ray lost to stand-up comedian Jeff Foxworthy who had taken country music outlets by storm with his redneck routine, which wasn't new, but it had never been marketed directly to the country music audiences. It would have been Ray's 10th consecutive win and based on the staying power of his 1992 and 1993 VHS releases he should have taken home the trophy for a 10th straight year but it wasn't to be. Country Weekly readers, however, named Ray their Favorite Comedian in that publication's awards ceremony in 1995. Their ceremony was called the Golden Pick Awards.
The movie that Ray had been filming since November of 1994 finally made it's way onto VHS in the late summer/early fall of 1995 as Get Serious!. The video was sold through direct marketing just as his previous VHS releases and it became another major hit with television viewers. The commercials ran on fewer cable television channels than the previous two releases in 1992 and 1993 but it nevertheless became a successful VHS...with commercials receiving the most air-time on The Nashville Network...selling hundreds of thousands of VHS tapes to a built-in audience more or less. The movie has a running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes and it combines a conventional motion picture with music video insertions which is why the film was referred to with that kind of descriptive acronym of Long-Form Story-Driven Music Comedy Video.
There are ten brand new music videos featured within the movie...some of them are "Gitarzan", "The Woogie Boogie", "Dudley Dorite", "I Used to Be Crazy", "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?", and "Ahab the Arab". Ray's co-star, Connie Freeman, portrayed Charlene MacKenzie in the film. The character, for those that are devoted fans of Ray, should be familiar. The character originated in a 1988 recording from Ray telling the story of attempting to teach a deaf woman how to drive. Charlene, throughout the movie at the most inopportune times, has trouble hearing. The two of them perform a song and dance routine in chicken costumes...the song performed being "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", a Ray Stevens original...not to be confused with the pop song of the same name from the 1940s.
This is one of the various commercials for the VHS...it features Charlie Chase providing the voice-over. There were other commercials for the VHS airing concurrently which featured other voice over talent. Charlie's voice-over, though, includes the naming of some of the music videos found in the movie. The person that uploaded this commercial left a little bit of time at the end and we see an NFL promo appear on-screen as a football game was coming out of a commercial break. I did some research and found that the Cowboys and the Vikings played a football game on cable channel, TNT, on September 17, 1995...and if you were watching that game you would have seen this commercial...
A Get Serious! soundtrack was released in cassette format, made mention of in the commercial, and on this soundtrack is a full-length recording of "We Don't Take Nothin' off Nobody" which, in the movie, is only partially performed. In addition there was a VHS released documenting the behind the scenes making of the movie. That VHS is titled Ray Stevens Made a Movie?? Get Serious!!!. Now, in Part Nineteen, I'll be exploring in some detail Ray's career as it pertains to record labels and releases in 1996 and 1997...which included a return to a previous record label.
Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Seventeen...
Ray's theater was the number one destination in Branson for tourists and locals alike and the Comedy Video Classics commercials continued to air, as mentioned, throughout the rest of the year. A secondary VHS was released through his gift shop and fan club titled Amazing Rolling Revue. This 1992 release was actually an unsold pilot for a television series that was never picked up. The footage, as far as I know, was taped at some point in the latter half of 1991 or early 1992 at the latest. The reason I say that is because there's a brief sketch centering around the alien, Zoltar, from the song Ray recorded in 1991 called "Tabloid News". On the VHS this sketch is referred to as 'The National Supermarket Checkout Examiner', a phrase heard in the song as well. As the television commercials and print advertisements for Comedy Video Classics continued to be a presence Ray won his seventh consecutive Music City News Comedian of the Year trophy. His first win having come in 1986. The second season of concerts from Ray at his Branson theater were well underway by the summer of 1992. Ray's record label, Curb/Capitol, officially split...and further audio recordings from Ray would be issued on Curb Records. His publishing company, Ray Stevens Music, would begin enjoying the massive popularity of "Cadillac Style"...a single from country artist Sammy Kershaw. The song was Sammy's debut single and when released in October of 1991 it immediately drew comparison to George Jones. The single remained a country radio staple for several years long after it's peak in early 1992. It was written by a writer that worked for Ray's publishing company.
Interestingly Curb/Capitol didn't finance or actively promote Comedy Video Classics...all of the publicity and promotional work in the direct marketing campaign was done independent of Curb/Capitol. In the spring of 1993, almost a year to the day that Comedy Video Classics hit television airwaves, the VHS was issued to retail stores for the first time and guess who distributed the VHS to retail stores? It was Curb Records. I'd always been under the impression that Curb didn't want to risk anything on a unique concept of selling music videos on VHS tape and passed on the opportunity of participating in the direct mail campaign but then jumped at the chance to distribute the VHS for retail availability. In retail stores it sold Platinum...a sales threshold indicative of over 1,000,000 copies sold...giving it an estimated sales total at that time of 3.5 million. The VHS entered the Billboard Home Video chart during the first week of May 1993...in the runner-up position. It took over number one the following week and it would remain on the Home Video chart for over a year...seldom ranking below number five during the first half a year of retail availability.
I've always liked the comical stories of Jerry Clower and there's a song on here that takes one his stories and translates it into music form: "The Higher Education of Ol' Blue". The song's story counterpart from Jerry Clower is "Crack, W.L., and Rover" from an album he released in 1984 titled Starke Raving!. Ray wrote track seven, "If You and Yo' Folks Like Me and My Folks", while adultery is visited in two distinctly different recordings: the comical "The Ballad of Jake McClusky" and the love ballad, "Meanwhile". A brand new VHS became available through direct marketing from Clyde Records...a performance from his Branson theater and released under the title of Ray Stevens Live!. A second VHS, not sold on television and only available to fan club members and those that visited his gift shop at the theater, was titled More Ray Stevens Live!. The two VHS tapes were of a concert broken in two parts.
