Ray Stevens and Company sing "Along Came Jones"...

One of the recent YouTube videos from Ray Stevens is a 1969 clip of "Along Came Jones". The performance is done against a backdrop of a refined, classical music performance showing Ray Stevens, Andy Williams, and Danny Thomas standing side by side and looking like a performance of "Along Came Jones" is the farthest thing from their minds.

Ray Stevens, Andy Williams, and Danny Thomas; 1969

Note the studious look of all three legendary entertainers. We see Andy Williams and Danny Thomas, in character, intently looking over their notes while Ray appears eager and ready to get things started. The trio walk out on stage and take their places behind the pedestals. After several seconds of fumbling with their "music sheets" and clearing their throats in a comical fashion there's a fanfare where the trio stand still and then Ray launches into a performance of "Along Came Jones". If you hadn't seen this video clip yet try and guess which one plays Sweet Sue and which one plays Salty Sam. Jimmy Osmond is also part of this video clip, too.

Ray Stevens, Andy Williams, and Danny Thomas; 1969

Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville...Reed Robertson

In this final episode of Season Two of Ray's PBS series the special guest is Reed Robertson. Ray opens the show singing "Dear Andy Griffith" featuring a lot of finger snapping from the harmony singers...but it didn't feature the exact music arrangement found on the studio recording...which doesn't feature finger snapping. The studio recording originated in 2010 on his album, We The People. Ray follows the opening performance with the limited animation music video, "Along Came Jones".



I was not into all of the hysteria and hype surrounding Duck Dynasty but several family members were. My parents, for example, couldn't miss an episode. In fact there was a time when my mom would watch the marathon airings of the show that used to air...even if she had seen the episode more than twice already...and so even though I wasn't necessarily a viewer/fan of the series I nevertheless was exposed to the series through my walking to and from my bedroom and the kitchen and passing by the living room and catching bits and pieces of the show.

Ray introduces Reed to the audience and asks about life in the Duck Dynasty universe. Reed speaks of his childhood and how he was an athlete playing five sports. He said he played football, too, but it wasn't his main sport. Given his height basketball became the main sport. Ray mentions that he was told to expect a gift...and Reed gives him a duck call. After testing it out Ray is told about Reed's parents being musically inclined but with two distinctive preferences. Reed says his mother used to sing opera throughout the house...many times early in the mornings as perhaps something of an alarm and that his dad loved singing Johnny Cash songs.

Reed performs a song titled "Hallelujah" and it's followed by Ray's clip advertising the Duck-a-Phone (actually spelled Duck-a-Fone) which parodies pan flutist, Zamfir. In the early '90s there were a series of television commercials advertising the pan flutist and they played all over television. Ray's parody featured a string of duck calls glued side by side in order to resemble a pan flute. The clip had been taped for inclusion in the 1992 home video, Amazing Rolling Revue, but was ultimately cut from the final print but once he uploaded the clip onto YouTube during the Duck Dynasty craze it obviously reached an entirely different audience mostly unaware of the original intent of the clip. The funny thing is Ray uploaded the sketch twice.

He uploaded it in 2012 but then uploaded it a second time in 2014 with some added material inserted into the beginning of the clip. The added material features Ray dressed in Duck Dynasty attire and wearing a comically fake long beard. That second upload, from 2014, has gotten more than 200,000 unique views on YouTube but yet the original upload from 2012 has amassed a little more than 30,000 unique views. As Ray has often pointed out in interviews a lot of the success of a song or a video depends 9 times out of 10 on timing...sometimes a song won't find it's audience until perhaps a second or third go around.

Reed follows the Duck-a-Fone clip with a performance of "I'll Be the One"...and then for the closing performance Ray calls on his daughter, Suzi Ragsdale, to perform with him on a song titled "Wishbone". This closes out Season Two of Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville.

The first 26 episodes of his television series have, as you should already know, been released on DVD as Season One (13 episodes) and Season Two (13 episodes). The 26 episodes that make up Season Three and Season Four have yet to be released onto DVD. Those episodes are the ones that were the exclusive, first-run episodes for PBS stations. The episodes featured on the Season One and Season Two DVDs originally aired on RFD-TV (during 2015-2016) and those episodes were repeated on numerous PBS stations during the first half of 2017.

