Ray Stevens audio: "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow"...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! It's become something of an annual thing in the social media age for Ray to spotlight the birthday of Barry Manilow...specifically due to the fact that Ray recorded a novelty song about Barry in 1979 called "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", from the pen of Dale Gonyea. Some consider it a satiric recording...some call it a parody...no matter the description it's a funny song regardless. Ray recorded the song during his final months at Warner Brothers in 1979 and therefore it's the final single the record company released on him. The label did a lot more promotion for this particular release than the singles Ray recorded for them throughout all of 1978 and 1977. In fact, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" and the chicken clucking "In the Mood" from late 1976 appear on numerous Ray Stevens compilation albums and those two recordings always represent his Warner Brothers era. The single releases in between those two novelty recordings rarely, if ever, receive notice outside Ray's devoted fan base. The audio track of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" can be heard below. The cover art of the single release spoofs the album cover of Barry Manilow's second album just in case you're wondering where the inspiration for the cover art came from. Contrary to what some may think...this novelty song peaked near the Top-10 on Billboard's Adult-Contemporary chart...indicating that the very radio format that Barry dominated since the mid '70s was tolerant enough to have a laugh at their format's biggest star. On Billboard's Hot 100 it peaked in the Top-50...marking the final time a Ray Stevens single appeared on the Hot 100 pop chart. 

As far as I know Ray performed "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" on television only once...on a 1979 country music television special hosted by Jerry Reed. He may have performed it on Pop! Goes the Country as well as That Nashville Music...but I don't have any detailed episode lists to confirm my assumptions. I wish there were a database listing all of the television appearances of Ray Stevens from his first to his most recent. If such a database existed we could visit it, look up a television show in a search bar, and instantly get results detailing the date, year, and what songs Ray performed during his guest appearance. Way back in 2008 when I was in the beginning stages of this blog I actually had a zeal and began a quest to notate all of Ray's television appearances but it got to be such a daunting, unfulfilling task that I abandoned the project and never posted a blog featuring a truly detailed list of television guest appearances. It was daunting in that there were too many, first of all, and unfulfilling because the television appearances I came across in my research didn't have any information as to what he sang. I know Ray headlined a Showtime television special...he shared the special with Crystal Gayle in 1979...and yet to this day I have not found out any detailed information about it. 

😲 I got a little bit sidetracked, yes? Anytime the conversation is about Ray's years at Warner Brothers it automatically causes me to express my feelings surrounding the lack of attention that those great records receive and the lack of archival media footage online from that time period in Ray's career. One day I hope his studio albums for Warner Brothers get proper reissue. Yes, I've been saying that since 2008 when this blog was created...and I've been saying it for more than 10 years before I created this blog and I'll always say it. In the meantime the 1979 television performance of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" is featured below...

Ray Stevens: Compilation Look-Back...

Earlier in my blog posts I posted some entries surrounding the abundance of compilation albums you can find on-line released on Ray Stevens. Those releases are largely available on vinyl but there's a lot of them available on cassette and CD, too. Some of the compilations that I've posted about are ones I have in my own collection or they're collections I found while visiting on-line music stores and I saved their images for future blog entries. I've posted quite a few blog entries surrounding a certain 1979 compilation album that I do not have in my collection but I happen to like the cover art and obviously the songs found on that album are a must-have for any newcomer to Ray's career. The album often comes up for sale on eBay...and some of you may wonder if the album often comes up for sale then why haven't I purchased it by now?? One of the main reasons is the price is not reasonable (for me) and most, if not all, offerings are from the United Kingdom and the most recent offering is asking almost thirty dollars for it (which doesn't factor in international shipping, handling, and taxes). If I ever come across this compilation album on-line for a much more economical selling price I may at long last make a purchase...but for now I love the album from a distance...

The Best of Ray Stevens, as this one is titled, was released in 1979 on the Imperial House label in the United Kingdom. It's a 2-LP collection of 20 songs. The obvious recordings are here: "Ahab the Arab", "Mr. Businessman", "The Streak", "Everything is Beautiful", "Gitarzan", "Along Came Jones", "Misty", "The Moonlight Special", "Turn Your Radio On", "Bridget the Midget The Queen of the Blues", and 10 more. I wouldn't begin to guess how many compilation albums released on Ray Stevens have been given this title. The Best of Ray Stevens and another often used title, The Very Best of Ray Stevens, have long sent confusion for a number of fans because you can't necessarily refer to a compilation as The Best of Ray Stevens because the most loyalist of fans will wonder if you're referring to this 1979 release or perhaps the 1970 release by Mercury Records or maybe an import album from another part of the world or perhaps a compilation imported to America from Canada. The most often used compilation title is by far Greatest Hits. I grin as I type this because of the sheer number of Ray Stevens compilation albums that have been titled Greatest Hits over the decades. A lot of these compilation albums are the result of mass production of easily licensed recordings. A majority of Ray's Monument and Barnaby recordings fell into that category. By this I mean the recordings weren't too expensive and a lot of compilations on Ray Stevens began to surface in the late 1970s, and especially throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, as an assortment of record companies began to offer many compilation albums on Ray that often featured the same set of songs but in different sequential order depending on which album you purchased.

