Ray Stevens: The Christmas Time of the Year

Hello all of you fans of Ray Stevens!! The Christmas season at the CabaRay showroom wrapped up last weekend and the showroom will be closed until December 26th. There are two more concerts scheduled to wrap up 2023. Those additional concerts from Ray Stevens will take place on December 29th and December 30th. There won't be a New Year's Eve show and I'm sure most of you may have some kind of idea of why. In case you're not aware it was on New Year's Eve (December 31, 2021) that Ray's wife of 60 years passed away from cancer. Although I've not been able to find any information online to confirm my opinion, and it's just my opinion, I'd say that in tribute to her he made the decision to forgo future New Year's Eve concerts and so there wasn't one, obviously, in 2021 and there wasn't one in 2022 and there isn't going to be one in 2023. In 2024 Ray will have the Indie Country Showdown scheduled to take place at his CabaRay on select dates early next year. Ray's first concert of 2024 at the CabaRay will be early in March. If you're planning on attending any Ray Stevens concerts at the CabaRay in 2024 the tickets are on sale. 

It's the Christmas time of the year...we're two days from the holiday. Have you spotted Santa Claus anywhere? If so, was he watching you? Maybe you'll see Santa Sunday night...and as for this music video nearly 6 million have seen it on YouTube over the course of the last 14 years. It was uploaded in 2009 for those that don't want to do the math. 

Ray's first ever music video just happened to be his 1985 rendition of "Santa Claus is Watching You". The song, which Ray originally recorded and wrote in 1962, received an almost entirely different set of lyrics. Actually, 99 percent of the lyrics were re-written in the 1985 rendition with the exception of the song's title and hook lines such as "he's everywhere! he's everywhere!" and the exaggerated list of Santa's reindeer. The 1985 rendition has a love song overall theme whereas the 1962 recording was strictly aimed at children. 

Do you own any of the Ray Stevens Christmas albums? In this day and age it may sound old fashioned to ask such a thing when any one of us can easily visit YouTube, for example, and search for songs and albums and immediately have the ability to listen. So, then, do any of you have any of Ray's Christmas songs or albums in your audio library? If you do are they the comedy Christmas songs or do you also have the non-comical Christmas songs in your audio library, too? To date he's recorded three Christmas albums. 

1. Christmas Through a Different Window; 1997 (all comedy)

2. Ray Stevens Christmas; 2009 (non-comedy)

3. Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me; 2016 (comedy and non-comedy)

"Bad Little Boy", which you'll see/hear in the video below, comes from the 1997 Christmas album. This performance is from The Statler Brothers Show. In the late 1990s Ray had a Christmas concert series at Opryland's Acuff Theater and as you all could imagine it was tied to the 1997 album. If you were listeners of the Grand Ole Opry's radio programs at that point in time you may remember that Ray's Christmas concerts were promoted on-air. How? Well, his series acted as a sponsor of several Opry segments. You would've heard one of the Opry announcers say something like "...and this portion of the Opry is presented by the Ray Stevens Christmas Show at the Acuff Theater in Opryland..." followed by more information about his concerts. 

Wasn't that fun? Now, getting back to the Christmas albums... the first Christmas album features original songs. The second Christmas album contains an original, "Deck The Halls with Teardrops", with the remainder of the album being his arrangements of Christmas standards. On the third Christmas album it features a couple of original songs, some Christmas comedy songs, and some Christmas standards. The original songs, "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me" and "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", appear on the third Christmas album but it also includes his rendition of Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You", his rendition of the Spike Jones classic, "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth", and "Merry Christmas", a song that until the 2016 Christmas album came along was only available as an audio track online and in music video format. 

The music video of "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me" has gotten just a little under half a million unique views on YouTube, so far. However, I'm sharing his performance of the song from his TV show, CabaRay Nashville. All of you fans of Ray Stevens have a Merry Christmas. I'm sure I'll make another post before the end of the year. I typically post a look ahead to the New Year blog entry at some point. 

Ray Stevens: Early '90's "Santa Claus is Watching You" performance...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!!! I don't know if too many of you recall seeing Ray perform "Santa Claus is Watching You" on The Family Channel in the early 1990s or not. I remember watching it on TV the night it aired. It was a television special starring various recording artists synonymous with Branson, Missouri. Ray was very synonymous with Branson in that time period...he was one of the Top-10 attractions during his 3 season stay (1991, 1992, 1993). If you look closely he was probably among the Top-3. Ray performs "Santa Claus is Watching You" with the added assistance of Yakov Smirnoff and Janice Copeland. Ray's Branson concerts featured Janice Copeland as a comical co-star and as a featured vocalist. If you have Ray's VHS titled 'More Ray Stevens Live!' you'll see her as a serious vocalist but then you'll see her as a comical alter ego, Beulah. She was also in the 'Ray Stevens Live!' VHS, too. You're going to love seeing this early 1990's performance and if you remember that era in Ray's career it'll immediately send you into a time warp. Country Road TV uploaded this early 1990's television performance. 