The CabaRay is set to open in 5 days...January 18th...and more than likely that's when my next blog entry is going to be. This should be a very active week, though...so I may blog sooner than I'm initially anticipating.

Ray Stevens: Face the Music CD review...

This 24 song collection from Ace Records is something of a goldmine for many fans of Ray Stevens that do not have vinyl in their music collections. Over the decades of CD availability there have been releases on the market that have included a stray Monument single or 2 from Ray Stevens but never has their been a collection like this. I consider it great (but there's one major error that can't be overlooked). As the CD's title states this is a collection of Ray Stevens recordings during a 5-year period (1965-1970). 12 A-side single releases by Ray on Monument Records and the 12 accompanying B-side recordings make up the 24 songs found here. The song that gets the honor of being part of the CD title, "Face the Music", is one of the great ballads found on the collection and it originally appeared on Ray's 1968 LP, Even Stevens, and eventually found itself as the B-side of "Mr. Businessman". Ray's 5 year stay on Monument Records represents a period of change, growth, adaptability, irony, career flourish, and as always an aura of unpredictability.

Ray had actually been signed to Monument Records for a couple of years prior to the label issuing their first commercial single on him late in 1965. If I remember correctly from research I did years ago Ray had an exclusive recording contract with Mercury Records but he was free to join Monument Records for non-recording endeavors (producing, arranging, session work). Once the recording contract expired with Mercury Records then Monument was now able to begin releasing commercial singles from Ray at long last.

The debut single, "Party People", arrived late in 1965 backed with "A-B-C". The single didn't reach the Hot 100...in fact the first three single releases on Ray didn't reach the Hot 100 (some Bubbled Under). A fourth single, "Freddie Feelgood", did manage to make a Hot 100 appearance in 1966. Ray's novelty songs happen to have to life of their own. Even though statistics say that the song failed commercially (peaking in the bottom five of the Hot 100) it's nevertheless a Ray Stevens classic...more about this later...

Ray's fifth Monument release, "Unwind", became his highest charting single for Monument to date...peaking halfway up the pop chart. The single that really set things in motion came next...1968's "Mr. Businessman". It reached the Top-40 half of the Hot 100. After it's release Ray had suddenly become a 'superstar' and had achieved significant acceptance as a serious pop vocalist rather than being labeled a zany novelty act that DJ's didn't take seriously. A lot of the reason for the lack of success (airplay speaking) of Ray's recordings is due to the lack of acceptance of various radio disc jockey's. I continue to hold the opinion that Ray's songs have a lot of appeal and are highly entertaining but lack of airplay hinders any chance of something becoming a hit song.

A lot of listeners, unfortunately, never really had a chance to hear much of Ray's Monument output simply because radio stations didn't expose the material to potential record buyers. A shame, for sure, but this CD goes a long way at exposing the single releases on Monument Records. Earlier I mentioned that "Freddie Feelgood" has since become something of a Ray Stevens classic in spite of it not actually being 'a huge hit' at the time of it's release. The reissuing of Ray's catalog over a period of 2 decades on a variety of compilation albums has caused many fans to hear obscurities and near-hits tucked away on Greatest Hits and The Very Best Of collections and in their subsequent appearances on compilation CD's a song like "Freddie Feelgood" or "Unwind" have become just as familiar to Ray Stevens fans as "Gitarzan" happens to be.

Speaking of "Gitarzan" I must address a major flaw in this otherwise flawless project. The biggest hit single for Ray during his Monument stay happened to be the million selling Top-10 pop hit, "Gitarzan". The single hit the market in 1969 backed by "Bagpipes, That's My Bag". Unfortunately, bizarre, baffling, and perhaps one could say inexcusable is the major gaff on part of the record company of not doing their research. Rather than having 1969's "Gitarzan" on this CD they instead offer Ray's 1995 recording of the song. It's the audio recording for the official music video which made it's debut on Ray's direct-to-VHS movie, Get Serious!, in 1995.

Yes, you read that correctly. It's puzzling because "Gitarzan" appears on so many compilation CD's and given the work that went into putting this project together you'd think that a release celebrating Ray's Monument recordings would at least feature the original recording of "Gitarzan" instead of placing the 1995 re-recording on there.