Some compilation albums would tack on a couple new selections just to keep things a bit different but by and large the 20 songs found on this 1979 album would make numerous appearances throughout the next decade on many of those compilation albums. Ray didn't have a say in those releases, either. To my way of thinking, and it's based on snippets of interviews I'd heard and read from Ray, the only greatest hits releases that he actively took part in and was truly aware of their existence were: Greatest Hits (1971; Barnaby); Greatest Hits (1974; Barnaby); The Very Best of Ray Stevens (1975; Barnaby); Greatest Hits (1983; RCA); Greatest Hits, Greatest Hits Volume Two, and Get The Best of Ray Stevens (all in 1987 on MCA); His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits (1990; Curb); and Greatest Hits (1991; Curb). In fact, the 1991 compilation on Curb Records features an alternate version of "There's a Star Spangled Banner", a song that originally appeared on his 1989 MCA album, Beside Myself. In the 1989 recording Ray tells the story of a P.O.W. in Beirut in addition to celebrating the American Flag itself. In the 1991 alternate recording it retains the same chorus and music arrangement but the verse lyrics are completely different. If you're not a devoted fan or student of all things Ray Stevens then you wouldn't be aware of the two completely different versions of the song. You'd think by looking at the track list that it's merely the same recording previously released on Beside Myself. Way back when I purchased 1991's Greatest Hits, believe me, I was also surprised to hear this different take on the song. By the way, you can click on each of the images of the LP for a larger view. As I mentioned I do not own that 1979 compilation album but it's safe to say the versions of "Ahab the Arab" and "Harry the Hairy Ape" come from his 1969 Monument album, Gitarzan, instead of the original recordings on Mercury in 1962 and 1963 respectively. The inspiration for this particular compilation album seems to be the recording that the record label tacked on as the last song on side two of the second LP. "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" was a hit for Ray on Warner Brothers in 1979 and so this song was added to the more familiar line-up of recordings. The songs found on the LP range from the years 1968 to 1975 and then it jumps to 1979...curiously omitting the hit recordings he had during 1976-1978...which only added to the obscurity in the next decade of his Warner Brothers recordings as they weren't kept in print.

In 1995 Warner Brothers seemingly out of the blue issued a 3-CD/3-cassette collection of many of his recordings for the label in the late 1970s. As a member of Ray's once active fan club and in the years before the internet explosion came along I used to type letters and mail them to Ray's fan club seeking information about whatever happened to be on my mind at the time and when I spotted those Warner Brothers compilations I sent off a letter telling of the Ray Stevens goldmine of music I found and how rare these songs happened to be (I'm sure they also realized how rare his Warner Brothers recordings were and still are and probably knew of the compilations beforehand); but, anyway, in the next fan club newsletter that arrived in the mail I was given some recognition by Ray's office staff in a brief section where they thanked me for letting them know that some of Ray's out of print and obscure recordings were available for purchase once again.

I bought those 3 compilation albums released by Warner Brothers with some of the high school graduation money I got...they're titled: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens.

Ray Stevens...a Barry 35th...

35 years ago...March 1979...to be specific the week of March 24, 1979...Ray Stevens entered the Hot 100 pop chart with a brand new recording, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". The song, written by Dale Gonyea, can be seen as a parody, a satire, a spoof, or some may take it as a tribute...nevertheless, it became a 'surprise hit' to a lot of people in the spring and summer of 1979. I first heard this song on 1987's Greatest Hits, Volume Two on MCA Records. That particular release is the one that features Ray as the baseball player on the album's cover. I immediately loved the song upon hearing it...entirely clueless as to who Barry Manilow happened to be. Raised on country music I never became familiar with Barry's actual recordings until the early/mid 1990s when I started to purchase some of the CD's that I came across at the local store. I had wanted to hear for myself the singer that Ray sang about. Once I heard "I Write the Songs" and seen a lot of the titles of songs on several of Barry's Greatest Hits collections I started loving "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" even more than I already did. The thing that attracted me to the song, aside from it being RAY STEVENS of course, is the arrangement/music structure. I loved that sound so much that I actually became something of a fan of Barry's thanks largely to Ray's 1979 hit song...which perhaps wasn't originally meant to have such a positive effect and have the potential to create fans for Barry...but, yet, in my case that's exactly what happened. Later on, once I heard "Copacabana", I found out who Lola happened to be...Ray mentions that name in his 1979 hit. As you can see, the marketing department at Warner Brothers really got into the promotion and publicity of this single...designing the picture sleeve of Ray's single to look identical to Barry's second studio LP.