In the fall of 1993 after three consecutive seasons of sold-out and near sell-out shows at his Branson, Missouri theater Ray Stevens shocked the tourism industry and the locals of Branson by announcing the closure of his theater. Ray cited health reasons and over exhaustion as a result of two shows a day, six days a week for a span of 6 months per year. It was estimated that during the 18 months that the theater was in business during the 1991, 1992, and 1993 seasons Ray performed for nearly 1.5 million visitors. In interviews Ray spoke of the physical exhaustion and pointed out the irony in that most artists that opened up a theater in Branson did so because they were tired of life on the road and often sleepless or near sleepless nights going from one town to the next during extensive tours. He said the irony for him is that the daily grind wore him out and the idea of having a venue where the fans come see you rather than you go see them backfired for him...and he couldn't wait to take a lengthy vacation and rejuvenate himself physically before resuming his career. In hindsight the pace of the schedule is what caused the exhaustion...two shows a day, six days a week...artists 10 to 20 years younger than Ray, I bet, wouldn't have been able to pull off that kind of schedule but Ray managed to do it for an 18 month period. One of his lesser known nicknames happens to be the Energizer Bunny...and he proved it.
As 1993 came to a close Ray certainly earned a lengthy vacation. He scaled back his television appearances...except for the commercials that continued to air promoting Ray Stevens Live!...and he remained out of the spotlight, deliberately, for most of 1994...except for occasional appearances on interview shows airing on The Nashville Network. On one such appearance he received multiple plaques from the RIAA for the sales achievements of Comedy Video Classics in the realm of direct mail and retail. Billboard Magazine recognized it with a Video of the Year plaque.
The year of 1994 started off on a high note in spite of Ray's break from the concert stage and desire for some kind of vacation. Ray's publishing company shared in the success of "I Can't Reach Her Anymore" from Sammy Kershaw which became a big hit during the first half of the year. The writers, at the time, worked for Ray's publishing company. The single hit in January of 1994 and eventually reached the Top-10. The two single releases that Ray published on Sammy Kershaw were recurrents on country radio...a recurrent is an industry term given to a single that is still heard well after it's left the weekly countdown. "Cadillac Style" and "I Can't Reach Her Anymore" dominated the airwaves on country radio during a good portion of the mid to late '90s even though neither single claimed the number one position on the Country singles chart. Ray's direct mail company, Clyde Records, added some additional VHS titles to their impressive catalog of releases in the spring of 1994 in the form of stand-up comedy from Russian-born, United States comedian, Yakov Smirnoff. The comedian had been a hit on the national level for quite some time and he introduced a catchphrase, "what a country!", into the collective English-speaking vernacular. He signed an exclusive direct mail contract with Ray's Clyde Records company in 1994 and almost immediately a couple of VHS projects were released: What a Country! and Just Off the Boat.
While all of this was going on with Clyde Records, simultaneously, Curb Records began it's retail distribution of Ray Stevens Live! in the spring of 1994 as well. That particular VHS made it's debut on Billboard's Music Video chart the first week of May. In June Ray won his ninth consecutive Comedian of the Year honor at the Music City News awards. In the fall of 1994 after nearly a year of being on a self-imposed vacation, with his name and likeness continuing to appear in the weekly Billboard Music Video chart and in television commercials ensuring consistent publicity during his hiatus, Ray embarked on an ambitious project which ultimately surfaced almost a year later. In the final month of the year a quick look at Billboard's chart for Top Videos for the week ending December 3, 1994 finds Ray Stevens Live! with 31 weeks on the chart and Comedy Video Classics, by this time certified Triple-Platinum, in it's 83rd chart week. The two VHS tapes continued their strong sales on into the next year and all the while Ray was busy on a most secret project...but rumors were swirling that he was going to throw his hat into the ring and become a movie star!?! We'll get to bottom of all this in Part Eighteen!!
July 7, 2019
Ray Stevens: Vintage Visuals...mid 1990s...
Hello once again!! In this installment of the vintage visuals series I take a look at the mid 1990s era in the career of Ray Stevens. The decade was one of change, experimentation, and major successes. I already spotlighted the early 1990s era of his career several blog entries ago and this one zeroes in on 1994, 1995, and 1996.
The Ray Stevens movie, Get Serious!, came along in the latter half of 1995...late summer/early fall. The direct-to-VHS movie was in a lot of ways the climax of Ray's meteoric rise in the world of VHS and direct marketing which got underway a couple of years earlier in 1992. Ray released four home video projects, in total, during 1992-1993. Two of the projects (Amazing Rolling Revue and More Ray Stevens Live!) were sold through his fan club and in the gift shop at his former venue in Branson, Missouri while the other two (Comedy Video Classics and Ray Stevens Live!) were sold over television and in newspaper advertisements. I made mention of those projects in my blog entry where I focused on the early 1990s era of his career. By 1994 Ray had left Branson, Missouri after three seasons (1991, 1992, and 1993) of concert performances at his former theater. On several of his television appearances in 1994 he mentioned that he was in the process of selling the theater...in his 2014 memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, he wrote about selling the venue to a company who, in turn, staged the 'Country Tonight' revue at the venue for ten consecutive years (1994-2003) but hard times fell upon the organization by 2003 and they asked if Ray would take back the theater and they would pay the remainder of their debt in the form of rent. So, as Ray put it, he took back the theater at the end of the 2003 summer concert season and spent a year and a half on redecoration and refurbishment and then had a grand re-opening in the summer of 2005. Ray headlined his old Branson, Missouri theater during the summer and fall months of 2005 and 2006 before selling the venue, for good, to the executives of RFD-TV. But let's back up a decade...we're suppose to be focusing on the mid 1990s...
