Oh yes it's another fan created blog about Ray Stevens written by me that you're reading at the moment and based on my previous blog entry it got me thinking a little about simian songs from Ray's career. I touched on this subject many blogs ago but with the recent YouTube upload of "Too Much Monkey Business" I decided to re-visit the topic. I also decided to write this blog entry to pass along specific unique view numbers for the latest video clips from Ray Stevens that are on YouTube.
The August 14th upload, "Too Much Monkey Business", has received 3,124 unique views so far. This is something of a dramatic pick-up since writing about the clip yesterday. I'm too modest to think my blog sharing helped it receive additional unique views but something definitely caused the video to get nearly a thousand more unique views. I'm not going to monitor the unique view numbers of either video clip on a daily basis. I used to do this in the past with other YouTube videos that Ray would upload but I no longer do that. Every so often I'll check the unique view count of these two videos and provide information on this blog at that time.
The August 17th upload, "Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy on Me", has received 20,068 unique views as of this writing. Yes, you read that correct, it's surpassed the 20,000 plateau as I write this. This video has also received a dramatic rise in unique views since I last wrote about it yesterday. The subject matter revolves around the medical profession and this is something that's been highly topical ever since politics crept into things in a major way in 2010. Although the song itself has nothing to do with that side of the medical profession (healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. etc.) it nevertheless is a song dealing with doctors...more specifically primary care doctors/family doctors and the frustrations all of us have when visiting the doctor. So the topicality of the subject matter gives it more of an edge in social media and you're seeing the results.
Simian silliness in song has been part of Ray's career dating back to the early 1960s. The cover photo of TV Magazine off to the left, though, is from the summer of 1970. The first notable recording spotlighting this happened to be 1963's "Harry the Hairy Ape". The recording became a Top-20 pop and a Top-20 Rhythm and Blues hit. Something more surprising is the fact that it's peak position was higher on the Rhythm and Blues chart. The song tells the story of an ape that spends his days attempting to scare people and it eventually leads to his becoming a rock and roll star. It was originally released on his 1963 album, This is Ray Stevens. 1969's "Gitarzan" took the fictional Tarzan and his jungle family and turned them into rock and roll performers. Although this Top-10 million selling pop hit is definitely more about it's parody of Tarzan as a rock and roll guitarist nevertheless there's the memorable vocal appearances of both Jane and their pet chimpanzee, Cheetah. The chimp is referred to as a monkey in the recording although technically Cheetah was a chimp. In this song the chimp likes getting intoxicated prior to his performances but you can't tell it based on the fervor in which he contributes to the jungle band. Why am I even making a distinction between a chimp and a monkey? You never know in this day and age...if I didn't make that distinction there would be somebody out there raising a fuss about Ray referring to a chimp as a monkey. Some people can be way too over-analytical. Ironically, Ray re-recorded "Harry the Hairy Ape" for the 1969 Gitarzan album. If you've got a lot of compilation albums released on Ray it's likely the 1969 recording of "Harry the Hairy Ape" that are on most collections. When the limited animation music video was produced of the song they used the 1969 recording instead of the 1963 recording.
In 1970 there came a song titled "Monkey See, Monkey Do" and it's from his Unreal album. The song itself had nothing to do with the simian but had more to do with social commentary and the slang phrase of people seeing other people behaving or thinking in some fashion and therefore adopting the character traits of others rather than being true to one's own point of view. The song itself adopts that slang phrase and also adds envy to the equation in which members of society, in general, attempt to mimic their peers as far as fashion, physical appearance, and income are concerned. A neighbor has a house with two garages and so that may inspire somebody else to top that and have a house built nearby with a three car garage. A person holds a certain belief but doesn't dare speak their mind for fear of being shunned by society and as a result this person adopts the opinion of "a majority" just to fit in...and at the crux of "Monkey See, Monkey Do" is the painting of society as a zoo as Ray asks us to find a mirror and look at ourselves. It goes hand in hand with the A-side of the single, "Come Around", a marvelous song criticizing excess, hypocrisy, and close mindedness found in some sectors of society. The picture sleeve of that particular single release you see above is from the overseas market. In America the A-side of the single was "America, Communicate with Me".
In 1984 Ray decided to do his version of the theme song of "The Monkees" television series. The song features Ray performing the theme song in a Monkees-like vocal performance at various moments throughout but the obvious highlight are the two greatly exaggerated fictional Austrian performers (Wolfgang and Fritzy) that frequently bicker and argue back and fourth as they attempt to perform their version of the theme song. You can find that hysterical performance on the album, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens.