Ray Stevens: Christmas at the CabaRay 2022...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! As you can see this blog entry is written in red because it's the first Christmas themed blog entry of the season. I don't make it a point to write all of my blog entries during Christmas season with Christmas colors but I decided to do so today. Later this evening is the first Thursday night concert at the CabaRay and it is also the first Christmas themed concert. Each concert until December 17th will be a Christmas show. As mentioned in a previous blog entry the November concerts at the CabaRay will take place on the 10th, 12th, 17th, 19th, and the 26th. Later this month I'll be posting a blog entry spotlighting the CabaRay concerts for next month. There won't be a concert on the 24th because that's Thanksgiving. This LINK to the CabaRay will tell you all about the concerts and how to purchase tickets and there are numerous detailed photos to browse through in case you've never been to the CabaRay in person. There are several photos that circulate online...those would be called publicity photos but the CabaRay webpage has even more photos and information about Ray's showroom located on the west side of Nashville. The showroom opened to the public in January 2018. The video promo below is for the 2021 Christmas concerts at the CabaRay. Now, since the website and telephone information hasn't changed, this 2021 video promo is being used to promote the 2022 Christmas concerts, too. 

When Ray performs his concert on the 26th it'll be four days after his induction into the Musicians Hall of Fame. That induction takes place on November 22nd. If video or photo from the ceremony makes it's way onto the internet I'll be sharing that in this blog. 

There still hasn't been any video surface of Ray's appearance on Larry's Country Diner. An audio surfaced yesterday of him singing "The Gambler and the Octopus"...so, this means that Ray sang at least four songs during his appearance: "The Gambler and the Octopus", "Where Are All the 12 Year Old's?", "Cup Holder", and "When Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene". If you read a previous blog entry from a few days ago you'll know that my DVR failed to record Ray's episode of Larry's Country Diner and so I have no specific information to blog about when it comes to that episode other than what I pick up from the internet and from what some other fans of Ray had to say about the episode. Meanwhile, don't forget to click the link above or watch the video promo of Christmas at the CabaRay 2022. 

Ray Stevens: Closer to Christmas...

Hello Ray Stevens fans!! We're getting closer to Christmas...we're 6 days and counting until December 25th. In 2016 Ray Stevens released his third Christmas album titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. The title track comes from the pens of Jeff Bates and John Ritter. No, before you get confused, I'm not referring to the late actor with the same name...the John Ritter that co-wrote the song with Jeff Bates happens to be a disc jockey who hosts an inspirational/gospel/country radio show called Rise Up Country. Ray's album was released in November of 2016. A little less than a year later, October 2017, the two writers of the title track of Ray's 2016 Christmas album released a book based on their story. The title track tells the story of Mary and Joseph from the perspective of the donkey. The song features several donkey brays from Ray. If you listen to the song it comes off like a serious Christmas song...but if you watch the music video you'll get a completely different feeling. In the video, as you hear Ray sing, your eyes will naturally focus more attention on the various hand puppets and the bright colors that fill the backgrounds. Ray, in a music video first for him, shares the camera with a hand puppet of a donkey. The whimsical feel of the music video contrasts the serious nature of the lyrics, I think.

As I've written in other blog entries Ray included an array of different types of Christmas songs on this collection. In his first Christmas release in 1997 he filled it with comedy Christmas recordings. In his second Christmas release in 2009 it was mostly Christmas standards but on the third Christmas release in 2016 it was Christmas standards, Christmas comedy, and a couple of original songs. One of the songs Ray included in the 2016 Christmas release was his version of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". That song was originally recorded by a man named Elmo Shropshire and his wife, Patsy. Their recording became a monster Christmas novelty...growing in popularity each Christmas season throughout the 1980's. I still like hearing the song. A music video was eventually produced and it aired on The Nashville Network numerous times in the 1980s and early 1990s.  

Now, unfortunately, a much younger generation was gaining influence with radio programmers and this forthcoming generation had no sentimentality for this song or any of the classic Christmas novelty songs, in general, and as a result the silly "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" went from being an annual Christmas standard heard at least a hundred times during the Christmas season all over the country to a song that now gets voted as "one of the worst Christmas song of all-time". My question is: who decided comedy Christmas songs were terrible? In fact, who decided comedy songs, in general, are terrible? If one has that mindset then you apparently take yourselves too seriously. When it comes to "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", Elmo's original and any re-recording by him feature his distinctive voice. Ray sings the song straight...there isn't any exaggerated vocals or wild sound effects...except near the very end of the song when Ray changes his voice to play the role of Grandpa when the harmony singers holler "sing it, Grandpa!!". Grandpa isn't wearing his teeth...and you'll be able to tell...