The final three recordings on the CD, "Little Woman", "The Fool on the Hill", and "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" are a trio of recordings that mark their CD debut. Each song comes from Ray's 1969 LP, Have a Little Talk with Myself, in which the title track is song 21 on this CD. That particular 1969 LP has never been remastered and re-released onto CD.

In the liner notes the author does a remarkable job in showcasing a lot of nostalgic promotional images originally found in music trade magazines of the time and there's a lot of images of the single releases, too. The author of the notes also makes mention of various chart positions of the songs but there are several places within the essay that focus too much on the commercial side of a recording...much is made of the fact that a lot of his singles didn't "make the charts" but there isn't any reason for this given. It's left for the reader to assume that a song that isn't a hit means that it must not have been any good...but that's not the case...

As I touched on earlier a lot of the reason behind a song not making it is due to the airplay, or lack thereof, of any recording. If radio isn't playing a song and exposing it to people then chances are it isn't going to sell...and if something doesn't sell then it can't become commercially successful. Ray's lack of massive airplay was never due to him not being popular as an entertainer and it's never been a case of him not being talented. Simply put, influential radio disc jockeys, I feel, had preconceived ideas about his music or didn't understand his music and therefore disc jockeys didn't support him as much as they could have.

This collection of Monument recordings serves as an introduction to the sounds of Ray Stevens during a highly creative and frenetic time in pop music in general. Balancing the novelty singer vs. pop crooner artistic tug of war is clearly on display here from start to finish. One of his most powerful vocal performances is "The Minority"...just listen to him belt out the lyrics! It appeared on his 1968 album but ended up as a B-side of one of his 1969 releases, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". The artistic tug of war would continue on into the 1980s for Ray Stevens before he decided to market himself as a country comedian for the next several decades. The results paid off (several Gold and Platinum albums, Gold and Platinum VHS home videos, and numerous awards as Comedian of the Year throughout the '80s and '90s).

Although he had his fair share of serious hit songs by the time his stay at Monument came to a close in 1970 he more or less remained an enigma to music critics throughout the coming decades. Critics and disc jockey's alike never really knowing if he's pop or country...or if he's to be taken seriously or if he's joking around...the thing that gets lost in all of it is Ray's incredible versatility.

If someone has a difficult time labeling a singer as strictly "pop", "country", "comedy", etc. then all that can be said of such an artist is that they're something more than that...they're an Entertainer!

Ray Stevens: Rayality TV webisode 34...

Once again it's time to take a look at Rayality TV...the 34th installment debuted this past Friday. The clip is from one of Ray's concert DVDs and it's a performance of "It's Me Again, Margaret". If you consider yourself a fan of Ray Stevens at all then you should already be very familiar with this song and, like a lot of his stage performances, you'll be hooked from the beginning. Ray knows how to perform on stage and to deliver every drop of visual comedy into a performance.

This is one of his all-time classics.

Margaret is just one of the various female characters that have become embedded into the collective memories of every Ray Stevens fan. Aside from Margaret we've heard Ray sing about Fatima, obviously, in the 1962 classic "Ahab the Arab". Fatima, a member of the Sultan's harem, is carrying on with Ahab. Most critics, if not all, usually (or deliberately) forget that it's a comical cheating song and it brings scorn and contempt from hypersensitive, politically correct zealots. In my opinion the song's cleverness of blending and mixing various fictional titles together and presenting it in a pop music recording is certainly praise-worthy, fictional stories such as Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, The Thief of Baghdad, The Sheik, The Son of the Sheik...each of those classic stories/films inspired Ray.

In the official music video of "Ahab the Arab" (filmed in 1995), Ray pays homage to the Valentino films, appearing several times in brief silent-movie type footage. It's very noticeable so be on the lookout for it.



Ray's single became a hit in the summer months of 1962. In December that year a brand new movie premiered...titled Lawrence of Arabia. I'm certain that the movie's box-office popularity throughout the early half of 1963 had unexpectedly kept Ray's novelty single as a radio recurrent long after it's original peak in 1962. Ray's single sold more than a million copies...I'd have to say that the sales strength came from much more than airplay exposure alone.