As I started off saying...in several of Ray's interviews in 1994 he spoke of his goal of taking a much needed vacation after the Branson experience. In the summer of 1994 he won his 10th consecutive Comedian of the Year award from the fan-voted publication, Music City News. This publication would eventually go out of business after more than 30 years in print...largely overshadowed by a newer publication, Country Weekly, and their reader-voted Country Pick awards. Country Weekly, however, benefited from it's availability at the checkout stands in nearly every retail/grocery store in America whereas Music City News remained heavily subscription based and was rarely, if ever, widely distributed.
Ray was named Favorite Comedian by the readers of Country Weekly and received a Golden Pick award during the awards gala in 1995. While Ray appeared on the cover of Music City News a couple of times and his name shown up on the cover of many issues as a form of advertisement for a featured article within it's pages, strangely enough, he never appeared on the cover of any issue of Country Weekly during it's 24 years of print publication (1994-2016). His name appeared on the cover a few times and he had his share of appearances/interviews within the pages of Country Weekly but for the most part much of the attention given by Country Weekly, as far as country comedy, went to performers who were stand-up comedians in the traditional sense whose material catered largely to a southern audience (specifically the audience advertisers crave: 18-39 year olds).
The filming of Get Serious!, as mentioned, took place in the winter months of 1994 and early 1995. I was a member of his fan club from 1995 until it closed down in 2002 and in some of the earliest newsletters I have there were updates on the movie's progress and film schedule. The staff of his fan club referred to the film by an acronym. If memory serves me correct the film was referred to as LFSDMCV. The letters stood for: Long Form Story Driven Music Comedy Video. Now, I might have a couple of the letters in the wrong place. It could be LFSDCMV: Long Form Story Driven Comedy Music Video...but I think the first acronym is correct because Ray's emphasis was on the music and the overall execution of the film rather than emphasizing the comedy aspects...so I think LFSDMCV is the correct acronym. I'd have to literally dig through piles of archived papers in a storage bin to find those mid 1990s fan club newsletters...let's just stick to LFSDMCV. An article in Billboard magazine from November 1994, as far as I know, was the first news release concerning Ray in the process of filming a movie.
Ray's movie was sold through direct marketing throughout the fall of 1995 and into mid 1996. The television commercials for the movie aired on many television stations...most of the time the commercials were airing on cable television stations rather than broadcast television. In the world of television communications the term broadcast networks are used to describe local channels which originate from a local television studio in a viewer's market but carry a daytime and prime-time line-up mandated by a broadcast network whereas cable television networks originate from anywhere, air whatever content they choose, and, usually, are part of every television channel line-up all over the country. CBS is a broadcast network and they have local affiliates all over the country whereas TBS is a cable network, for example, and is provided to cable television providers. If you did not have cable television but still wanted to watch television you were only going to get the basic broadcast networks (FOX, CBS, ABC, and NBC plus whatever the local PBS affiliate happens to be) and the reception would not be that great. In an episode of Crook and Chase's former interview program, Music City Tonight, Ray made mention of Get Serious! having reached Platinum status through direct marketing. The program had earlier presented a Get Serious! night after the VHS had become available. That particular episode featured not only Ray but several of the people who had cameo appearances in the movie: Chet Atkins, Johnny Russell, Williams and Ree, James Gregory, and George Lindsey. Jerry Clower also appeared in the movie but not in a cameo role. He was more or less a supporting player given that he had several appearances scattered throughout the film playing the part of Ray's manager. He, too, also appeared on Get Serious! night. The VHS was released to retail stores in the latter half of 1996 by MCA Records. In the case of two of the early '90s VHS tapes the retail distribution was handled by Curb Records (in 1993 and 1994) but after Ray signed with MCA in 1996 the retail distribution was handled by that label. It was their first product on Ray Stevens since 1989. He recorded for the label during a five year period, 1984-1989, prior to his signing to the Curb label in 1990. In an appearance on Primetime Country in 1996, originally hosted by Tom Wopat, Ray mentioned that Get Serious! was Double-Platinum. Gary Chapman later took over hosting the show for the remainder of it's time in production.
A companion VHS, which you see above, was made available to fan club members in 1995. It's a documentary/behind-the-scenes of the movie's production with a lot of footage that didn't make the final cut and of course numerous bloopers are featured. The 1995 movie marked the music video debuts of "Ahab the Arab" as well as "Gitarzan", "Shriner's Convention", "The Dooright Family", "The Woogie Boogie", and several more. Ray appeared in costume as "Gitarzan" during his performance of the song on Get Serious! night in 1995 on Music City Tonight. After the performance, still in the costume, he went over to the interview couch and conducted the first segment of the show in his costume and spoke about the movie and the fact that during the opening performance of "Gitarzan" Jane had a beard. Ray joked that it was due to Jane abusing hormone injections but, of course, it was Buddy Kalb in drag...miming the words of Jane as Ray was singing them. The camera panned out into the audience where Buddy, as Jane, was positioned and as we heard Ray singing the lines Buddy/Jane was lip-syncing. In keeping with the spirit of the jungle motif and as a visual tie-in with caveman, "Alley Oop", Buddy/Jane 'sang' into a replica of a large leg bone rather than a microphone. It was a fun-filled episode and a great kick-off for the movie.
After a commercial break (one of those commercials being an ad for the VHS) Ray was in regular clothes and seated on the couch. Charlie Chase, one half of the Crook and Chase duo, provided the voice-over for the television commercial. One of the commercials, which aired on cable channel TNT, was uploaded onto YouTube...
