Ray Stevens: Internet Video Hits, Part 2...

Uploaded onto You Tube on March 11, 2010 "Caribou Barbie", a video salute to Sarah Palin, is nearing half a million on-line views. The current number of views is 469,247. If you click on the video stats it'll give a break down of several on-line sites that have embedded the video. More than 28,000 people watched the video at Ray's web-site. More than 44,000 people discovered the video from a referral. A referral, for those who don't know, are the small thumbnail images of music videos that pop up on the video screen whenever the music video you're watching comes to an end. At the conclusion of "Throw the Bums Out!" there are video referrals and according to the statistics more than 44,000 people clicked "Caribou Barbie" after watching "Throw the Bums Out!". However, the greatest referral video is "Come to the U.S.A.". Statistics show that more than 60,000 people clicked "Caribou Barbie" when they finished watching "Come to the U.S.A.". "Caribou Barbie" is 30,753 on-line views away from an exact 500,000. An actress/impersonator named Lori Stegner portrays Sarah Palin in the "Caribou Barbie" music video.



The music video is cute and filled with sight gags as you can tell. The video's release, on March 11th 2010, created a stir among those who viewed it on You Tube. 11 days later Ray uploaded another music video, "Throw the Bums Out!", on March 22. Since that particular video/song had a much more timely connection to the mid-term elections that year it overshadowed the "Caribou Barbie" video considerably. "Throw the Bums Out!" currently has 838,695 on-line views...compared to 469,247. I typically compare and contrast these two videos because of their release dates: March 11th and March 22nd 2010.

Those who want to watch 10 of Ray's political music videos on one DVD can purchase Internet Video Hits at his web-store. On the back of the DVD there are small thumbnail images taken from the various music videos. There is also a message from Ray commenting on the DVD's release and why he wanted to offer the music videos on DVD even though they're on You Tube, too.

Ray Stevens: The We The People Album, Part 2...

Hello one and all...the music journey today takes us to the current Ray Stevens album titled We The People. For those, like myself, patiently awaiting our copy of the album to arrive in the mail, we of course haven't heard any of the new political songs that are featured outside of the ones that have been made into music videos on You Tube...well, I can only speak for myself though. I plan on holding off listening to the songs until the CD arrives in the mail. I say this because there are a couple of places on-line where people can purchase an MP3 copy of the album. As is the custom, digital albums/MP3's, have snippets of the songs off to the side for potential customers to click and listen to song samples. As I mentioned, I'm holding off and won't give in and listen. I purchased my copy from Ray's official web-site store and I'm awaiting it's arrival in the mail. To refresh the memory of some of you, here are just some of the songs on this collection: "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", "The Global Warming Song", "We The People", "Midnight in Baghdad", "Three Fractured Factions", "Dear Andy Griffith...", and "We Are the Government".

One of the things you'll notice between the collection offered at Ray's site and the collection offered at Amazon is the DVD addition. The collection at Ray's site offers customers a DVD of four music videos in addition to the CD of music. The Amazon offering eliminates the DVD extra and just offers the CD. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, there are 22 songs on the collection. In earlier times this would be a double album: 2 LP's worth of music.

This particular release features two CD's of Ray Stevens material. The songs come mostly from the 1970's. There are 26 songs...13 songs on two CD's. A good number of songs on this collection are album tracks that weren't commercially released as singles. This collection will give those who just bought singles a chance to hear several album songs from Ray Stevens that they were missing. The image of Ray on the CD's cover comes from 1975. One of the rare moments during this time period where Ray had a beard. The collection was released on the Madacy label in 2003. Since that time the full-length vinyl albums that Ray recorded for Barnaby Records throughout the 1970's have been released digitally at various on-line stores, most notably Amazon. Now, of course, you can perhaps still come across the vinyl albums on eBay. I have a nice collection of Ray Stevens on vinyl...both the LP and 45 RPM variation. This CD features material recorded between 1968 and 1975. Now, because of this, any song from the early '60s in Ray's career is instead represented via a re-recording. "Ahab the Arab", "Funny Man", "Harry the Hairy Ape", and "Just One of Life's Little Tragedies", all songs from 1962/1963 are provided on this collection by way of 1968, 1969, and 1973 re-recordings of those songs. A small list of the songs contained on the CD are as follows: "Sunset Strip", "Bridget the Midget", "A Time for Us", "Deep Purple", "All My Trials", "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", and others.

Spring into fun with Ray Stevens!!!

