Ray Stevens: Audio Diary 3

Well, hello all you fans of Ray Stevens!! In this third installment of Audio Diary I'm going to spotlight an audio track from the 1989 album, Beside Myself. This album was later re-issued under a different title, At His Best. The track I'm spotlighting is the fabulous ballad, "Marion Michael Morrison". Now, if you know your John Wayne history, you'll know that his birth name was given various possibilities. Some early research/biographical data state he was born Marion Mitchell Morrison. Then, there is the data stating his birth name was Marion Robert Morrison and then there is the statements in interviews from the actor himself that his middle name was changed from Robert to Michael. There is also statements that he went by the nickname of Duke Morrison and then, Duke Wayne, and eventually it was shortened to just The Duke. Legally his birth name is credited as Marion Robert Morrison but so many fans and biographers cling to Marion Michael Morrison...I think because it's so alliterative...and that's perhaps why the song used that name, too. Buddy Kalb, one of Ray's long-time friends and associates, wrote the song. It's a tribute to John Wayne. When I first listened to the 1989 album I had no idea who "Marion Michael Morrison" was and once I began listening to the song I thought to myself why is there so many references to John Wayne without actually using the name? Little did I know that John Wayne was a stage name. I was just a teenager...and, yes, at that time I didn't even know that Ray Stevens' birth name was Harold Ray Ragsdale, yet. Anyway... "Marion Michael Morrison" is a marvelous salute to the career of John Wayne. Some people may not like the approach but I love the manner in which John Wayne's character names and titles of his movies are woven into the song. If you haven't heard the song before don't assume it's only a collection of movie titles and character names. It's more than that. The music sets the mood...conjuring up the Old West...as Ray sings about a man born in Winterset. The movie titles and characters that are included in the lyrics just seem natural...as if no other choices would fit. When you listen to the song see if you can name which character appeared in what movie. If you hadn't heard the song I know you're going to love it and if you're a John Wayne fan you'll have an even bigger smile on your face as Ray salutes the iconic performer. You can listen to the audio track on YouTube when you click this LINK. 

Ray Stevens: Singling Out I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.

Me with 1989 Ray Stevens vinyl single

In this edition of the Singling Out series I take a look at one of the last vinyl singles released on Ray Stevens. Throughout much of the 1980s the vinyl format continued to have wide distribution and it continued to have a presence in retail stores along side their smaller counterpart, the cassette tape. The presence of vinyl albums and singles began to rapidly disappear in the late 1980s even though manufacturing of them remained for turntable equipped jukeboxes and for mail-order record clubs but vinyl was becoming less and less visible in retail stores. The cassette, along with the emergence of the compact disc (CD), became the dominant format of music consumption and so vinyl releases became scarce and often were only found in privately owned, local record shops specializing in the sale of vinyl records and if you happen to be fans of country music the Ernest Tubb Record Shop continued to offer vinyl and in some cases that store had exclusive vinyl records. Jukeboxes began to vanish, too...those that remained in use had been converted from being equipped with a turntable for vinyl singles to being manufactured for CD's. The operation of the jukebox remained the same...you put in the money and make the song selection and instead of a vinyl single being pulled out and played on a jukebox turntable the song would automatically begin playing due to the memory of the computerized programming. You select B-6, for example, and the jukebox's computer memory will know what song to play. This vinyl single from Ray Stevens is "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.". The song was found on his 1989 album, Beside Myself, and he performed it on several television shows that year. It was not a 'radio hit' but it became popular. Ray and Buddy Kalb wrote the song. The main concept of the song centers around the various Elvis sightings that frequently appeared in tabloid newspapers since the late '70s. I have no idea why those tabloid stories became so frequent...Elvis didn't vanish or disappear in 1977...he passed away; so it's always puzzled me why Elvis sightings became something of a fad and had such a presence.

The song tells the story of a couple that are camping in the woods. The performance begins with a narration/recitation. An anchorman telling us that we're tuned into the 'evening news' and he hands the story off to their literal field reporter, Renaldo Rivera (a pun on Geraldo Rivera). Renaldo interviews a witness who goes into his story of having seen a U.F.O. land just beyond their Winnebago and when he went over for a closer look pink aliens emerged and then he says he looked inside the U.F.O. and "there he was!!", the reporter asks "there who was??", and after a brief music interlude the witness emphatically declares: "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O." and the singing portion of the song commences. When Ray performed the song in concert he used props and visuals...a large U.F.O. would hover over top of the stage...he'd have people dressed in pink alien suits 'emerge' and then run around the stage and out into the audience. In the song's conclusion, amid all the smoke of the U.F.O., he gets beamed aboard the U.F.O. which lifts upward and out of sight. If the performance includes post-production Ray literally vanishes on-screen but in his Branson, Missouri performances in the early 1990s a life size dummy of Ray in Elvis attire on wires is hoisted upward toward the U.F.O..