In the 1969 hits "Gitarzan" and "Along Came Jones", Ray told us about Jane and Sweet Sue, respectively. Jane attempted to be the singer in the jungle band...but her mate's overly anxious performances got on her nerves so much she screamed out her catchphrase at the end of her contribution (you readers should know that catchphrase!!). "Gitarzan" sold a million copies. Here's Ray as "Gitarzan" on the picture sleeve that accompanied the 1969 vinyl single...

Sweet Sue, on the other hand, is the classic damsel in distress type...always put in danger but rescued in the nick of time by Jones. Neither participant in "Along Came Jones" have any aspirations of being a singing sensation, though. A Gitarzan album appeared in 1969. A year later Ray had himself another hit comedy recording featuring a fictional female character...can you guess the name of it? If you said Bridget you're absolutely correct!!

"Bridget the Midget" became a international hit in late 1970/early 1971. The biggest success happened to occur in the United Kingdom. The song tells the story of a fictional tap dancer named Bridget and her back-up group, Strawberry and the Short-Cakes. The hook/gimmick of the novelty song is the sped-up vocalization of Bridget. Ray, in his natural voice, acts as presenter/narrator and at several moments in the recording there's an appearance of a spaced out beatnik/hippie-type patron that offers his enthusiasm about the goings-on.

The most popular female character in a Ray Stevens recording is a 3-way tie, actually. One of those is the previously mentioned Margaret from "It's Me Again, Margaret". The second of the three is Sister Bertha from "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival". That song and the one about Margaret both arrived back-to-back on a 1984 comedy album from Ray called He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (a Platinum selling, Top-5 Album on the country charts). Sister Bertha is the unfortunate soul that had a peculiar thing happen to her during church service.

Sister Bertha wasn't the first religious fictional female character to appear in a Ray Stevens recording. Four years earlier, in 1980, Sister Doris and Sister Dewdrop debuted on "The Dooright Family". Their duty was to sing harmony and bless the hearts of all they see. That song, made into a music video in 1995, debuted on Ray's 1980 Shriner's Convention album.

The third female character in the 3-way tie is none other than Ethel...the legendary wife of the eyewitness of "The Streak", in 1974. She comes in at #1 in the 3-way tie...the reason being is her name is synonymous with streaking thanks to the song's catchphrase heard at various moments, "don't look Ethel!!!". Another reason she's first in the 3-way tie at #1 is because "The Streak" sold more than 5 million copies internationally and because of the comical twist and the end of the song regarding Ethel's future.

Here are some other female characters that have popped up or have been mentioned in numerous recordings from Ray Stevens through the decades...

Sally Smash (pop vocalist in "The Rock and Roll Show", 1962); Sugar Bee (companion of motorcyclist "Speed Ball", 1963);  Heidi Fokes (girlfriend of "Butch Babarian", 1964); Bubble Gum (the lead character in "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer", 1964); Mary (title character in "Mary, My Secretary", 1967); Fair Maiden/Damsel (victim in "Sir Thanks-a-Lot", 1969); Mildred Queen (pop vocalist in "The Moonlight Special", 1974); Rita (title character in "Rita's Letter", 1980); Melissa (title character in "Melissa", 1981); Mary Lou Picket (from "Country Boy, Country Club Girl", 1982).

I'll stop there or I'll find myself mentally recalling every studio album from Ray Stevens starting in 1983 and moving forward...thinking of each and every mention of a female's name in a song or in the title of a song and so I'll stop there...but the characters above make up a good enough list.  

Ray Stevens: Two for Forty Five...

Yes, it's me once more and it's another fan created blog post about the one and only Ray Stevens. This time I decided to mention a couple of albums from Ray that are 45 this year. Released in 1969, "Gitarzan", became a Top-10 pop hit and a million seller. Utilizing a title given to him by Bill Justis (referenced by his birth name of William Everette in the credits), Ray came up with this story of Tarzan, Jane, and their pet becoming unlikely rock music stars. A novelty album appeared soon after...titled Gitarzan.