The free cassette tape offer wasn't part of the direct mail advertisements during the course of the entire ad campaign. When I became a member of his fan club I purchased his products directly from their catalog and therefore the free cassette offer wasn't part of the sale. I eventually purchased the cassette tape being spoken of in the commercial for an incredibly low discounted price from his on-line store in the early 2000s. They only had a handful left. The cassette features a full performance of the song, "We Don't Take Nothin' Off Nobody", whereas the movie features the opening verse and chorus. Now, as a result of Ray's phenomenal success with direct marketing his VHS tapes, a compilation was inevitably on the horizon. Latest and Greatest was issued in 1996 on VHS and it featured 10 music videos. It was comprised of 4 music videos from 1992's Comedy Video Classics and 6 music videos from Get Serious!.
A couple of months ago Ray uploaded the music video, "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", onto YouTube. This isn't to be confused with another song with the same title from the 1940s by Louis Jordan. The song featured in Ray's 1995 movie is an entirely different song. Ray wrote this same-titled song for the Get Serious! movie and it's a duet with his co-star, Connie Freeman...she played the role of Charlene MacKenzie. You'll see another co-star, Tim Hubbard, in the role of Coy. The movie is available on DVD for those that may be wondering. It isn't on Blu-Ray, though. I don't even own a Blu-Ray player, believe it or not, so I'm still a customer of DVD. You can get your copy of the movie by clicking HERE.
As I started off saying...in several of Ray's interviews in 1994 he spoke of his goal of taking a much needed vacation after the Branson experience. In the summer of 1994 he won his 10th consecutive Comedian of the Year award from the fan-voted publication, Music City News. This publication would eventually go out of business after more than 30 years in print...largely overshadowed by a newer publication, Country Weekly, and their reader-voted Country Pick awards. Country Weekly, however, benefited from it's availability at the checkout stands in nearly every retail/grocery store in America whereas Music City News remained heavily subscription based and was rarely, if ever, widely distributed.
Ray was named Favorite Comedian by the readers of Country Weekly and received a Golden Pick award during the awards gala in 1995. While Ray appeared on the cover of Music City News a couple of times and his name shown up on the cover of many issues as a form of advertisement for a featured article within it's pages, strangely enough, he never appeared on the cover of any issue of Country Weekly during it's 24 years of print publication (1994-2016). His name appeared on the cover a few times and he had his share of appearances/interviews within the pages of Country Weekly but for the most part much of the attention given by Country Weekly, as far as country comedy, went to performers who were stand-up comedians in the traditional sense whose material catered largely to a southern audience (specifically the audience advertisers crave: 18-39 year olds).
The filming of Get Serious!, as mentioned, took place in the winter months of 1994 and early 1995. I was a member of his fan club from 1995 until it closed down in 2002 and in some of the earliest newsletters I have there were updates on the movie's progress and film schedule. The staff of his fan club referred to the film by an acronym. If memory serves me correct the film was referred to as LFSDMCV. The letters stood for: Long Form Story Driven Music Comedy Video. Now, I might have a couple of the letters in the wrong place. It could be LFSDCMV: Long Form Story Driven Comedy Music Video...but I think the first acronym is correct because Ray's emphasis was on the music and the overall execution of the film rather than emphasizing the comedy aspects...so I think LFSDMCV is the correct acronym. I'd have to literally dig through piles of archived papers in a storage bin to find those mid 1990s fan club newsletters...let's just stick to LFSDMCV. An article in Billboard magazine from November 1994, as far as I know, was the first news release concerning Ray in the process of filming a movie.
A companion VHS, which you see above, was made available to fan club members in 1995. It's a documentary/behind-the-scenes of the movie's production with a lot of footage that didn't make the final cut and of course numerous bloopers are featured. The 1995 movie marked the music video debuts of "Ahab the Arab" as well as "Gitarzan", "Shriner's Convention", "The Dooright Family", "The Woogie Boogie", and several more. Ray appeared in costume as "Gitarzan" during his performance of the song on Get Serious! night in 1995 on Music City Tonight. After the performance, still in the costume, he went over to the interview couch and conducted the first segment of the show in his costume and spoke about the movie and the fact that during the opening performance of "Gitarzan" Jane had a beard. Ray joked that it was due to Jane abusing hormone injections but, of course, it was Buddy Kalb in drag...miming the words of Jane as Ray was singing them. The camera panned out into the audience where Buddy, as Jane, was positioned and as we heard Ray singing the lines Buddy/Jane was lip-syncing. In keeping with the spirit of the jungle motif and as a visual tie-in with caveman, "Alley Oop", Buddy/Jane 'sang' into a replica of a large leg bone rather than a microphone. It was a fun-filled episode and a great kick-off for the movie.
After a commercial break (one of those commercials being an ad for the VHS) Ray was in regular clothes and seated on the couch. Charlie Chase, one half of the Crook and Chase duo, provided the voice-over for the television commercial. One of the commercials, which aired on cable channel TNT, was uploaded onto YouTube...
The free cassette tape offer wasn't part of the direct mail advertisements during the course of the entire ad campaign. When I became a member of his fan club I purchased his products directly from their catalog and therefore the free cassette offer wasn't part of the sale. I eventually purchased the cassette tape being spoken of in the commercial for an incredibly low discounted price from his on-line store in the early 2000s. They only had a handful left. The cassette features a full performance of the song, "We Don't Take Nothin' Off Nobody", whereas the movie features the opening verse and chorus. Now, as a result of Ray's phenomenal success with direct marketing his VHS tapes, a compilation was inevitably on the horizon. Latest and Greatest was issued in 1996 on VHS and it featured 10 music videos. It was comprised of 4 music videos from 1992's Comedy Video Classics and 6 music videos from Get Serious!.