The similarities didn't stop there...Ray's 1979 album The Feeling's Not Right Again is pretty much identical in design/cover art of Barry's 1975 album of a similar title, Trying To Get the Feeling. The ironic thing is, excluding the "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" hit single, the rest of Ray's 1979 album is a Best-of collection. The remainder of the LP is filled out with selected album songs, and a couple of single releases, lifted from three of Ray's previous four studio LP's for Warner Brothers (from the years 1976, 1977, and 1978). "Get Crazy with Me" is track 2 on the 1979 album. It originally was issued as a single in 1977, from the Feel the Music album...and by the way, "Feel the Music" is found on this 1979 album, too. The title track of one of his 1978 albums, "Be Your Own Best Friend", closes out the 10 song LP. It had been issued as a single in 1978 and reached the Top-20 on Canada's country music chart and the Top-40 country chart here in America. In fact, of the 10 songs on the 1979 album, 5 of them come from his 1978 Be Your Own Best Friend album. 2 songs come from the 1976 Just For the Record album ("OM" and "Gimme a Smile").

So, if we break it down, here's what we have: two songs from 1976, two songs from 1977, five songs from 1978, and the lead-off 1979 release, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

The catalog number for the single is WBS-8785. It's b-side, the Ray Stevens-penned "Daydream Romance", comes from 1977's Feel the Music album. On some releases the label credits 1979 on both sides of the single...especially on the larger 33 1/3 single release and the UK export. The 45-RPM single released in America accurately credits the A-side as 1979 and the B-side as 1977.

There are several nostalgic items from 1979 centered around this particular single. One of the items is a 1979 issue of Country Song Roundup that features an interview with Ray for an article called Help Me, Ray Stevens. I prefer that article...I have that issue in my collection...I purchased it on eBay in early 2000s. There also happens to be another 1979 article about the single in the pages of People magazine (a May 1979 issue). The story can be seen on-line but it contains a couple of factual errors (proclaiming his 1975 single, "Misty", to be his last hit prior to 1979's Manilow parody; another error is the intimation that his career had ceased to exist during that 4 year period between songs).

The truth is, Ray's career and song releases had simply moved over to country radio and into country music-oriented programming...he didn't "vanish" and his career certainly didn't cease to exist. It continued to thrive as the '70s continued on.

The song debuted on the Hot 100 pop chart on March 24, 1979 and made it's way into the Top-50 during an 8 week run. Music industry politics, no doubt, played a factor in the single not going higher than it did on the Hot 100. A week later, on March 31, 1979, the single debuted on the Adult-Contemporary chart. It's on this particular chart and radio format that the single achieved it's greatest success (reaching the Top-15 during a healthy 13 week chart run). This is something of an irony if you consider that in 1979 Barry Manilow was certainly the king, or at least one of the kings, of soft-rock and the master of the power ballad...and here was a song that had fun with that very sound...and so, as mentioned at the start of this blog entry, some may have taken this as a tribute of sorts to Barry (rather than see it as a parody).

For whatever reason, Warner Brothers decided to issue the song to country radio, too. A song about a megastar in pop/Adult-Contemporary music gets released to a radio format that doesn't even play that artist. It doesn't make much business sense but nevertheless it happened. The single, unbelievably, made the country charts in April 1979 largely, I assume, on the strength of sales and the publicity it generated on country music programs that Ray appeared on. It had a brief 3 week stay on the country music chart that month (it peaked in the much lower half of the then 100 position country single chart). It debuted on the April 14, 1979 chart and was in it's third and final week on the April 28th chart. The only time I've seen Ray perform the song is on a 1979 television special called Nashville Salutes America. It was released on DVD in 2005. Jerry Reed hosted the special and a lot of artists appeared on it performing their latest or their biggest hits...and Ray performed "Freddie Feelgood" and then spoke about his then-current single titled "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" before launching into it. Laughter greeted the narrative part of the song where Ray lists several Manilow song titles in a one sided conversation with a woman named "Mandy".

And that's some of the information on "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow"...a very funny song from Ray Stevens that made it's chart debut 35 years ago this month!