Ray Stevens: 12 Days till Christmas...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! You may have guessed by now that the title of this blog entry is tied to the Christmas novelty song, "The 12 Days of Christmas". I was listening to a version of that song while I was at the store this morning. The store was playing Christmas songs on the speaker all over the store. Yes, there's 12 days until Christmas...this being December 13th and with Christmas Day on December 25th...two weeks until Christmas. This also means that you have one more opportunity to see Christmas at the CabaRay. Ray will put on his final Christmas-themed concert of the season this coming Saturday, December 18th. Last week he put on a rare Friday evening concert in addition to his usual Saturday evening concert. There won't be any concert at the CabaRay next week so this coming Saturday is the last chance to see a Christmas-themed concert at Ray's CabaRay showroom this 2021 season. As most of you know Ray has three Christmas albums. He recorded them sporadically throughout his career. His first Christmas album didn't emerge until 1997. His second Christmas album arrived in 2009 and his third Christmas album arrived in 2016. So, as you can see, the three Christmas albums were spread out over a nearly 20 year time period (1997-2016). His first Christmas album was all-comedy, Christmas Through a Different Window. The second one titled Ray Stevens Christmas, from 2009, was traditional non-comedy renditions of Christmas standards and one brand new song. The third Christmas album in 2016, Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me, included both comical and non-comical recordings. Some of the songs on the 2016 album were Christmas standards while others were more contemporary. A track list of each Christmas album is below...

Christmas Through a Different Window: 

1. Guilt For Christmas**

2. I Won't Be Home For Christmas

3. Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz

4. Home For the Holidays

5. Redneck Christmas**

6. Xerox Xmas Letter

7. Nightmare Before Christmas**

8. Annual Office Christmas Party

9. Little Drummer Boy - Next Door

10. Bad Little Boy

11. Santa Claus is Watching You**

Ray Stevens Christmas:

1. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

2. White Christmas**

3. Winter Wonderland

4. Silent Night

5. The Christmas Song

6. Blue Christmas

7. I'll Be Home For Christmas

8. Deck the Halls With Teardrops

9. Jingle Bells

10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me:

1. Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me**

2. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

3. Frosty the Snowman

4. All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth (2012)

5. Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer (2012)

6. Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)

7. All I Want For Christmas Is You

8. Merry Christmas**

9. Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day

10. Christmas Bells in the Steeple

**- Notes: The symbols that you see following some of the songs indicate that there's a music video of those songs. "Blue Christmas" was recorded twice by Ray Stevens in 2009. He recorded a serious version which is on the 2009 Christmas album but he also recorded a comical version, where he stutters the lyrics, and that stuttering rendition was made into a music video and released as a separate CD single. "Bad Little Boy" was never made into an official music video but Ray uploaded onto YouTube a performance of the song from his appearance on The Statler Brothers Show. Two of the songs on the 2016 album come from his 9-CD album from 2012, Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. "Merry Christmas" was available as a music video first...then it appeared on the 2016 album. The rendition of "Santa Claus is Watching You" on the 1997 album is a re-recording. A music video exists from 1985...the first music video in Ray's career...and because a music video exists of the song I made note of it's video availability. The 1985 recording of the song originally appeared on his comedy album that year, I Have Returned. The song itself goes back to 1962...when Ray put out the first "Santa Claus is Watching You"...that rendition is geared more toward children whereas the 1985 partial re-write is geared more toward adults. The Christmas music can be purchased at Ray's online store along with a whole lot of other items. The online store is HERE.   

Ray Stevens: Merry Video Christmas DVD...

Hello all...we're wrapping up Thanksgiving weekend as we head into Sunday morning. Did you visit or order anything during the discount sale at the Ray Stevens online store this past Friday? The sale was for Friday only and I put in an order for the DVD you see on the left side of the screen. A Merry Video Christmas from Ray Stevens is the 6 music video collection. I made mention of this DVD release in a previous blog entry. There's a message from Ray that's attached to the publicity release for this DVD. He mentions that he didn't realize he had enough Christmas music videos for a DVD collection...and someone suggested that he has at least 6 Christmas music videos and they decided to release a DVD with 6 Christmas music videos. The photo you see isn't the actual size. I edited some of it so that it wouldn't be a really lengthy rectangle going along the side of the blog text. The full image shows the rest of the scarf and it shows Ray with his hands in his front pockets. You can see what the full length photo looks like when you click this LINK to Ray's online store. 

When I purchased my copy of the DVD it was on sale but the sale was one day only this past Friday. I wrote a blog entry about the online store discount sale. You can read that blog entry in the Archives here. The 6 music videos on this DVD are: "Santa Claus is Watching You", "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me", "Redneck Christmas", "Nightmare Before Christmas", "Guilt for Christmas", and "Merry Christmas". There are a couple of Christmas music videos not on the DVD...the missing videos are "White Christmas" and "Blue Christmas". I covered a lot of this information in the blog entry focusing on last Friday's online discount sale at Ray's webstore but for those that don't look up my older blog entries in the Archive section I decided to share some of the information about the DVD and music videos again. 

Once I receive the DVD in the mail I'll write an overview/review. I don't know what the back of the DVD looks like. Sometime the backs of the DVD cases have a different photo of Ray and sometimes it features a list of the music videos found on the DVD along with songwriter, publisher credits. I'm guessing the DVD release will be on his own label, CabaRay Entertainment, but then again it may be a release distributed by Curb Records. 

Ray Stevens: "Nightmare Before Christmas" is nearing a million unique views...

Well, here we are one week before Christmas!! I embedded several Ray Stevens Christmas songs earlier this month and since we're one week away from Christmas I decided to embed another Christmas song from Ray, "Nightmare Before Christmas"...