The comedy album spotlighted his reverence for The Coasters, especially, and it featured his versions of comedy songs made popular by other performers, too. After finally being able to successfully establish himself as a serious pop music performer a year earlier in 1968 (thanks in part to the Even Stevens album and it's big single, "Mr. Businessman"), the comedy image returned with a vengeance during much of 1969 as the Gitarzan album, the "Gitarzan" single, and it's follow-up single, "Along Came Jones", became big radio and sales hits not only in America but in Canada and internationally ("Gitarzan" made the hit lists of several European countries in 1969). "Along Came Jones" became a Top-30 pop hit...not exactly the million selling phenom as "Gitarzan" but it nevertheless was a popular hit single and one that almost always appears in tandem with "Gitarzan" on a myriad of compilation albums. If you see a compilation album featuring "Along Came Jones", chances are "Gitarzan" is also going to be on that same compilation...usually each song follows the other due to their origination being the same 1969 album.

Ray's version of "Along Came Jones" is particularly notable for it's use of his mimicry of the damsel in distress, Sweet Sue, shrieking and sobbing her way through one predicament after the other...rescued in the last minute by a man referred to only as 'Jones'. The Coasters recording of the song in 1959 lacked this unique touch. If you should hear anyone cover "Along Came Jones" and it include female cries of help and save me, they're technically covering the Ray Stevens version and not the original by The Coasters. The 1969 album became available on CD in the mid 1990's on the Varese Sarabande label. I purchased the CD years ago...it comes with exclusive liner notes from the Varese writing staff and the notes are presented in obvious historical context given that it had been more than 25 years since the LP originally hit the market in 1969. The original LP featured liner notes from Merv Griffin and those are obviously more contemporary sounding and more in the moment than the ones provided in 1996 for the CD release. The pictures that appear on the back of the LP make their appearance on the back of the fold out CD cover. The back of the CD, as posted here, lists the songs and the writer(s) and chart information. The CD features the complete 11 track album from 1969 and it tacks on 3 bonus tracks. For the 1969 album Ray re-recorded 1962's "Ahab the Arab" and 1963's "Harry the Hairy Ape". Those re-recordings have long since appeared on many compilation albums (rather than the original hit recordings). The album also features "Sir Thanks-a-Lot", an original, which spoofs The Knights of the Round Table. Also on the album are his versions of "Mr. Custer", "Alley Oop", "Little Egypt", and "Yakety Yak" in addition to the hit singles "Gitarzan" and "Along Came Jones". Also, Monument placed a couple of his 1966 single releases on this album and dubbed laughter/applause over top of the recordings: "Freddie Feelgood" and "Bagpipes- That's My Bag".

Ray filmed a music video for "Gitarzan" in 1995 for his direct-to-home video movie, Get Serious!. The video's been on YouTube since May 2011...



An animated music video of "Along Came Jones" hit YouTube in June of last year. The animated video had been produced for a limited-animation music video collection that originally was released on DVD. Ray later uploaded all of those animated music videos onto his YouTube channel...



After the phenomenal success of the 1969 novelty singles and their parent album, Ray jumped back into serious mode once again and eventually released an under-rated masterpiece called Have a Little Talk with Myself in the latter half of 1969. A lot of time, effort, energy, and obvious talent went into the making of that studio album. You can tell it by the production aspects and the musical styles represented. Take a look at the back of the album, if you have a copy, and take in that lengthy list of musicians and soak up the commentary in the liner notes, which feature quotes from co-producer Jim Malloy and from Ray Stevens himself about the making of the album. The album is notable for the inclusion of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". The song, from the pen of Kris Kristofferson, represents the first-ever commercial release of a song that ultimately became a major hit a year later for Johnny Cash. Ray issued the song as a single in the latter half of 1969 and it inched along the Hot 100 for a couple of weeks but it unexpectedly reached the Top-60 of the country music chart. In Canada it hit the Top-50 on their country music chart.

Here is a 1970 performance from Ray of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". The clip features his performance of another song, "You Are My Sunshine". The latter features a different arrangement than what you might expect. The performance took place on his 1970 summer television program. The clip appeared on YouTube in September 2013...



On the 1969 album covers "Help!", "Hey Jude", "The Fool on the Hill", "Hair", "Aquarius", "But You Know I Love You", "Spinning Wheel"...you can see that the songs of choice were very contemporary. He doesn't really stray too far from the original arrangements, either, but he does select different instrumentation on several. The title track, "Have a Little Talk with Myself", became the second single release. It Bubbled Under the Hot 100 but crossed over to the country charts and peaked in their Top-70.