In November of last year Ray uploaded a music video of "Aba Daba Honeymoon". The music video appeared out of the blue. Ray had recorded the song at some point in 2010/2011 for inclusion on his mammoth box set, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The music video had been in existence since 2013 according to the video details on YouTube but it had never been uploaded onto the internet until November 2017. The song dates back to 1914 and so it was nearly 100 years old prior to Ray bringing it back when he decided to record it for his 2012 box set. It had been recorded numerous times and there were several pop hits of the song in the 1950s and it's chorus was parodied in a long running series of television commercials for Frito's. The song is incredibly simple if not entirely fictional as far as it's plot goes: a monkey and a chimpanzee fall in love and get married in a ceremony in which a baboon is the preacher. The nonsense phrase of the song's title is explained as monkey talk. The fun of the song is how the tempo of the song gradually moves higher and higher and the lyrics are performed in such a frenzied fashion aided by the use of some scat-singing, too, before the tempo falls back down for it's conclusion. Ray's version is outstanding...musically speaking and the actual vocal performance. The video features a cameo appearance of Ray as Gitarzan near the beginning.
This brings us, chronologically, to the performance from his CabaRay television series of "Too Much Monkey Business". Ray hasn't officially recorded the song but this performance of the song has become a video release on YouTube and that is what I started this blog entry with.
The second single release on Ray Stevens in 1987 came along this month, actually. "Three Legged Man" hit the market in August 1987 as the follow-up to April 1987's release, "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?". Unfortunately, for the two additional single releases that year, "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" would prove to take a life of it's own and overshadow whatever impact the follow-up singles may have generated. "Three Legged Man" tells the comical story of a man who falls for a woman he met...and even after being told the woman is already in a relationship with a man named Peg Leg Johnson. Ray's character is undeterred and he steals the woman and also takes the wooden leg to prevent (he thinks) Peg Leg from chasing them down. To Ray's surprise Peg Leg starts giving chase... "...hopping and flopping..." on one leg trying to keep up. Ray tells of every place he, the two legged woman, and the one legged fool have passed though during the literal cross country foot chase. Finally, though, Peg Leg's exhaustion gets the best of him and he pleas for something of a truce. He relents and says that Ray can keep the woman for himself but in the name of all things decent he'd like to have his leg returned. However, there's a twist ending to the story, that I won't give away in case you hadn't heard the song. The song was penned by Shel Silverstein.
The third single release on Ray Stevens in 1987 came along in December. "Sex Symbols" (from the pen of Buddy Kalb) had actually become a very popular song in Ray's concerts in the months and years after it was released. In fact he performed the song on television for the first time on an episode of Hee Haw...and I think it could have been on an episode he was the guest co-host. I should clarify that it was the first time I had seen him perform the song...he could have performed the song on Nashville Now as well but if so I hadn't seen it. The song's inspiration was an unlikely but massively popular duet by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias called "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" a couple of years earlier. In "Sex Symbols", Ray performs it as a duet with Julio...but it isn't the famed Latin singer featured with Willie Nelson, though. Ray does a broad vocal impression of Julio Iglesias and whenever Ray speaks to Julio he consistently mispronounces the name as Jewel-E-Oh to which Julio always reminds him "no, no, it's Julio, Julio!!". Throughout the song the 'two' reflect on their popularity with women and they compare themselves to other perceived sex symbols (although Ray deliberately names very unlikely sex symbols for comical effect). As an added touch whenever Ray performed the song on television or in concert he'd always deliver it as a ventriloquist. A dummy of Julio would sit next to him and Ray would operate it's mouth whenever Julio would speak. You can see a performance of the song on the Ray Stevens Live! home video from 1993.
The first single release from Ray Stevens in 1987 came along, as mentioned, in April. "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" became a very popular hit that year and one that happened to be very timely as it dealt with the national controversy of scandalous televangelists. In this song (penned by Chet Atkins and Margaret Archer) Ray sings about waking up one morning and upon watching television he's greeted by a man asking for donations. He describes the man's attire and notices the Rolex strapped on the preacher's arm. This causes Ray to wonder if Jesus would be wearing a Rolex when he returns. The social commentary combined with the televangelist scandals went hand in hand and although you're not going to see any chart publications showing the song perched at the top do not let that mislead you in any way. The song was more popular than it's chart standings (something that's a common theme in Ray's career). The controversial subject matter it dealt with created a polarizing atmosphere and it never received the airplay it truly deserved given how popular the song was. In 1988 the song was nominated for a Grammy and if I needed to prove it's popularity even further Ray performed it on The Tonight Show...which wasn't necessarily a hot-bed for country music performers...and by this time Ray had firmly established himself as a country music performer/country comedian. Radio legend, Paul Harvey, dedicated two separate editorial columns to the song which ran in newspapers across the country.