I'll explain the reason I'm focusing on this particular video and it has to do with it's unique view count as of this writing. The video for "Nightmare Before Christmas" sits near 1,000,000 unique views! In blog's past whenever I'd announce that a video is nearing a million unique views there would be separation of several thousand between the current unique view count and what was needed to reach 1,000,000 but in this case the "Nightmare Before Christmas" music video just needs 7 more unique views to reach the plateau of 1,000,000!! Once this happens it will be added to Ray's list of million-view YouTube videos. He has quite a few...many of those videos have multi-million unique views, to be specific. So, as I type this, the most recent unique views for "Nightmare Before Christmas" is 999,993...take a look below...now, isn't that an eye catching visual?? The video is sitting there...aching to reach 1,000,000...let's all collectively wish for the video to vault past 1,000,000 unique views...a Christmas gift for ourselves is seeing another Ray Stevens video reach a million unique views.

I'm sure by the time I finish writing this blog entry, publish it, and then share it on social media the video will have surpassed 1,000,000 because I'd heard years ago that unique view totals are always fluid and are updated hourly and so the video may have officially passed the million mark as I'm writing this but the view count on the video's official YouTube page hasn't updated yet. The song comes from Ray's 1997 comedy Christmas album, Christmas Through a Different Window. The music video was released on YouTube in 2010.

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)"...

Here I am again writing further fan created blog entries about the one and only, Ray Stevens. Earlier today the audio clip of one of Ray's Christmas comedy songs was uploaded onto his social media sites. The song, "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)", comes from his 2016 Christmas CD titled Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. The song is in the cute category but the message in it almost always galvanizes pet lovers to address the procedure of declawing when it comes to cats. Some cat owners prefer their cat to be declawed while others think it's cruel. Now, since it's a Christmas song, it'll typically receive the bulk of it's video play several weeks per year and so I don't think any sort of lengthy on-line argument breakout in the video comments section over the declawing debate.  

When Ray was promoting the song, initially, back in 2016 it made the rounds of social media sites. The songwriters are Tommy Crawford and Taylor Craven and the Biloxi Sun Herald on-line newspaper did a write-up in December 2016 about the two writers and how their song ended up on the Ray Stevens album. I wrote a blog entry in December 2016 and in some lead-up blog entries late in November I spotlighted this song as well as Ray's Christmas album and the title track's music video. There hasn't been a music video produced for "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)" but the official audio was uploaded earlier today. 

In 2016 Ray uploaded a video clip discussing the song and how he came across it. Along side the audio clip of the song Ray highlighted the 2016 video clip, too, and so I'm also going to embed that 2016 video clip!  

Ray Stevens: Christmas 2019...

Hello one and all and Merry Christmas!! Ray Stevens wrote this song and taped a video for it in 2012 and it immediately struck a chord with the on-line community...the song, "Merry Christmas". It debuted as a music video and wasn't found on any CD until several years later in 2016 when Ray issued his third Christmas album, Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me. It's a powerful song in a lot of ways...some may find it too strong for the overall season...but it's a song that cuts through a lot of the glib chatter that comes with festive holidays and addresses the decades long verbal assault from varying sectors of society when it comes to using the phrase 'merry Christmas' rather than 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings'.



Now, staying with this same 2016 album, we have an audio upload from Ray of his sensational version of "All I Want For Christmas Is You", previously a massive hit for one of it's writers, Mariah Carey. When Ray's 2016 Christmas CD was released and I heard his version of that song I instantly made it among my all-time favorite Ray Stevens recordings of any season. Ray uploaded this audio clip a couple days ago back on December 23rd.



Wasn't that fabulous?? An upload arrived yesterday in the form of a performance by Ray Stevens on his CabaRay Nashville television series. It comes from one his Christmas episodes (he taped two separate Christmas episodes) and he's singing the title track of his third Christmas album in this video clip...here's Ray singing "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me"...



As many of you should know there is an official music video of that song, too. In it Ray shares the spotlight with a group of puppets and stuffed animals. It's a cute music video that I've shared in previous Christmas themed blog entries I've written but this is the first time his performance of the song from his television series has become available on-line. If I were to rate the official video and the CabaRay Nashville performance as to which one I preferred I'd rate the television performance first and the official music video second...even though I love both. The television performance doesn't include the donkey braying heard in the studio recording nor does it contain the harmony vocals and over-dubs from Ray. The trio of back-up singers on Ray's television show handle most of the vocals that, in the studio recording, were performed by Ray.

Ray Stevens: Spotify Statistics 2019

Hello one and all...yes it's still very early in December and I've not even begun to think of what my last blog entry of the year will feature or what day it'll happen but yet that's the beauty of having a fan created blog...you don't write on demand or on a set schedule...at least I don't. I write blog entries whenever the mood strikes...and yes some of those blog entries I've written when the mood strikes come across as if they were hastily slapped together, perhaps? The blog entry I wrote earlier this morning comes across like that...but then again the main focus was to spotlight the latest social media posts which included several video clips. One thing I know for certain about the final blog entry of 2019 is that it'll be centered around the closing of 2019 and of course I'll feature a heavy dose of promoting the New Year's Eve concert/party at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom. I'll more than likely begin posting about the December 31st concert several days in advance...but getting to the topic of this blog entry...