He covers Bob Dylan's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" (it became the third single release from the album early in 1970 and it Bubbled Under the Hot 100).

Bubbling under the Hot 100 is a special chart that ranks singles that are commercially available and have sold in regional markets all over the country but haven't reached the national sales plateau nor gained consistent enough airplay across the country to migrate to the actual Hot 100. A song that reaches #4 on the Bubbling Under chart, but doesn't make it into the Hot 100, has an official peak position of #104. If you ever see statistics that say a single peaked at #115, for example, but you know the Hot 100 only has 100 positions...that #115 means that it peaked at #15 on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart.

1969 is mostly remembered, by nostalgic people and historians, as a violent era filled with anti-war protests, celebrated drug usage, the peak of the hippie culture and the boiling point in the mainstream between clashing generations of people on a whole host of social differences. Peace and love, Vietnam, and protests are several phrases that many associate with the late '60s (1969 specifically). Ray turned 30 in January of 1969 and so he was in that age bracket that was largely in the middle of the "youth" vs. the "establishment". 30 isn't old but at 30 you're no longer a teenager or an early 20 something, either, which happened to be the general age bracket mainly driving the counter-culture protests of the time period. One other song Ray covers on the 1969 album is "Games People Play". It's so good...it's from the pen of one of Ray's friends from his early years in and around Atlanta, Georgia in the late '50s...Joe South.

Ray performed the song on his 1970 summer television program and the clip appeared on YouTube in August 2013. It also includes a performance of "Reach Out in the Darkness". Ray never recorded that song, though, it's only available through this performance clip from 1970.



Did you notice the omission of the prophet that can be heard on the studio recording of "Games People Play"? In the studio recording, during the brief instrumental break, Ray can be heard shouting in a heightened state of anguish predicting the world is coming to an end and that we're all doomed. Ray doesn't perform those lyrics in this 1970 clip and I'm sure the reason is because it would break up the serious overtone of the performance. Those that had purchased the 1969 LP and had been familiar with his version of "Games People Play" might have been curious to why the ridicule of the gloom and doom prophets was omitted from the live performance...but it's not too terrible of an omission that changes the dynamics of the song.

I'd simply love it if a record company (major or independent, domestic or overseas) would celebrate the 45th anniversary of these 1969 albums by issuing them on CD as a '2 album on 1 CD' release. I'd love it even more, though, if just the Have a Little Talk with Myself LP finally became available on CD!! I don't ever think it'll happen but there's always wishful thinking.

Ray Stevens and the Spirit of '76, Part 9...

Good early Sunday morning all Ray Stevens fans! Yesterday the 1972 performance of "Along Came Jones" by Ray Stevens was uploaded on You Tube. The performance comes from his first appearance on Hee-Haw and it can be seen by clicking this link. Specifically, this was the second performance from Ray during the episode. His first performance was his current single at the time, "Turn Your Radio On". That performance is also on You Tube and I posted about it in my blog several months ago. Hee-Haw was a fun show to watch no matter who the special guests were. Whenever a singer that I was a fan of appeared as a guest then it made the show even more fun. The show currently airs on the RFD-TV network on Sunday nights at 8pm Eastern, the Sunday night episode re-airs Monday mornings at 10am Eastern, and then episodes typically pulled from 1969-1971 are shown Thursday evenings at 6pm Eastern.

For the curious, Ray's current music video titled "Mr. President - Mr. President" has gotten more than 240,000 on-line views in 2 weeks time. As of this writing Ray hasn't appeared on any TV or radio program to promote the video even though a part of it was played on a couple of Fox News programs: Fox and Friends along with The O'Reilly Factor. The song was played in it's entirety on Mark Levin's radio program a couple of Friday's ago while Tom Marr was a guest host. Ray's previous video, the "Obama Budget Plan", has 811,420 on-line views. That particular video was uploaded 5 months ago and it appears the current video will more than likely reach 300,000 within the upcoming week based upon the pace that it's on. By comparison, Ray's current video having more than 240,000 views in 2 weeks is higher than the total on-line views of "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore" released on You Tube by Ray 8 months ago. That particular video, as funny as can be, has 236,099 on-line views at the moment.