A couple of months ago Ray uploaded the music video, "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", onto YouTube. This isn't to be confused with another song with the same title from the 1940s by Louis Jordan. The song featured in Ray's 1995 movie is an entirely different song. Ray wrote this same-titled song for the Get Serious! movie and it's a duet with his co-star, Connie Freeman...she played the role of Charlene MacKenzie. You'll see another co-star, Tim Hubbard, in the role of Coy. The movie is available on DVD for those that may be wondering. It isn't on Blu-Ray, though. I don't even own a Blu-Ray player, believe it or not, so I'm still a customer of DVD. You can get your copy of the movie by clicking HERE.
November 14, 2011
Ray Stevens: Retrospective 17...
In the meantime, while Ray's home video releases were selling unprecedented numbers, his publishing company received an award for "I Can't Reach Her Anymore", a hit single for country singer Sammy Kershaw in 1994. This was the second publisher award bestowed upon Ray in association with a Sammy Kershaw recording...the first being 1992's "Cadillac Style".
October 23, 2011
Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 29...
An upload I came across on You Tube this morning is this...a song called "Baby The Magic is Gone" by a group known as The Velvets featuring Virgil Johnson. Research shows that the group used the lead singer's name to eliminate confusion with another group known as the Velvets.
The recording, according to the upload information, comes from 1965. Some internet sites say it was recorded in 1966. As you can see from the video it's a Monument recording and it was produced by Ray Stevens. From time to time I embed You Tube videos by artists or groups that feature production work from Ray Stevens. I also like to embed videos of songs that were written by Ray Stevens but recorded by other artists (specifically the recordings made in the '60s). Given that the embed is small...I downsized the original embed because it was too big for the page...but given the size of the embedded video you may or may not be able to see Ray's name on the right side of the screen under the producer credits.
A second recording by the group, whose lead singer was a man named Virgil Johnson, was actually uploaded back in January 2010 but because the uploader didn't use Ray's name as a tag I had no idea of it's existence until this morning. This recording, "Let the Fool Kiss You, But Don't let the Kiss Fool You", is the B-side of "Baby The Magic Is Gone".
Wasn't the production of those songs wonderful? The singing was good, too. While listening to the songs you can't help but imagine Ray singing them. Since he used this certain kind of sound for a lot of his own recordings during the mid and late '60s it's easy to imagine Ray singing these songs, too.
Ray recorded for Monument Records between the years of 1966 and 1969. Monument released their last commercial single on Ray early in 1970. Anyone care to guess what single it was? It was his version of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". The b-side is "The Fool on the Hill". The single number is Monument-1187. Each song comes from his final studio album for Monument titled Have a Little Talk With Myself. I've got that album...on the back it shows Ray playing piano and in another picture laughing along side the album's co-producer, Jim Malloy. The previous Ray Stevens album from 1969, Gitarzan, featured a three person production team: Ray, Jim Malloy, and Fred Foster. Ray's first studio album for Monument, Even Stevens, hit in 1968. It featured Ray and Fred Foster as the producers. Here's a bit of amusing irony: Jim Malloy's son, David, became a highly successful record producer and was involved in a songwriting partnership trio. Eddie Rabbitt was one of those songwriters and the other was a writer named Even Stevens! I always found it sort of amusing that one of David Malloy's songwriting partners had the same name of an album Ray Stevens recorded during a point in time when David's father, Jim, was associated with Ray.
This year in Ray Stevens history looks at 1994...this was the year that Ray won his 9th and final Comedian of the Year trophy from the fan-voted Music City News awards. Ray had been selected as the top comedian in country music by Music City News readers for the previous 8 consecutive years starting in 1986. In 1994 he won for the 9th consecutive year. Music City News continued to hand out awards through 1999. The winners of the comedian category during the awards final years (1995-1999) were Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Gary Chapman. Foxworthy, if I'm not mistaken, won in 1995, 1996, and 1997 while Engvall won in 1998 and Chapman won in 1999(?) but don't quote me on any of that information. After Ray didn't win in 1995 or 1996 I lost interest in the awards and so I didn't pay much attention to who won or lost. Ray had won it so many times it was almost expected that he'd always win it but as history shows that wasn't the case. I don't believe Ray was nominated during 1998 or 1999!? I could be wrong about that. All I know is there was all of a sudden a rush of country comics, all built around the Jeff Foxworthy 'redneck' routine, that had emerged in the mid '90s and it was simply impossible for a more traditional country comedian to dethrone that style of humor once it took off across the country. It reached a peak when the Blue Collar comedy tours started happening during much of the following decade (2000-2009).
In the meantime, during the Music City News final years, rival magazine Country Weekly had started a fan-voted awards program called the Country Pick Award. Ray won in the Best Comedian category in 1995...but lost out to other country comedians in the years that followed.
Meanwhile, after the demise of Music City News in 1999, the awards became affiliated briefly with Country Weekly, and then CMT took over and since 2002 the telecasts have largely been built around music productions and the award categories honor music videos now instead of audio recordings. This, of course, means that the nominees would be only the videos that CMT airs...leaving out a lot of videos by other artists that don't make the CMT playlist.
The CMT awards telecasts, if played back to back with a Music City News awards telecast, would be like night and day as far as similarities. Classic episodes of the Music City News awards are available on DVD. Commercials for the DVD often appear on the RFD-TV network.
Elsewhere in 1994...Ray Stevens received a publishers award for "I Can't Reach Her Anymore", a huge hit single for Sammy Kershaw. 1994 is also the year that Ray Stevens Live!, a home video release from 1993, became available for purchase in retail stores following the year long mail-order exclusive. After it hit retail stores it was eligible to appear on the weekly Billboard charts and it eventually reached the top...competing against his previous home video from 1992, Comedy Video Classics.