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, it's exciting being a Ray Stevens fan...April is turning out to be the month that Ray's heavy promotion work on his just released CD project, We The People, kicks into high gear. As of this writing I am still awaiting my copy of the CD/DVD package to arrive in the mail. There will be a couple of appearances by Ray this month that many of his fans already know about...he's already appeared on WSM's Opry Country Classics as well as the morning radio show hosted by Bill Cody. Each of these appearances were back to back, April 1st and April 2nd. Ray's next stop on what I call his promotional tour will be an April 15th appearance at a Tea Party rally in Washington, DC. Ray will be performing at the Mall in the nation's capital. The rally will start around 5:45pm and last through 9:30pm. The second appearance from Ray will be on April 24th at the Country Music Hall of Fame's Ford Theater. This is the same theater where Bill Cody hosted the April 2nd radio show that Ray appeared on. It is on the night of April 24th that Ray will be honored in the series Nashville Cats: A Celebration of Music City Musicians. Ray will be there to sing and talk about his career...and throughout the special there will be look-backs on his career via video clips, etc etc. On April 30th Ray will be in Franklin, North Carolina for two shows at the Smokey Mountain Center for Performing Arts. You can find out more about this and other Ray Stevens appearances on his official web-site. A link to Ray's site is located off on the right hand side of the screen and once there click on the various sections such as "news", "tour", "buy", etc. etc.

One of the funniest and wildest comedy songs from Ray Stevens is "The Moonlight Special". This particular recording comes from 1974 and it was written by Ray. The song is hilarious even if you don't know the subject being parodied...for a couple of years after hearing this song I had no idea about the 1970's/early 1980's show The Midnight Special. In my mind the song was hilarious and I could tell that Ray was impersonating Wolfman Jack and Jerry Lee Lewis but I really didn't know much about the television show it was spoofing...fast-forward many years later and having learned quite a lot about the television show it's even more hilarious when I listen to the song. The fans of Ray's hearing this song for the first time in 1974 were treated to his dog howls...although these howls aren't as howling as the howls that howled their way through his 1960 recording of "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon", the howls in his 1974 hit are nevertheless one of the various vocal hooks of the song. For those who still haven't heard the song you will get to hear Ray do impressions/spoofs of Wolfman Jack, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Alice Cooper, and Jerry Lee Lewis. A heavy drum pounding is heard at the start of the song and at the start of the chorus of the song. The drum is kind of like an indicator that the chorus of the song is about to be sung again. Throughout the chorus howls can be heard in the background while Wolfman, renamed Sheepdog, shouts and hollers in delight over the talent on display.

I can't stop saying great things about this particular collection of Ray Stevens songs on the RCA label. I've written about this release quite a few times over the years and here I am writing about it again. The collection features eight songs chosen at random for your listening pleasure. The years of 1980 and 1982 make up the bulk of the material...1981 is represented by one or two songs. The CD collection, released in 1992, features one song from 1981 while the original vinyl copy from 1985 features two songs from 1981. In the 1987 cassette re-release, one of the 1981 songs was replaced with a comical song from 1980. Each release is titled Collector's Series and both feature eight songs. The 1987 version was released on CD format in 1992 which is what you see here.

1985 vinyl version:
Shriner's Convention; 1980
You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me; 1980
Country Boy, Country Club Girl; 1982
Where the Sun Don't Shine; 1982
The Dooright Family; 1980
Let's Do It Right This Time; 1981
One More Last Chance; 1981
Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love; 1982

1987/1992 version:
Shriner's Convention; 1980
You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me; 1980
Country Boy, Country Club Girl; 1982
Where the Sun Don't Shine; 1982
The Dooright Family; 1980
Let's Do It Right This Time; 1981
Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love; 1982
Put It In Your Ear; 1980

In closing...here are the most recent play totals for Ray's recent music video uploads at You Tube...

Throw the Bums Out!: 70,614
Caribou Barbie: 62,876
Thank You: 100,763
We The People: 2,903,585

Ray Stevens: The We The People Album...

I still refer to full-length CD's as albums. Ray Stevens picked April Fool's Day to release his much anticipated political/patriotic album centered around "We The People". The album, also called We The People, features 22 songs and 4 music videos. It is a CD and DVD package. April 1st is also the day that my Ray Stevens items arrived in the mail. Here you see me wearing the We The People t-shirt and the hat. On the back of the shirt is the tender message: "Throw the Bums Out!". April 1st is also the day that Ray appeared on WSM radio's Opry Country Classics program. Ray sang four songs and told the story behind the song, "Misty". The show was 2 hours but Ray's segment was the final 15 minutes or so. Ray sang "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Misty", "The Streak", and "Everything Is Beautiful". Ray is scheduled to appear on Bill Cody's radio program on April 2nd. The show airs on WSM radio as well...and it's a morning show. 5:30am-10am central time, 6:30am-11am eastern time. Bill's show is being taped on location at the Hall of Fame's Ford Theater and from the information that I found the special guests will be featured during the 7am-10am central, 8am-11am eastern time frame. In other words, guests won't start to appear until after the first hour and a half has passed. Donna Fargo as well as Anthony Smith are the other special guests in addition to Ray Stevens. I'm predicting the April 2nd appearance on Bill's show to have emphasis on the We The People project that was released earlier today.