As I touched upon in earlier blogs during the spring of 2011 the big reason why, I think, that particular video hit real big in it's first couple of weeks and then faded was mostly due to the controversial full-body scans at airports being in the news nearly 24/7 for a couple of weeks and then other things came along to push it from the headlines. As most people realize topical songs are only as big as the topicality of the subject matter. Once the topic of a song gets pushed from the headlines then often what happens is any song, story, or commentary about that topic gets swept under a rug. Also, given that millions of people don't even step foot inside an airport it was perhaps difficult to translate to those who don't have experience with airport security procedures. Nevertheless the video hit a nerve at the right time as evidenced by it's meteoric rise in views during the spring of 2011. "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", "Obama Budget Plan", and "Mr. President - Mr. President" are on his Spirit of '76 CD. The CD also contains his emotional song, "God Save Arizona". A video of that song has more than 800,000 on-line views.

On the subject of Ray Stevens and his tour schedule...I'm a bit baffled that those who attended his concert in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina back on October 8th never wrote any blogs, posted on any message boards, or wrote on Ray's Facebook or Twitter page about their experience attending the show. The show took place at the Alabama Theater and I've periodically checked Facebook, Twitter, and Google's blog results but still there's not been any commentary/review of the concert from those who attended unless those who've written their reviews aren't using 'Ray Stevens' as a keyword in their tag box or label box. If this is the case their review(s) won't show up when people do searches for Ray Stevens on the internet. Anyway, like I said, I'm just a bit baffled why nobody's come forward (yet) about their time at Ray's concert.

Ray's next concert will be October 21st in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at the Country Tonite Theatre. Ray will do two concerts that day. The first show will be at 3pm and the second at 8pm. According to a post on Ray's web-site back on October 10th, the 8pm concert was nearly sold-out...those who've not bought any tickets to the show yet and you're wanting to attend I'd suggest you call the venue and see if there's any tickets left for the 8pm show and obviously if it's sold-out get tickets to the 3pm show. Everything you want to know is located in the Event section of Ray's web-page located here. Ray's page gives what I assume to be the local number for the venue. At the Country Tonite page they also list an 800 number for tickets: 1-800-792-4308.

Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw, Part 2!!

In a previous blog in February of this year I did a review of a 1972 episode of Hee-Haw with Ray Stevens as a guest star. It was the first episode of the 1972-1973 season. As you may know one of the video clips of his two performances that were available on You Tube have been taken off-line. "Turn Your Radio On" is currently still on-line but "Along Came Jones" was removed.

Ray would make a second appearance on the show several weeks later in 1972 but then wouldn't make a return visit for a couple of seasons. As I mentioned in previous blog entries Ray didn't appear annually on Hee-Haw until the '80s and from that point forward you could count on seeing him as a guest and later, guest host, on numerous episodes throughout the '80s. I've seen episodes in later years where Ray performed "Shriner's Convention" and "Love Me Longer" on a 1980 episode. There were episodes I saw where he performed "Can He Love You Half as Much as I?", "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?", "The Flies of Texas Are Upon You", "Sex Symbols", "Barbeque", and "Where Do My Socks Go?".

I know he's appeared on more episodes and sang more songs than those on Hee-Haw but I never became knowledgeable about Ray until the mid '80s and so that's where my memory dates back to. The 1980 episode with Ray as a guest is something I watched on The Nashville Network in the mid 1990's back when the network was on the air and had added the reruns of the show onto their line-up.

Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw!!

Colossal, amazing, marvelous, wonderful...those are just a few of the adjectives that can be described after watching Ray Stevens perform on Hee-Haw tonight. For those who don't get RFD-TV there's a subscription-based offer and the details are at their web-site. Those who want to subscribe to an on-line version of RFD-TV can do so and according to what I read the first month after sign-up is free. It's a monthly charge to a person's credit card, of course, but with membership you'll be able to watch every program that they air. The link is down toward the bottom of this blog entry.

On tonight's Hee-Haw it was the first episode of the 1972-1973 season...and it included several additional cast-members and the debut of the Empty Arms Hotel sketch that Roy Clark would star in for the next 19 years. Misty Rowe, Marianne Gordon, and Anne Randall joined the cast beginning with this episode...and there were cameo's by Gailord Sartain and George Lindsey. Sartain wouldn't become an official member of the show until later in the year. Lindsey had been making appearances on and off throughout the latter part of 1971 and early 1972 and he, too, became an official member of the show later on. Anne Randall was only on the program during the 1972-1973 time frame.