Lastly, in 1994, Ray began working on what would become the movie, Get Serious!. The movie, for the longest time, didn't have an official title. I have fan club newsletters from late 1994 and early 1995 where it's referred to as something like LFSDCVM. I don't have the newsletters in front of me at the moment to supply the actual acronym but it basically stood for Long-Form Story-Driven Comedy Video Movie or it could've been Long-Form Story-Driven Comedy Music Video. Whichever the case it wasn't referred to as Get Serious! until some point in 1995 prior to it's late summer/early fall release. The movie, 110 minutes in length, stars Ray and a host of other performers. Sandwiched between the spoken dialogue are 10 music videos. Several of Ray's music friends made cameo appearances: Chet Atkins, Johnny Russell, Charlie Chase, George Lindsay, and James Gregory. Jerry Clower appeared several times throughout the movie playing the role of Ray's manager. Connie Freeman and Michael Airington co-starred as Charlene MacKenzie and Damien Darth. Ray's songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, appeared as Bubba/Dudley Dorite while Tim Hubbard appeared as Deputy Coy. In the "Shriner's Convention" music video, lifted from this movie, Ray plays both Bubba and Coy. A few days ago Ray made the announcement on Facebook that they're thinking about releasing the Get Serious! movie onto DVD for the first time. The movie had previously only been available on home video so it's long overdue at getting a DVD release.
The recording, according to the upload information, comes from 1965. Some internet sites say it was recorded in 1966. As you can see from the video it's a Monument recording and it was produced by Ray Stevens. From time to time I embed You Tube videos by artists or groups that feature production work from Ray Stevens. I also like to embed videos of songs that were written by Ray Stevens but recorded by other artists (specifically the recordings made in the '60s). Given that the embed is small...I downsized the original embed because it was too big for the page...but given the size of the embedded video you may or may not be able to see Ray's name on the right side of the screen under the producer credits.
A second recording by the group, whose lead singer was a man named Virgil Johnson, was actually uploaded back in January 2010 but because the uploader didn't use Ray's name as a tag I had no idea of it's existence until this morning. This recording, "Let the Fool Kiss You, But Don't let the Kiss Fool You", is the B-side of "Baby The Magic Is Gone".
Wasn't the production of those songs wonderful? The singing was good, too. While listening to the songs you can't help but imagine Ray singing them. Since he used this certain kind of sound for a lot of his own recordings during the mid and late '60s it's easy to imagine Ray singing these songs, too.
Ray recorded for Monument Records between the years of 1966 and 1969. Monument released their last commercial single on Ray early in 1970. Anyone care to guess what single it was? It was his version of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". The b-side is "The Fool on the Hill". The single number is Monument-1187. Each song comes from his final studio album for Monument titled Have a Little Talk With Myself. I've got that album...on the back it shows Ray playing piano and in another picture laughing along side the album's co-producer, Jim Malloy. The previous Ray Stevens album from 1969, Gitarzan, featured a three person production team: Ray, Jim Malloy, and Fred Foster. Ray's first studio album for Monument, Even Stevens, hit in 1968. It featured Ray and Fred Foster as the producers. Here's a bit of amusing irony: Jim Malloy's son, David, became a highly successful record producer and was involved in a songwriting partnership trio. Eddie Rabbitt was one of those songwriters and the other was a writer named Even Stevens! I always found it sort of amusing that one of David Malloy's songwriting partners had the same name of an album Ray Stevens recorded during a point in time when David's father, Jim, was associated with Ray.
This year in Ray Stevens history looks at 1994...this was the year that Ray won his 9th and final Comedian of the Year trophy from the fan-voted Music City News awards. Ray had been selected as the top comedian in country music by Music City News readers for the previous 8 consecutive years starting in 1986. In 1994 he won for the 9th consecutive year. Music City News continued to hand out awards through 1999. The winners of the comedian category during the awards final years (1995-1999) were Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Gary Chapman. Foxworthy, if I'm not mistaken, won in 1995, 1996, and 1997 while Engvall won in 1998 and Chapman won in 1999(?) but don't quote me on any of that information. After Ray didn't win in 1995 or 1996 I lost interest in the awards and so I didn't pay much attention to who won or lost. Ray had won it so many times it was almost expected that he'd always win it but as history shows that wasn't the case. I don't believe Ray was nominated during 1998 or 1999!? I could be wrong about that. All I know is there was all of a sudden a rush of country comics, all built around the Jeff Foxworthy 'redneck' routine, that had emerged in the mid '90s and it was simply impossible for a more traditional country comedian to dethrone that style of humor once it took off across the country. It reached a peak when the Blue Collar comedy tours started happening during much of the following decade (2000-2009).
In the meantime, during the Music City News final years, rival magazine Country Weekly had started a fan-voted awards program called the Country Pick Award. Ray won in the Best Comedian category in 1995...but lost out to other country comedians in the years that followed.
Meanwhile, after the demise of Music City News in 1999, the awards became affiliated briefly with Country Weekly, and then CMT took over and since 2002 the telecasts have largely been built around music productions and the award categories honor music videos now instead of audio recordings. This, of course, means that the nominees would be only the videos that CMT airs...leaving out a lot of videos by other artists that don't make the CMT playlist.
The CMT awards telecasts, if played back to back with a Music City News awards telecast, would be like night and day as far as similarities. Classic episodes of the Music City News awards are available on DVD. Commercials for the DVD often appear on the RFD-TV network.
