Ray Stevens: "Quarantine Song"...One Year Later...

Hello all the fans of Ray Stevens!! Exactly one year ago today YouTube gained a brand new music video upload from Ray Stevens titled "Quarantined". The video had been recorded inside Ray's recording studio during his guest appearance on the television series, Larry's Country Diner. The song, if you couldn't tell by it's title, is centered around COVID and the very early stages of the pandemic. A lot of information has surfaced which contradicts a lot of the accepted information at the time...but that's the risk of topical novelty songs...but regardless, like so many Ray Stevens songs the cleverness of the lyrics and the superior feel of the music elevate it above your typical run-of-the-mill, quickly assembled novelty offering. In the case of "Quarantined" we're given a humorous breakdown of a day in the life of someone coping with the rigid stay-at-home orders and consumer rationing of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and other items. When you listen to the song all these months later it'll have you recalling those oh so fun restrictions and the experience of walking into a shopping store and seeing ration signs on the shelves with 'two to a customer' or 'one item per customer', etc. Remember those long lines to get inside any number of local Wal-Mart stores? In my area you had to wait in line as only a few dozen were allowed inside at a time. In this song, released on May 25th 2020, Ray sings of the COVID misery and how it's upended things in America but is optimistic things will return to normal 'after two more weeks of Quarantine'...wow, the lyric sounds so refreshingly quaint one year later.

In October of 2020 Ray Stevens revealed that he had signed a recording contract with Curb Records. This is a record label he'd recorded for during the first half of the 1990s and then returned a couple of other times in the early 2000s for several releases. The reunion with Curb Records in 2020 stemmed from his duet with Jeannie Seely, "Dance Tonight". Jeannie is an artist signed with Curb Records and a member of the Grand Ole Opry since the early 1960s. It was reported that when Ray and Jeannie recorded their duet together for her album of duets that the powers that be decided to sign Ray to their label once again. Once he returned to the label their first project on him was a 50th anniversary salute of "Everything is Beautiful". He recorded it originally in 1970 and so, for Curb Records, he re-recorded it and a performance music video was released. In addition to this there was a medley, "Everything is Beautiful / United We Stand", which was also turned into a performance music video. These two Mp3 audio releases arrived in October 2020 on the same day the two music videos made their debut online. After the activity of those two releases began to peak on video hosting sites Curb Records issued a digital download of "Quarantined" with a new title, "The Quarantine Song". Ray re-recorded the song and added some more instrumentation and re-phrasing of several lyrics. It's just my opinion but I assume Curb Records wanted their own recording of the song rather than simply using the audio from the music video. The music video had been uploaded on May 25, 2020 and the Mp3 of "The Quarantine Song" became available on December 11, 2020. At the time of the Mp3's release the music video was nearing 3,000,000 unique views on YouTube. It's gotten 3.2 million as of this writing. I've posted the music video numerous times throughout the summer and fall of 2020 and I also shared the performance Ray gave on Mike Huckabee's television show. Here's the music video...uploaded exactly one year ago today...

Ray Stevens: "Quarantined" nearing 3,000,000 unique views...

Hello one and all to this latest blog entry spotlighting the music and career of Ray Stevens!! As the title of this blog entry states "The Quarantine Song" music video is nearing 3,000,000 unique views. The specific numbers as of this writing are 2,857,241. I was going to title this blog entry with a reference to the music video reaching 2.8 million unique views but since it's nearing 2.9 I decided to just round it up to 3,000,000. Have you been vaccinated? 

Are you in a State where the vaccines are being rolled out based on seniority or are you in a State where vaccines are being given to "essential workers". Did you hear the news that the Federal Government is going to vaccinate the thugs, killers, and terrorists at Guantanamo Bay before most of the nation gets their vaccination? Prioritizing the criminal element over law abiding citizens is how I see it regardless of the justification/explanation that's being spread around throughout the media. You don't put criminals above law abiding citizens...that's just a common sense rule. 

However, common sense has long since disappeared in this pandemic-crazed America we find ourselves in. Remember how 2 weeks of being "Quarantined" was good enough if you came down with the virus? Now, if you get it, not only do you have stay "Quarantined" for 2 weeks but chances are you're not going to be able to get the vaccine if your State doesn't have an adequate supply. What's the probability if you catch the virus but you're in that 'non-essential' category...meaning you're not a so-called 'essential worker' and you're under 70 or under 65 years of age? Will there be States out there who will not give people the vaccine shot if the patient is under a certain age or isn't part of some ethnic group? Rationing of vaccinations is what it seems like is happening and it's inexcusable if that were to be what's going on. 

There hasn't been much news surface surrounding what Ray plans on doing as 2021 progresses. An announcement not long ago suggested there would be new music arriving but no specific date was announced as to when it would be unleashed. I'm assuming the CabaRay showroom will not be re-opened until it's able to do so at full capacity or somewhere close to it. He attempted a re-opening in October 2020 but the restrictions put in place by the local and State health departments altered the live show experience Ray wants his guests and fans to have and so he closed it down again. I don't think he wants to re-open and then close things down again for a second time...so we'll have to remain patient in a point in time where impatience is everywhere.    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Stevens and the Upcoming New Year...2021

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

 

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

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

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

Ray Stevens: Christmas jokes...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Stevens performs "Erik the Awful"...

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Nashville 5th Anniversary...

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

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

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

WCVN (KET2- Covington, KY)

WCTE (Cookeville, TN)

WKNO (Memphis, TN)

WLJT (Martin, TN)

WETP 2.1 (Knoxville, TN)

NPT (Nashville, TN Public Television)

KOZK (Ozarks PBS- Springfield, MO)

KMOS (Springfield, MO)

KPTS (Wichita, KS)

KOOD (Central and Western Kansas)

APT (Alabama Public Television)

WSRE (Pensacola, FL)

SCE-TV (South Carolina Public Television)

PBS12 (Denver, CO) 

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

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

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

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

Ray Stevens: A look into 2021...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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