The B-sides of two of the singles I wrote about above were "Cool Down, Willard" and "The Ballad of Cactus Pete and Lefty". "Cool Down, Willard" is the B-side of "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?" while "The Ballad of Cactus Pete and Lefty" appeared as the B-side of "Sex Symbols". In the case of "Cool Down, Willard" we have a very funny song about a farmer who's frustrated that his entire family is obsessed with the weatherman, Willard Scott, of The Today Show. In the song Ray plays the part of the frustrated husband as he complains about all the attention directed at Willard and how it's interfering and destroying his family life. Things are so bad, according to Ray, that nobody helps him with the chores and the women in his life (his wife, his grandmother, and his aunt) spend their day talking and gossiping about all things Willard Scott. Ray gets the chance to do his grandmother voice several times as he relates to us how much his grandmother's flipped out over Willard. "The Ballad of Cactus Pete and Lefty" (written by Ray and Buddy Kalb) is a comical tale of a Western codger and his pet sidewinder, Lefty. It's a spoof of campfire storytelling sessions but in this case it's set in the Old West as Cactus Pete tells of the many adventures he and Lefty have encountered while living in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. A running gag in the song is every time Cactus Pete mentions some sort of animal the ever hungry Lefty would shake it's tail in excitement. Like so many Ray Stevens songs the music helps paint a mental picture. Among the adventures recounted is the time Lefty fought an Eagle...described by Cactus Pete in his distinctive gravelly voice, "a baldy headed eagle...".
The B-side of "Three Legged Man" is none other than "Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy On Me" (from the pen of Buddy Kalb). As mentioned earlier this single was released in August 1987 as the second single from Crackin' Up, Ray's album that year. The essence of many Ray Stevens songs is the fact they take on lives of their own...regardless of when they were originally recorded or originally released. "Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy On Me" has always been a favorite of mine and as those of you should know by now it's since been uploaded as a music video on YouTube...some 31 years after it was originally recorded. The video itself, as I learned, was produced in 2013 and had aired on a television series Ray hosted for a retooled version of The Nashville Network (now called Heartland TV). Ray-ality TV was picked up by The Nashville Network in 2013. This 78 episode series was a follow-up to a short-lived subscription based service called Ray Stevens Backstage. It was in service for probably a little over a year, 2009-2011. I have some blog entries in the archives from 2009 spotlighting the subscription-based service and so I know it launched in 2009. The focal point of this service was to spotlight exclusive content and it served as the home for early episodes of his on-line sitcom, We Ain't Dead Yet, which starred Ray and featured many of his close friends and peers in the music business. The series was set in a fictional retirement home called The Encore. Ralph Emery appeared in several episodes as Doctor Wellman...which he plays in the music video of "Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy On Me". After Ray-ality TV aired on The Nashville Network in 2013 it became an on-line series in the spring of 2014 on YouTube. I'm thinking it was put on-line due to the fact that the re-launched Nashville Network had very little subscribers nationally and as a result not many people were able to see Ray's previous series the first time around.
Today, of course, Ray's television series is a music/talk show titled Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville and it's locally syndicated on PBS stations nationally. His video site, RayStevens.TV, is subscription based and it's the place to watch all episodes of the CabaRay Nashville television series that have previously aired. His current television series has been in production since 2015. It was originally titled Ray Stevens' Nashville and it aired for two 13 episode seasons on RFD-TV (2015-2016). It moved to local PBS syndication beginning in January 2017 under the new title, Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville. There have been 78 half hour episodes produced of this particular series. Episodes never took place at the actual CabaRay showroom, though, until after it opened it's doors in January of this year. The last nine episodes of it's most recent season (Season Six) took place at the CabaRay showroom. As you all should know Ray and his associates had hoped to have the CabaRay open by the summer of 2017 or at the very least the fall of 2017 but it finally had it's grand opening in January this year.
In closing here's that music video for "Doctor, Doctor Have Mercy On Me"...