The track list features some brand-new songs and some previous recordings that fit in with the political/patriotic theme. The songs in bold italics are those that were recorded specifically for this collection...

We The People
Caribou Barbie
Stand Up
Three Fractured Factions
Dear Andy Griffith
The Global Warming Song
Let's Roll
Solar Powered Song
Fly Over Country
We Are the Government
The Fallen Ones
Come To the USA
If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus
Kings and Queens
Obama Nation
Throw the Bums Out
Sucking Sound
Safe at Home
Thank You
Pledge of Allegiance / The Star Spangled Banner
Mr. Businessman
Midnight in Baghdad

The four music videos that appear on the DVD are...

We The People
Caribou Barbie
Throw the Bums Out
Thank You

You can purchase this CD/DVD package at Ray's web-site in the link below...the collection will be on display in the top left side of the screen with a "buy now" link underneath.

raystevens

Ray Stevens: Caribou Barbie, Part Four

Ray Stevens and the Caribou Barbie continue to obtain strong hits on video hosting sites across the internet. You Tube, of course, is where the music video originates and it's the You Tube video that's embedded across the internet in blogs and web-sites. To date there have been 35,690 hits. I decided to embed the music video once again in this blog. In the previous blog entry I copied the URL code. In essence, Ray has three video hits happening at the same time and each three have their own audience pretty much. Starting with the current one, "Caribou Barbie", and the big one, "We The People", and then there's the military tribute of "Thank You". In the latter's case, that particular song originates from 2004 but Ray never uploaded the actual music video onto You Tube until January 4, 2010. As of this writing the hit totals for those three music videos are as follows...the date on the left of each video title is it's upload date:

3/11/2010: Caribou Barbie: 35,690
1/4/2010: Thank You: 89,936
12/11/2009: We The People: 2,802,478



"We The People" as you can see from the hit count has passed the 2.7 million mark and it's into 2.8 million hits. It will more than likely reach 3 million hits and this coming Sunday March 21, 2010 there is suppose to be one last major vote on ObamaCare. It's a convoluted legislation and political mess that will no doubt surface at some point on Sunday when Democrat leaders in Congress are going to maneuver and sneak in ObamaCare without actually having an up or down vote. Afterward, the Democrats in favor of ObamaCare will proclaim that ObamaCare has passed even though there wouldn't have been a vote on the actual bill. It's a trick called "deem and pass" where, I think, the Senate bill will have been "deemed" to have passed in the House and then the Senate will certify it's so-called "passage" and send it to Obama for him to sign into law. I'll stop while I'm ahead because it's starting to sound confusing even to me! ObamaCare, for some who still don't know, is a socialist program centered around health care that lays the foundation for more and more Government expansion over private enterprise. The goal isn't to offer health care to those who don't have it.

The goal of ObamaCare is to slowly but surely destroy private enterprise because those private sector companies are not going to have the power to compete with Government run health care. The Government is going to entice free health care and what will that do to insurance companies across the country? Consumers are going to say to themselves "hey, why am I paying for insurance when I can get it for free through the Government??". The other side of the equation are the insurance companies...they'll no doubt lower premiums and costs, etc etc in order to keep customers from fleeing them and hooking up with ObamaCare, but, ultimately, the private insurance companies are not going to be able to make a profit and they'll go out of business. There are even sound-bytes of Obama declaring his visions of private industry health care being eliminated. Now do you see where I'm heading with this? ObamaCare is much more than health care...it's a path to socialism as we've said all along.

Edit 3/21/2010: The House has decided not to vote on ObamaCare using the 'deem and pass' tactic and will instead have a conventional yes or no vote.