On December 6th the year-end statistics for the music site, Spotify, appeared on the Ray Stevens Facebook page. I should clarify by stating the year-end statistics pertaining to Ray Stevens music on the streaming site. Now, given that the statistics have been posted on a public forum like Facebook and on other social media site, I won't hesitate to share the statistics here, too. As far as streaming goes, for the year 2019, Ray's total at the cut-off date was reported to be 3.3 million Streams. The statistic for number of Hours spent listening to Ray Stevens music was 178.1K. The Listeners statistic happened to be 709.7K and 79 Countries were reported to have listened to something from Ray Stevens during the 2019 calendar year. I know a lot of people are into statistics and all things on-line and Spotify isn't a new site but for many, many, MANY years I paid it little attention because I thought it was one of those free music sites where the recording artists/writers/record labels/publishers, etc. etc. didn't receive any sort of compensation but to show that I've still got a whole lot more to learn about internet music I discovered that Spotify greatly promotes the music, which in turns creates publicity for the artist, much in the same manner YouTube does.

Now, having said that, there may be some out there that do not know what 'stream' means. I don't know the origins of that word, as it pertains to digital music, but it's more or less another way of saying 'airplay' or 'plays'. The number of plays, or streams, that a song receives the better...and on the Spotify site you have unlimited access to whatever songs have been loaded. Ray became more visible on social media earlier in the decade. He launched his YouTube channel in 2009 but he'd had his own website for more than a decade prior to that. His music can be found on practically all the major digital music outlets...whether it's a site where you purchase the music or whether it's available for free. His on-line activities continue even as I type. An audio of "Xerox Christmas Letter", a Christmas novelty song from his 1997 Christmas Through a Different Window album, was uploaded onto his social media sites within the last hour.



As mentioned in some previous blog entries Ray Stevens has three Christmas albums available at his on-line store and you can visit the CD area of his store by clicking HERE...and if you're in the Christmas mood look for the following releases once you arrive:

1997- Ray Stevens Christmas: Through a Different Window
2009- Ray Stevens Christmas
2016- Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Christmas Concert Series...

Hello all once again!! The Christmas at the CabaRay concert series is in full swing...and from things I've come across on social media sites it's been quite a success as I imagined it would be. There is one more concert left on the November calendar...it takes place on November 30th (next Friday) and then the calendar flips to December. It being November 25th it means Christmas Day is exactly one month from now. To those reading this blog entry...have you attended any of the CabaRay Christmas concerts? Have you attended any of the concerts at the facility since it's grand opening back in January of this year? The collage you see off to the left hand side of the page is something I'd posted before...it's a display of the three Christmas albums that Ray recorded during his career along side a recent photo taken of Ray inside the CabaRay. There was once a time where recording artists of all music types issued Christmas albums. Some artists issued them fairly frequently while others would issue them infrequently...but it was the norm every Christmas season to see a flood of new albums or re-issues of older albums filled with Christmas songs. The trend continues on-line to some extent...artists will make available Mp3 digital downloads of Christmas songs and on-line music stores and streaming services will advertise Christmas recordings...and a lot of the time those recordings are exclusive to on-line purchase with no physical copy of a CD available.

As I was mentioning, though...the Christmas at the CabaRay concert series is heading into it's heaviest slate of performances as we head toward December. The remaining concert dates are November 30th and then the following dates for the month of December: 1, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 28, 29, and 31.



When you watch the video clip you'll be given a phone number to call for ticket purchasing. Meanwhile, the New Year's Eve concert, as mentioned in a previous blog entry, will be a major event and the concert presentation will be slightly different in that there will be two concert performances by Ray which are described on the website as Act I (7:30pm to 8:15pm) and Act II (8:30pm to 9:30pm). In between the acts is a 15 minute intermission. The added attractions to give it a New Year's Eve feel will kick off at 10pm. There will be a balloon drop at midnight to ring in the New Year.

In the meantime the Christmas at the CabaRay concert series is taking place. When he released the most recent Christmas album (Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me) there were several on-line stories promoting a certain recording from that album, "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)". There was never a music video made of it and I don't know if Ray ever performed it on stage so it may have been one of those instances where a song gets some initial hype/publicity but then falls off the radar but it's a clever song dealing with the Christmas wishes of a declawed cat...even the song's title uses word play in that claws and Claus are pronounced the same way. The CD, as you can see in the photo, doesn't feature Ray on the cover...in fact Ray's image doesn't appear anywhere on the CD (neither on the front, back, or inside). The art work is credited to a company called Latocki Team Creative. The title track of the album was performed by Ray on an episode of his CabaRay Nashville television series and eventually a music video of the song was created. The video debuted on YouTube back in November of 2016. The music video comes off whimsical with Ray and several hand puppets which undercuts the subject matter. In fact the 10 song album features just 3 comedy recordings and so the overall approach to this project was serious. The three comical songs are: "All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", (both of which come from his 2012 Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music project), and the never before available "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)". That song was written by Tommy Crawford and Taylor Craven. "Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me" was written by Jeff Bates and John Ritter (not to be confused with the late, legendary actor!). The album also features the debut on CD of "Merry Christmas" which had been only available as a YouTube music video.