Me with Ray Stevens B-side vinyl

The B-side of "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O." is the equally funny "I Used To Be Crazy". As so many Ray Stevens comedy songs have done it's taken on a life of it's own. Although it originally emerged on 1989's Beside Myself as the closing track and is found as a B-side in single format, "I Used To Be Crazy" has gotten a lot more exposure in the years since. He made a music video of the song in 1995...part of his direct-to-VHS movie, Get Serious!. That music video was recently uploaded on Ray's YouTube channel where it gained a whole lot more exposure than it otherwise had. Ray and Buddy Kalb wrote the song and it allows Ray to demonstrate his skill of mimicry. The subject matter enables Ray to deliver his impressions of chickens, dogs, mad English Kings from the 1700s, Walter Brennan, John Wayne. Along the way he lets out with a loud, shrieking scream...it happens in a section of the song where he mentions that on some days doesn't everybody from time to time enjoy a 'little' primal scream?? In the 1995 music video he performs the song in an Americanized Austrian accent but in the 1989 original recording he performs the song in his natural voice...except when he demonstrates his mimicry. The concept of the song is a case study in irony. He proclaims he used to be crazy but yet he's a whole lot better now...yeah, right!! This vinyl single was the last one released on Ray Stevens by MCA Records. There would be two vinyl singles released on Ray by Curb/Capitol Records in 1990 in limited availability but then that was it as far as vinyl releases go. The very first vinyl single released on Ray was "Silver Bracelet" in 1957 on Capitol Records subsidiary, Prep Records.

Ray Stevens: I Used to Be Crazy...

One of zaniest novelty songs to come from Ray Stevens happens to be a recording from 1989 titled "I Used To Be Crazy". The album from Ray that year was titled Beside Myself and it marked a departure for Ray to a certain degree. In 1984 Ray signed a recording contract with MCA Records to record comedy albums. A series of successful comedy albums from Ray completely cemented his reputation as a novelty artist. His first five studio albums for MCA were all comedy and most of them ranked high on the Country Album chart. In addition to the studio albums there were several compilation albums that were top sellers of the time period. Below I've listed the releases by MCA on Ray Stevens during the 1984-1988 time period. The albums in bold print are studio albums and those in bold italics are compilation albums:

1984: He Thinks He's Ray Stevens
1985: I Have Returned
1986: Surely You Joust
1987: Greatest Hits
1987: Crackin' Up
1987: Greatest Hits, Volume Two
1987: Get The Best of Ray Stevens
1988: I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like

In that time period Ray seen five of those albums make the Top-50 on the Country Album chart while another, Get The Best of Ray Stevens, became a direct-mail hit. He taped several commercials for the album and advertisements for it appeared in newspapers and magazines. It's considered his first direct-mail project. He Thinks He's Ray Stevens as well as the Greatest Hits album would eventually be certified Gold and then Platinum. I Have Returned and Greatest Hits, Volume Two was certified Gold. After the release of his 1988 studio album he issued Beside Myself in 1989 and unlike the previous five studio albums this one featured a mix of comedy and serious recordings. One of those comedy recordings is the album closer, "I Used To Be Crazy". In this recording Ray displays his skilled mimicry of several celebrities in addition to his mastery of good old fashioned silliness with heavy emphasis on vocal lunacy.

Ray performed this song on an episode of Hee Haw in 1989 and that performance is on YouTube. In the performance he's wearing sunglasses. The official music video came along a few years later in 1995 as part of his direct-to-VHS movie, Get Serious!. Ray's co-star, Connie Freeman, can be seen at the start of the music video. Ray's vocal performance for the 1995 recording is different than his 1989 studio recording. In the 1995 recording, for his movie, he sings the song as his character, Sickmind Fraud, in an exaggerated Austrian accent. The music video has clips from Get Serious! sprinkled throughout when Ray begins to sing about how people cast aspersions on creative souls like himself.

The 1989 performance is wild...



As I said the 1989 performance is certainly wild but the official 1995 music video is wild in it's own kind of way...they're both highly entertaining...