Elsewhere in 1994...Ray Stevens received a publishers award for "I Can't Reach Her Anymore", a huge hit single for Sammy Kershaw. 1994 is also the year that Ray Stevens Live!, a home video release from 1993, became available for purchase in retail stores following the year long mail-order exclusive. After it hit retail stores it was eligible to appear on the weekly Billboard charts and it eventually reached the top...competing against his previous home video from 1992, Comedy Video Classics.
Lastly, in 1994, Ray began working on what would become the movie, Get Serious!. The movie, for the longest time, didn't have an official title. I have fan club newsletters from late 1994 and early 1995 where it's referred to as something like LFSDCVM. I don't have the newsletters in front of me at the moment to supply the actual acronym but it basically stood for Long-Form Story-Driven Comedy Video Movie or it could've been Long-Form Story-Driven Comedy Music Video. Whichever the case it wasn't referred to as Get Serious! until some point in 1995 prior to it's late summer/early fall release. The movie, 110 minutes in length, stars Ray and a host of other performers. Sandwiched between the spoken dialogue are 10 music videos. Several of Ray's music friends made cameo appearances: Chet Atkins, Johnny Russell, Charlie Chase, George Lindsay, and James Gregory. Jerry Clower appeared several times throughout the movie playing the role of Ray's manager. Connie Freeman and Michael Airington co-starred as Charlene MacKenzie and Damien Darth. Ray's songwriting partner, Buddy Kalb, appeared as Bubba/Dudley Dorite while Tim Hubbard appeared as Deputy Coy. In the "Shriner's Convention" music video, lifted from this movie, Ray plays both Bubba and Coy. A few days ago Ray made the announcement on Facebook that they're thinking about releasing the Get Serious! movie onto DVD for the first time. The movie had previously only been available on home video so it's long overdue at getting a DVD release.
Revisiting Ray Stevens, Part 13...
If one takes a look at Amazon's search results for Ray Stevens CD's you'll come across three CD releases that according to the information will be released in January 2012.
Everything Is Beautiful
Turn Your Radio On
Misty
The bizarre thing about these releases is that they feature the same picture of Ray Stevens...two of the CD's contain the exact same picture, color scheme, and lettering while a third CD just features the same picture of Ray. The picture comes from 1970 during a performance on a television program. I'd say it's from his 1970 summer TV show. The CD's are being released by a label known as Pazzazz Records. As of this writing there is no track listing available and so it's pretty difficult to dissect the CD's without knowing what's on them...the second time around. The one titled Everything Is Beautiful features 2 CD's while the other collections feature just 1 CD each.
The ironic thing is these collections were previously available several years ago. The CD titled Misty was originally released in 2006 and it featured 15 songs. I'm assuming that with the resurgence of Ray's mainstream popularity, thanks to 2009's "We The People" music video on You Tube, that Pazzazz is hoping to tap into an even larger audience than before!?
To further explain what I just wrote read the following...
Prior to 2009 it's safe to assume that only the devoted fans, the dedicated fans, and comedy music fans in general were purchasing Ray's products and going to his concerts.
You see this happening much more in country music than in pop music but once an artist gets established and builds a fan base it's pretty much set in stone that no matter what happens in the music industry and whether a singer is on the radio anymore or not it's always been a safe bet that the fans would continue to show support for their favorite artist well after the general public's moved on to someone else. So, not surprisingly, the last thing the general public knew of Ray Stevens prior to 2009 were his early and mid 1990's TV commercials for a string of music video projects and they also recalled his Branson, Missouri theater (which he performed in during 1991 through 1993 and again from 2004-2006). What that means is that the general public knew very little of Ray's contemporary happenings and many assumed he retired years ago or assumed he was not even among the living. A lot of people were far more familiar with his older recordings than they were his recent recordings. Keeping all that in mind...December 2009 rolls around and "We The People" hits You Tube. The song/video became known as 'Obama Care' by many people who discovered the video...even today bloggers refer to the song as 'Obama Care' instead of it's actual title.
Anyway, once the video became an on-line hit, hundreds upon hundreds of people were shocked and they started asking one another "is this the same Ray Stevens who did The Streak?? I thought he died!". As I mentioned several blogs ago many people actually thought Ray died years ago. Since so many people, judging by their on-line comments, hadn't kept up with Ray's career I've since started referring to the period of 1999-2009 as the lost decade. In some of the comments at You Tube several people mentioned that they hadn't heard much about Ray since the days of "The Streak" way back in 1974! Since those comments came in December 2009 it meant that 35 years had passed between the release of that song and "We The People". I found it hard to believe that people hadn't heard much about Ray in more than 30 years but yet that's what a lot of people were saying.
Obviously with the video being political and a protest against what amounts to Government run health care there have been a long list of critics (liberal-progressives) who belittled the song and it's fans and marginalized Ray Stevens and his fans. Since the release of the video Ray's become associated with the Tea Party and often performs at political fundraisers sponsored by Tea Party organizations. The political direction in his career took some people by surprise...a very few early on pulled the familiar "I've been a long time fan but..." routine...yet by and large Ray's fans had no animosity toward his decision to do political comedy. If truth be known, much of Ray's political feelings mirrored his fans' political beliefs, so I've always felt that the ones complaining about the political overtones in his music are either not interested in politics at all or they never were fans to begin with and are just saying they were to create a negative perception that they hoped would be spread around and accepted as reality.
Fast forwarding to 2011...and 20,000,000+ on-line views later...yes, you read that correctly...according to the stats at Ray's You Tube channel his total upload views are 20,408,237. This is the total of the number of on-line views of each of his music videos added together. Five of his videos have gotten at least 1,000,000 views while quite a few others have gotten half a million. The current view totals for the Top-10 Ray Stevens video uploads are as follows...