In closing here's one of the Christmas classics from Ray Stevens that I'm sure he's been performing at the CabaRay...the one and only "Redneck Christmas"...

Ray Stevens: CabaRay Christmas...

Even though we're still a little less than a month away from the November kickoff of Christmas at the CabaRay I thought I'd put together a second Christmas-themed blog entry. In my previous blog entry I wrote a curiosity wondering what Ray would be titling his concert series...given that I was a few days late in hearing about the upcoming Christmas-themed concerts at the CabaRay I neglected to do any kind of on-line image search. I did one this morning and I came across an image promoting the upcoming series of concerts and indeed the series will be titled Christmas at the CabaRay. I should have known this already because the video clip I posted in my previous blog entry has that phrase within the clip's title. Admittedly I hastily put together that previous blog entry without doing much research beforehand...the excitement of seeing something new from Ray on YouTube overtook my usual lengthy research. So, then, this is the official publicity photo for the upcoming series of concerts at the CabaRay Showroom...

In the comments section of the video clip on YouTube promoting this upcoming concert series there's a remark left by someone stating that Christmas decorations shouldn't be on display until after Thanksgiving. I don't never, well, rarely ever, engage in on-line arguments (anymore) so I never replied to the comment. In my younger years on the internet (early 2000s) I'd freely engage what I soon to learn were called trolls and I'd argue back and fourth, etc. but I long since stopped doing that kind of thing because you'll never convince somebody of something if they've already got their heels dug in and you'll rarely get me to change my mind once it's made up...so I don't argue on-line hardly at all. Having said that let me say that most families, traditionally, wait until after Thanksgiving to put up their Christmas decorations. However, this often doesn't apply to the entertainment industry. Holiday themed movies and Christmas decorations and even Christmas candy are typically up for sale in retail stores, for example, after Halloween...let alone Thanksgiving in late November...and so Ray putting together a Christmas show beginning in early November isn't some sort of sin due to it happening before Thanksgiving. As you can see in the publicity banner you have plenty of chances to attend the Christmas concert series as they'll be taking place from November 2nd to December 29th. All the information about the CabaRay Showroom can be found HERE. Once there click the Tickets menu button for further information.

In addition to the announcement about the upcoming series of Christmas concerts at the CabaRay Showroom let's not forget about the on-line auction and upcoming Ray Stevens Charity Golf Classic later this month at the Temple Hills Country Club. There are 95 items up for a bid but not everything is focused on Ray's career...most of the activity, no surprise to me, is in the music memorabilia section and it's in that area where you will see some rare items (such as a 1978 concert poster featuring the photo of Ray that appears on his 1976 Just for the Record album). There's also autographed copies of what's known as Hatch Show Prints as well as an autographed copy of his 1980 Shriner's Convention album. Here is the home page of the CHARITY GOLF CLASSIC website. The golf game pre-tournament events will take place at the CabaRay Showroom on Sunday October 21st beginning at 5pm. There will be a concert from Ray at the showroom beginning at 7:30pm Sunday night. The charity golf tournament itself will take place on Monday October 22nd. Much of what I just wrote can be found with even more information by clicking HERE.

Have a Happy Ray Stevens Christmas...

Hello once more!! As a big fan of Ray Stevens I usually attempt to post a Christmas-themed blog entry every year. Last year had a lot of entries given the fact that he had a brand new Christmas album available plus a music video...



Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me hit last Christmas as did the above music video of the title track. There wasn't a whole lot of publicity surrounding the CD; the music video debuted in November (actual date being November 16, 2016). The song comes from the pen of Jeff Bates and a writer named John Ritter (not to be confused with the late actor). The CD itself contained 10 tracks...some comedy and some spiritual-themed songs...in addition to his versions of Christmas standards ("Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"). In 2012 he released a music video of a song called "Merry Christmas"...

The song only appeared in music video form until it was placed on the 2016 Christmas CD. Ray wrote the song and it deals with the war on Christmas and the politically correct advocates of the world that prefer to say Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays in an effort to not offend non-Christians. It's lunacy is all that it is. Non-Christians shouldn't take offense to the phrase, 'Merry Christmas'. I certainly don't take any offense to the phrase 'Happy Hanukkah'. Some of the other recordings on the CD are the self-penned "Christmas Bells in the Steeple", and then there's a song he didn't write but it's one of the novelty songs on the Christmas CD: "Claws (A Cat's Letter to Santa)"; and then there's his recording of a song his Ahab Music Company published in the '60s that Brenda Lee recorded originally: "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day". The song's writers are Lee Jackson and Patty Seymour. As I remarked last year one of the treats is his version of "All I Want For Christmas is You"...a song that Mariah Carey originally had a huge pop hit with in the mid 1990s. She co-wrote the song...and it's kind of comical seeing her name listed on a Ray Stevens album. It reminds me of the songwriter credits for his 1988 album...the one that features his version of "Bad", the Michael Jackson song...and given him being the song's writer his name appears in the credits.