Ray performed this song on an episode of Music City Tonight in early 1996. The entire episode was devoted to the movie and billed as 'Get Serious Night'. In addition to Ray the rest of the country music performers who appeared in cameo roles appeared on this 1996 episode: Chet Atkins, Jerry Clower (more of a supporting player than a cameo role), Johnny Russell, James Gregory, George Lindsey, Williams and Ree. Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase hosted Music City Tonight. Charlie had a cameo in the movie and it was revealed that Lorianne would have also had a cameo role in the movie had she been available (she was either suffering a flu-like ailment or had undergone surgery of some kind). Ray filmed the movie in and around Burns, Tennessee in the late summer/fall of 1994. I should also point out that when Ray sang "Ahab the Arab" on that 1996 episode Charlie Chase rode out on the stuffed Clyde the Camel prop as Ahab while Lorianne played Fatima. In the show's opening number, "Gitarzan", Ray wore his Tarzan costume from the movie and Jane was played by Buddy Kalb. Neither Connie Freeman, who co-starred in the movie as Charlene MacKenzie, nor Michael Airington, who co-starred as cynical music mogul Damien Darth, appeared on 'Get Serious Night' in 1996.

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series, Part 26...

In this installment of the Golden LP Series we look at studio album twenty-six in the career of Ray Stevens. We also say farewell to the 1980's in this blog series. Studio album 26 hit in 1989 with the title of Beside Myself. The album featured, for the first time since 1983, non-comical recordings from Ray Stevens. The project was split in half between the serious and the comic personalities of his songs and it featured a memorable album photo, too. Since the early '80s Ray's albums featured memorable photo shots and as the decade went on the photo shots became increasingly memorable and deliberately eye catching.

Beside Myself contains 10 songs and as mentioned the project devotes equal time to the two main recording styles in Ray's career. Serious Ray Stevens is heard during the first 5 songs while comical Ray Stevens is heard during the remaining 5 performances. The album's photo illustrates, as well, which style of Ray Stevens you'll hear as the more serious looking Ray is positioned first while comical Ray is seated second. This particular LP reached the Country Album chart as did all of his studio albums for MCA. This one peaked in the middle of the chart in 1989 but the single releases weren't able to reach the Country Singles chart. As mentioned in Part 25, Ray's single releases were having a difficult time gaining favorability among country radio programmers. Ray has often said that it's a lot more difficult to have a comedy song or a comedy album that's successful than it is to have a love ballad become successful. In my opinion the challenge is finding people in radio that will embrace a comical recording and then everything else should fall into place. It all starts with airplay. If a single isn't getting any significant airplay chances are the public at large will have no idea that a song is available for purchase. What I think happened is more publicity was given for the actual LP instead of the single releases.

The cassette release came into my possession at some point in the very early '90s. It had been an elusive release and a project that I was not aware of until I saw it sitting in a tape rack at a local shopping store. I was unable to convince my parent's to purchase the tape. Apparently it was still selling for it's original asking price which would've been anywhere between $9.95 to $12.95. I was never able to come across another Beside Myself for the longest of time. As luck would have it, though, another retail store had the tape in what's known as the discount rack and my parent's got it for me for Christmas. I was excited beyond belief...I unwrapped the plastic from the case and opened the cassette. I glanced at all the song titles, the writers, musicians, etc. etc. but I held off playing it. When I spent the night with my grandparent's I had my grandfather play it on a portable tape player he had. This was a memorable occasion for the wrong reasons, though. After the first song was over we assumed the cassette was defective because Ray's vocals were in slow motion...after listening to the next song I didn't know what to think. I stopped the tape because I couldn't take the sound quality. Thinking the elusive gem was defective I was not going to play it anymore but something caused me to play it on my own tape player. The one I had was the standard radio/tape player combination. I put the tape into the tape deck, hit play, and was astounded at how crisp and crystal clear the music was and how Ray's voice was as it should be. What had happened is my grandfather hadn't used his portable tape player in quite awhile and the batteries were nearly run down! This had caused the tape to playback in a low, barely listenable quality...much like when you switch speeds on a turntable and play an LP at 45-rpm speed or play a 45-rpm at LP speed.

So, then, what were the songs that appeared on Beside Myself? The LP kicks off with "Your Bozo's Back Again" which ties in perfectly with the album's cover shot. In this song Ray sings about a relationship where the woman continually hurts and humiliates a man but in spite of this the man can't gather up enough courage to walk away for good and so he finds himself returning to her each and every time he's walked out for a few hours. The second song, "Another Fine Mess", features prominent saxophone accompaniment and with this the song comes across much more easy-listening than a lot of the other non-comical songs found on this LP. It's also a mood setter...once you hear a saxophone played in this fashion you'll immediately recognize that the song will be heavy on romance and other love song conversation. This song has Ray singing about a relationship where the woman makes a series of little mistakes...but the crux of the entire song has to do with a man who finds himself falling in love with this accident-prone woman and how, to him, the whole situation has become "Another Fine Mess"...but it's a mess that he particularly enjoys as you'll realize when you hear it. "Marion Michael Morrison" is hands down the greatest tribute, in song, to the movies and impact of John Wayne. When I first heard the song I had know idea that John Wayne was his stage name...but once Ray started referencing the movies, the catch-phrases, and the characters associated with John Wayne it didn't take me that long to realize who the song was about but I was still baffled why it was called "Marion Michael Morrison" rather than something else. I later found out Marion Michael Morrison was the birth name of John Wayne. I was still unaware that celebrities used stage names. It was a few years later that I learned that Ray's birth name is Harold Ray Ragsdale...so yes, there was still a lot for me to learn about Ray Stevens as time went on.