1. Come to the USA; 2010: 5,609,434 views
2. We The People; 2009: 4,573,905 views
3. Mississippi Squirrel Revival (1992); 2009: 1,521,109 views
4. The Streak (1992); 2009: 1,347,695 views
5. Osama Yo' Mama (2001); 2009: 1,192,006 views
6. Obama Budget Plan; 2011: 828,182 views
7. God Save Arizona; 2010: 819,238 views
8. Throw the Bums Out; 2010: 817,419 views
9. Caribou Barbie; 2010: 455,319 views
10. Thank You (2004); 2010: 411,598 views
...and the current video, at the moment, is ranked #14 among Ray's most-viewed uploads:
***14. Mr. President - Mr. President; 2011: 269,288 views***
Notice the numbers gap between video #9 and video #8. Ray's current video's only been on-line for 3 weeks and we'll see how high it rises in the days and weeks to come. His previous video is ranked #6.
Everything Is Beautiful
Turn Your Radio On
Misty
The bizarre thing about these releases is that they feature the same picture of Ray Stevens...two of the CD's contain the exact same picture, color scheme, and lettering while a third CD just features the same picture of Ray. The picture comes from 1970 during a performance on a television program. I'd say it's from his 1970 summer TV show. The CD's are being released by a label known as Pazzazz Records. As of this writing there is no track listing available and so it's pretty difficult to dissect the CD's without knowing what's on them...the second time around. The one titled Everything Is Beautiful features 2 CD's while the other collections feature just 1 CD each.
The ironic thing is these collections were previously available several years ago. The CD titled Misty was originally released in 2006 and it featured 15 songs. I'm assuming that with the resurgence of Ray's mainstream popularity, thanks to 2009's "We The People" music video on You Tube, that Pazzazz is hoping to tap into an even larger audience than before!?
To further explain what I just wrote read the following...
Prior to 2009 it's safe to assume that only the devoted fans, the dedicated fans, and comedy music fans in general were purchasing Ray's products and going to his concerts.
You see this happening much more in country music than in pop music but once an artist gets established and builds a fan base it's pretty much set in stone that no matter what happens in the music industry and whether a singer is on the radio anymore or not it's always been a safe bet that the fans would continue to show support for their favorite artist well after the general public's moved on to someone else. So, not surprisingly, the last thing the general public knew of Ray Stevens prior to 2009 were his early and mid 1990's TV commercials for a string of music video projects and they also recalled his Branson, Missouri theater (which he performed in during 1991 through 1993 and again from 2004-2006). What that means is that the general public knew very little of Ray's contemporary happenings and many assumed he retired years ago or assumed he was not even among the living. A lot of people were far more familiar with his older recordings than they were his recent recordings. Keeping all that in mind...December 2009 rolls around and "We The People" hits You Tube. The song/video became known as 'Obama Care' by many people who discovered the video...even today bloggers refer to the song as 'Obama Care' instead of it's actual title.
Anyway, once the video became an on-line hit, hundreds upon hundreds of people were shocked and they started asking one another "is this the same Ray Stevens who did The Streak?? I thought he died!". As I mentioned several blogs ago many people actually thought Ray died years ago. Since so many people, judging by their on-line comments, hadn't kept up with Ray's career I've since started referring to the period of 1999-2009 as the lost decade. In some of the comments at You Tube several people mentioned that they hadn't heard much about Ray since the days of "The Streak" way back in 1974! Since those comments came in December 2009 it meant that 35 years had passed between the release of that song and "We The People". I found it hard to believe that people hadn't heard much about Ray in more than 30 years but yet that's what a lot of people were saying.
Obviously with the video being political and a protest against what amounts to Government run health care there have been a long list of critics (liberal-progressives) who belittled the song and it's fans and marginalized Ray Stevens and his fans. Since the release of the video Ray's become associated with the Tea Party and often performs at political fundraisers sponsored by Tea Party organizations. The political direction in his career took some people by surprise...a very few early on pulled the familiar "I've been a long time fan but..." routine...yet by and large Ray's fans had no animosity toward his decision to do political comedy. If truth be known, much of Ray's political feelings mirrored his fans' political beliefs, so I've always felt that the ones complaining about the political overtones in his music are either not interested in politics at all or they never were fans to begin with and are just saying they were to create a negative perception that they hoped would be spread around and accepted as reality.
Fast forwarding to 2011...and 20,000,000+ on-line views later...yes, you read that correctly...according to the stats at Ray's You Tube channel his total upload views are 20,408,237. This is the total of the number of on-line views of each of his music videos added together. Five of his videos have gotten at least 1,000,000 views while quite a few others have gotten half a million. The current view totals for the Top-10 Ray Stevens video uploads are as follows...
1. Come to the USA; 2010: 5,609,434 views
2. We The People; 2009: 4,573,905 views
3. Mississippi Squirrel Revival (1992); 2009: 1,521,109 views
4. The Streak (1992); 2009: 1,347,695 views
5. Osama Yo' Mama (2001); 2009: 1,192,006 views
6. Obama Budget Plan; 2011: 828,182 views
7. God Save Arizona; 2010: 819,238 views
8. Throw the Bums Out; 2010: 817,419 views
9. Caribou Barbie; 2010: 455,319 views
10. Thank You (2004); 2010: 411,598 views
...and the current video, at the moment, is ranked #14 among Ray's most-viewed uploads:
***14. Mr. President - Mr. President; 2011: 269,288 views***
Notice the numbers gap between video #9 and video #8. Ray's current video's only been on-line for 3 weeks and we'll see how high it rises in the days and weeks to come. His previous video is ranked #6.
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