In the early '60s while still on the NRC label Ray issued his very first Christmas-themed recordings. Even though he recorded "White Christmas" for his 2009 Christmas CD and issued it as a YouTube music video he had previously recorded the song in 1960. NRC issued it on a single backed with a song he wrote titled "Happy Blue Year". They didn't get much, if any, publicity...but the next Christmas recording did! It happened to be 1962 in which the original recording of "Santa Claus is Watching You" hit the market on Mercury Records. The original reached the pop charts and was later re-written by Ray...in the process of re-writing the song he transformed it from a bouncy performance aimed at children to a tale of suspected adultery with the man warning his wife that Santa's watching. In his career he recorded it three times: there's the 1962 original and then we have the 1985 largely re-written re-recording and then there's the 1997 recording on the Christmas Through a Different Window CD.

Here are some other Ray Stevens Christmas recordings you can search YouTube for are: "Guilt For Christmas", "Nightmare Before Christmas", "Redneck Christmas", "Blue Christmas", "White Christmas", and the all-time classic, "Santa Claus is Watching You". It's on his 2009 Christmas CD that features the Ray Stevens original "Deck the Halls with Teardrops" that I so much wished would have become either a music video or a much more widely known recording. It's a fabulous love ballad. In his career he has released three Christmas albums:

Christmas Through a Different Window (1997)
Ray Stevens Christmas (2009)
Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me (2016)

Everyone have a safe Christmas and don't forget that Ray's CabaRay venue has it's grand opening January 18th!

Ray Stevens: 'Tis the Stevens to be Merry...

It's nearly that time...Christmas time...here in my part of the country the temperature on Christmas Day is predicted to be 73 degrees and I'm in the Midwest...typically by late December it doesn't get above 45 much at all during the entire months of December through late February. However, since this IS the season...it's time to spotlight the various Christmas music videos from Ray Stevens. 

Let's start this off with the classic "Santa Claus is Watching You" from 1985. This not only is a classic but it's the first music video in the career of Ray Stevens. It became a tradition on The Nashville Network every season to air this video...at one point it became the most popular Christmas music video via viewer feedback/requests. 



The song itself goes back in Ray's career to the early 1960s. The original recording by Ray and it's original presentation played out as a typical Children's novelty record of the time period including warnings from Ray for the kids to behave because Santa's watching. That the song could be completely re-imagined as a clever tale of holiday adultery...and have the victim/suspicious husband warn his wife that she better remain faithful because Santa's watching...well, to put it bluntly, it's one of those rare instances in which a remake/re-recording is a lot better than the original.

Ray re-recorded "Santa Claus is Watching You" for inclusion on his 1985 comedy album for MCA titled I Have Returned. The single's picture sleeve featured Ray, as Santa, peeking around the Christmas tree. The same year MCA issued a various artists collection called Tennessee Christmas. Ray contributed his original composition, "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz", and for many, many, many, MANY years that 1985 compilation was the only place to find the recording. It essentially became one of those lost recordings because of it's lack of redistribution. A local AM radio station played it a lot every year...that's how I learned of it's existence...and for several years I mistakenly believed that Ray had recorded a comedy Christmas album because in my youth and inexperience about record sizes I had seen the picture sleeve of "Santa Claus is Watching You" at a flea market and mistook if for a full-length album. 

How I wish I could go back to that point in time and tell my grandparent's to get that recording...but it happened to be at a time when I had not yet discovered the music of Ray Stevens. This wouldn't happen for another half a year at the least (!!). I've long since estimated that my introduction to his recordings began at some point in the summer of 1986. 

Ray's first ever Christmas project didn't come along, though, until 1997 under the title of Ray Stevens Christmas: Through a Different Window. It has since become a classic in his career and a mainstay nearly every season. It's chock full of Christmas novelty songs that beat up political correctness and dare to send a comical jolt through the traditions of the season...the reason you'll see song titles such as "Bad Little Boy", "Guilt For Christmas", "I Won't Be Home For Christmas", "Nightmare Before Christmas", etc. The hit album helped spawn a hit stage show at the Opryland venue at the Acuff Theater. Strangely enough no music video productions emerged from the collection until more than a decade later...such as "Guilt for Christmas" uploaded onto his YouTube channel on May 1, 2013...



I must point out, though, that Ray re-recorded the song for this music video. In the 1997 original he doesn't sing in the pseudo-Austrian accent. The reason he decided to add the accent touch is a mystery but it's a distinguishing characteristic not found on the original.

Several years earlier on November 3, 2010 Ray uploaded "Nightmare Before Christmas" onto YouTube. This particular video's become the stand-out, the centerpiece, the unofficial national outcry of a world taken hostage by over-the-top politically correct advocates. It's not the only song that targets political correctness on the album as "Guilt For Christmas" certainly demonstrates but "Nightmare Before Christmas" hits more closer to everyone's lives because it takes the all too real situation of being labeled politically incorrect because you may hold a belief, speak in a certain manner, or have an opinion that's ordinarily perfectly harmless but because it can be misconstrued as "offensive" by somebody else then you're accused of being insensitive, inflammatory, racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever else. The sick part of a lot of it is some people deliberately misconstrue statements made by others just to damage the person's reputation or career (a smear tactic, a smear campaign...).