The fourth track, "Butterfly Inside a Coupe de Ville", tells the story about the pressures of fame, the trappings of success, and how even if someone appears to have everything, the lack of a relationship makes it all meaningless. This deep thinking was prompted by the sight of a harmless butterfly that was trying to get out of a cadillac. The song's title would have you believe it's a comical song but it's not. The fifth song, "There's a Star Spangled Banner", uses topical news and the military conflicts of the era to salute the American flag and all it stands for. It's another great performance.

 The comical portion of the LP starts with track six, "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.". This recording spoofs the multitude of tabloids that consistently report Elvis sightings and how U.F.O.'s of all descriptions abducted him in 1977 and took him to outer space. I've never researched or understood the whole Elvis sighting craze so I wouldn't know how it all came about but nevertheless people seem to get a kick out of claiming to see Elvis from all corners of the planet and after all this time tabloids still run with Elvis sighting stories to this day. In Ray's song we hear a spoof of a newscast where Ray plays the part of the newscaster, the reporter, and the eyewitness who tells of his encounter with the U.F.O., the aliens, and Elvis himself. The song is done in a rock and roll arrangement with Ray using a rocker type of vocalization. Sound effects are featured throughout as we hear the U.F.O. hovering around and for added hilarity is the sped-up vocal effects of the aliens. Ray comically states that these high-pitched aliens sound like The Jordanaires. When Ray would perform this song in concert he'd usually have a big inflatable U.F.O. hovering above the stage, lots of smoke and fog effects, dancers running around on stage in pink alien attire, but the best part of all was Ray dressed up in a typical Elvis jumpsuit. It's definitely a show-stopper in concert. "The Woogie Boogie", track seven, is a funny little song about a fictional Indian tribe in Chattanooga, Tennessee called the Woogies. It's one of the shortest songs on the LP but a lot of it's charm is the "oogie" factor applied throughout the lyrics. The song ends with a continued refrain of the Woogie chant over and over until the song fades. "Stuck on You" comes off like a musical infomercial as Ray sings about the purchase of a super glue kind of product that he saw advertised on television. Ray tells about the various incidents and the chaos that ensues after he opens the tube of glue. The song's title, "Stuck on You", is taken literally as you can tell! Strangely enough it was never made into a music video. "Bad Dancin'" is a song that champions the art of dancing with an undertone of satire as it singles out the culture of the 1980's and blends these elements together. The story takes place at a country club and Ray acts as spectator/reporter filling us in on what all he's seeing as he watches the wild dancing taking place. Several dances and entertainers are mentioned at various places in the song, too. The closing track, "I Used To Be Crazy", is the b-side of "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.". In "I Used To Be Crazy", Ray sings about how he used to be crazy...but demonstrates to us that he's perfectly sane now. Once you hear the way he demonstrates his sanity you'll find yourself laughing and giggling. The song is a marvelous showcase for his skilled impressions and mimicry. By the end of the performance and still trying to convince us that he's sane and serious and no longer "crazy", Ray has assumed the role of a british King. The song ends as Ray offers a frenetic, comical exchange of dialogue between himself and his impressions of John Wayne, Walter Brennan, and the King of England. Amidst this activity you'll also hear a chicken and a barking dog lend themselves to the chaos.

Beside Myself wrapped up the 1980's for Ray Stevens and it also wrapped up his association with MCA for the time being. He joined the label in 1984 and by the end of 1989 he was in the process of joining up with another record label. It was the start of a new decade...which always brings about feelings of a new direction, a new outlook, a new start, a change in direction, etc. etc. What would 1990 and beyond hold in store for Ray Stevens? Which label would he find himself on? How would the changing tastes on country radio and country television impact his career? How would political correctness impact his career? Would his next LP be a comical one or a blend of comedy and ballads? Were there any music videos on the horizon? Such questions will more than likely be addressed in the next installment of the Golden LP Series. Although the manufacturing of the LP had dwindled down considerably and it's commercial appeal had dwindled down as more people were buying compact devices like cassettes and CD's, I'll still use "LP" in the blog entry title even as we get more and more into contemporary technology.