Meanwhile...Ray Stevens performed "Turn Your Radio On"...and the burning question I asked in a previous blog was answered tonight!! The answer is yes! Yes...on the 1972 episode of Hee-Haw Ray Stevens did indeed have his beard. I would like to have a shirt like the one he wore...it looked to be one of those black silky Hawaiian shirts. Anyway...he performed "Turn Your Radio On" at the piano and then for his second performance he became much more animated and loose as he performed "Along Came Jones"...complete with falsetto babble from the character, Sweet Sue, which even brought a laugh to banjo player Bobby Thompson (who I've rarely seen smile or laugh). In this performance Ray was not at the piano, obviously, and several cast-members were seated in a circle as he merrily told the tale of Jones, Sweet Sue, and Salty Sam. Ray didn't participate in any of the comedy sketches on this particular episode and all in all it was a great appearance!! The episode re-airs Monday morning at 10am Eastern, 9am Central.

Here's that link for those interested in having RFD-TV on your computer...

RFD-TV Video-on-Demand

Ray Stevens: Along Came Stevens...

In my opinion the thing that makes Ray Stevens version of "Along Came Jones" much more hilarious than the original classic by The Coasters is the use of the helpless female voice and the villainous laugh. These touches were missing in the original by The Coasters. I believe that The Coasters had the hit on the song in 1959 and a decade later Ray brought it back to life. In Ray's version we hear the cries of Sweet Sue and the evil laughter of Salty Sam. We get the visual image that Jones is riding horseback because throughout the song's chorus we hear sound effects of horse hoof's planking along the pavement. Ray often cites The Coasters as one of his influences...both the A and B side of the single featured his versions of Coasters hits. Ray kept the spirit of the recordings in the vein of The Coasters including the signature saxophone that became synonymous with all Coasters recordings...even on songs that didn't have a saxophone...because most people assume everything they recorded had the saxophone honking away in the background. "Along Came Jones" became a major Top-30 pop hit for Ray in 1969. It was the second and final single pulled from his Gitarzan album. Fans often wonder why nothing else was released as a single and it remains a mystery why just two songs emerged from the album as singles. I've often came to the conclusion that because this album was released during the time when Ray wanted his serious/non-comical recordings to gain more attention, any success he had with a comedy recording was down-played to some degree. The single, "Gitarzan", became a Top-10 pop hit and a million seller...and it was the lead-off single from the album of the same name.

Ray seldom did parodies or spoofs. This is one of the exceptions during this time period. I should be more specific and say that from my understanding Ray never set out to do spoofs or parodies when it came to comedy. Instead, most of the comical recordings are more rooted in satire, social-commentary, absurdity, and irony. The same thing can't be said for this hilarious spoof of a popular television show that Ray took aim at on this recording. The Midnight Special, long associated with Wolfman Jack, was still in it's early stages when Ray recorded this spoof/parody of the program. The television show went on to air for nine years, 1973-1982. Entitled "The Moonlight Special", Ray presented a musical farce that included his impressions of Wolfman Jack, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Alice Cooper, and Jerry Lee Lewis. I wrote about this song several blog's ago in an entry called "Anniversary Under the Moonlight". You can search my archives for the detailed commentary about the song. Ray put together an animated music video of the song several years ago which includes a re-recorded track and some alternate lyrics for the Alice Cooper parody.

"Freddie Feelgood" is a song that allows Ray to spotlight his scat-singing prowess and at the same time spotlight his vocal effects as he mimics instruments in Freddie's band. The full-title of the song is "Freddie Feelgood and His Funky Little Five Piece Band". The song goes back in Ray's career to 1966. It was released as a single that year and peaked in the lower reaches of the Hot 100. The b-side was a song called "There's One In Every Crowd", a non-comical performance. "Freddie Feelgood" was later included on his 1969 Gitarzan album...and then featured on his 1974 Boogity-Boogity album before showing up on numerous best-of and greatest hits compilations released on Ray through the years. He made a music video of the song in 2000, some 34 years after recording the song.