Ray Stevens: Caribou Barbie, Part Three

Well here we are once again in Ray Stevens world! The play count at the moment for his latest music video about Sarah Palin, "Caribou Barbie", sits at 16,618. This is an increase since my last blog entry earlier this morning of 4,418 plays. I'm sure the blog world is becoming familiar with the music video even as I write this. It seemed as if word didn't spread as quick as before, referring to "We The People", but word spread quickly at some point on Saturday and it continued into Sunday with quite a few blogs picking up on the music video. The video was officially uploaded on March 11th and so it took 3 days for people to start spreading the video around on the internet at a much more rapid rate. Now all that's left is to continue to enjoy "Caribou Barbie" and witness it's play count continue to rise...and eagerly anticipate Ray's full-length CD.

I am sure I can speak for all Ray Stevens fans when I say we hope that Fox News will help promote the music video/song. His previous video, "We The People", had already topped the 1,000,000 play count before he began appearing on mainstream cable news programs and on radio shows. As I was commenting elsewhere, Ray at some point will need that exposure on Fox News again...and the fact that Sarah Palin is a contributor to Fox News it looks as if it's only a matter of time before the channel mentions the music video, at least that's what we're hoping for. Ray's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor was such a success that viewers stormed Ray's web-site, causing it to crash.

Speaking of his previous music video..."We The People" continues to receive activity on a consistent basis. That video has obtained nearly 50,000 additional plays in a couple of weeks time and it sits at the moment at 2,780,473. The video could still reach 3,000,000 hits before it's all said and done especially since ObamaCare is becoming a hot news item once again.

"Caribou Barbie" in the meantime is a funny music video parodying Sarah Palin's public image in a good-natured way and taking jabs at Obama and delivering visual jabs at mostly liberal personalities on cable television, all wearing lip-stick, both male and female. Once you see the video you'll understand. There are several catch-phrases that can be lifted from this song, too. "You bet'cha!" I think will be one of them as well as "I'm votin' Caribou" but probably more than any "Obama shelved in 2012". The link will take you to the video. If the video skips it's probably due to some kind of technical issue. I've watched the video quite a few times and sometimes it'll start and stop and sometimes it'll play clear through. Highlight the URL and copy and paste it in your individual search engine. The video will show up in the search results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG9LqX6xGpQ

Ray Stevens and the Caribou Barbie, Part Two...

It's a wonderful time to be a Ray Stevens fan. You all know who I'm talking to! The latest music video smash hit from Ray Stevens, "Caribou Barbie", is pulling in healthy numbers at You Tube in 2 days time. It's fun to see the progression of play totals to higher and higher. Yesterday the video was sitting at 1,138 hits. Well, in a matter of hours that number rose to 7,019 which indicated more than 5,000 people had viewed the music video in a few hours time. This kind of reaction is good but it got even better as the day and night wore on. It jumped from 7,019 to 8,670...and then throughout March 12th and March 13th it continued to steadily rise in play counts: 9,528...10,528...11,384...and currently "Caribou Barbie" is sitting at 12,200 hits. A lot of the success of this music video is thanks in large part to social network and video hosting web-sites. This means that traditional methods of getting music exposed, such as radio airplay, has more bolder competition than before. The fact that record companies are actively using places like You Tube and Facebook and Twitter, among others, to promote songs and artists, it gives on-line exposure credibility and a force to be reckoned with. Obviously the social network publicity is mostly, but not always, used by artists who can't get exposure on mainstream radio stations. This new way of getting around radio is becoming something of the norm. Ray currently is enjoying that success!!

Ray Stevens: Caribou Barbie

Hello all you fans of Ray Stevens! I was pleasantly surprised a few minutes ago when I made my way over to You Tube and found that Ray has uploaded a new music video. This one is hot off the presses as the saying goes. According to the statistics it was uploaded 3 hours ago. "Caribou Barbie" is the name of the new video and I'll give you three guesses as to who the song is about. Give up? The song is about Sarah Palin, of course, and I have only viewed the music video once because I wanted to quickly get the word out through this blog that Ray has a new music video available. After I post this blog entry I'll re-watch the video.



Will this music video rise to the 2.7 million hits of "We The People"? It's hard to tell...it might...considering how popular Sarah Palin is regardless of whether you agree with her politics or not. I don't want to spoil the video for anyone and so I won't go into detail about the sight gags or anything just yet. I'll no doubt make commentary as the days and weeks go by once a lot of people have seen the video. It should become another major video hit for Ray Stevens.

I suspect the video will jump in play totals as the hours/days go by. Remember, though, "We The People" came along at a time when ObamaCare was on just about everyone's mind. This "Caribou Barbie" is not about ObamaCare or health care as you'll see when you watch the video. This music video may attract an entirely different audience at You Tube than those who gathered to watch and comment on the "We The People" video. 3 hours into it's upload life, however, it's tough to tell...after listening to it once I can tell it's a catchy song and so I'm going to go watch it again.