Not all of the novelty songs on the 1997 Christmas CD are heavy or satiric...some are good old fashioned sing-a-longs. I already mentioned one of those types in "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz". In the song Ray sings of an attempt to make-up with a lover and get back together. He suggests that because she's had to spend several past Christmases alone they'll combine all of the holiday's in a calendar year and celebrate them all at one time. The other bouncy sing-a-long is "Redneck Christmas". Although "Nightmare Before Christmas" is sort of the intellectual big brother of the recordings, "Redneck Christmas" has a lot of appeal, too. The 2 music videos are more or less neck and neck in unique views. "Nightmare Before Christmas" at the moment has 470,097 views and "Redneck Christmas" has 434,837. Keep in mind, too, that "Nightmare Before Christmas" had a 2 year head start...it arrived on YouTube in November of 2010 and "Redneck Christmas" hit YouTube on December 22, 2012.



A day earlier on December 21, 2012 Ray uploaded a cover version of "Blue Christmas" onto YouTube. The rendition that Ray paid homage to come from a stuttering version many falsely credited to the animated character, Porky Pig. The actual recording happened to be credited to the fictional Seymour Swine (Dennis Brownlee)...nevertheless if you visit social media sites you're going to come across comments from people citing the "stuttering version of Blue Christmas by the Porky Pig sound-a-like..." or "that Porky Pig version of Blue Christmas...". The music video has some comical sight gags and Ray's delivery is unforgettable, too...



In 2009 Ray issued an all-new Christmas project. This time around the collection of songs happened to be serious...featuring one original song and his versions of Christmas standards although on some of the recordings he kept the original arrangements intact. His take on "White Christmas" is something to behold. He does an uncanny impression of the recording by The Drifters...



The lone original song on the 2009 Christmas CD is "Deck The Halls with Teardrops". It builds on the traditional telling of Deck The Halls but rather than a festive and jolly fa-la-la sing-a-long it's instead a tale of melancholy and bewilderment. A different recording of "Blue Christmas" is featured on the CD...a straight recording...not the stuttering novelty. This 2009 Christmas CD is sold each season on Ray's web-store. You can also purchase it on Amazon (along with his 1997 comedy Christmas collection). Obviously you can purchase the Mp3's and have them on your computer in a matter of minutes.

This brings us to the rousing "Merry Christmas". This also hit YouTube on December 22, 2012. It revisits the politically correct theme once more and criticizes those that have problems with those that choose to say "Merry Christmas" rather than the generic 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings'. 

   

Ray Stevens: Rayality TV webisode 19...

I'd like to start off this latest entry by announcing that this is my 800th blog post about Ray Stevens!! I don't know if there will be 800 more to come (!) but as long as Ray's active and I've got the inspiration to put together these commentaries and spread the word about the amazing career of Ray Stevens then we'll see how many more blog posts I come up with in the future.

I kind of have a feeling that I'm going to be busy here next week once Ray's Gospel Collection CD becomes available for purchase. It's been available for Pre-Order for several weeks but on August 19th (this coming Tuesday) the CD is to become available for purchase all over the internet. Some on-line stores don't offer pre-order. I have no idea if it'll be in retail stores or not. If you're a member of the Wal-Mart internet site you can currently pre-order The Gospel Collection CD for $9.00! You can read about it at the CD's product page located HERE.

The latest webisode of Rayality TV is on-line...in this particular installment Ray is celebrating Christmas in August by spotlighting a couple music videos: "Redneck Christmas" and "Guilt For Christmas".



To find the latest blogs about Ray Stevens from fans such as myself and from other fans, simply Google the phrase "Ray Stevens blogs" and then under 'Search Tools' click the option of your choice and the latest blogs about Ray will show up. You can select 'Anytime', 'Past week', 'Past 24 Hours', 'Past Month', 'Past Year', etc. etc. This one, and the previous blog I did earlier today about Ray's half time appearance at the 1987 Liberty Bowl and the blog post from August 9th, are currently among the top search results in the 'Past week' selection (as of August 15th). So yes, there's a way around the deletion of the Google Blog search engine for those seriously interested in keeping up with the various blogs about Ray Stevens that pop up from time to time.

My next blog post should be this coming Tuesday on CD release day but, of course, if something comes up (like a surprise TV or radio interview prior to release day) I'll, of course, make a blog post about it.

Ray Stevens: '80s Singles, Part 2...

In this second installment, a certain Ray Stevens single from early 1985 became one of his biggest selling singles of the decade. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" became one of those kinds of hit songs that are forced off an album, according to an interview with songwriter Buddy Kalb. The LP containing the song, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, wasn't released until November 1984 and by that time 2 singles had already been released from the LP: the uptempo novelty love song "I'm Kissin' You Goodbye" and another single that I'll be writing about later. "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" became the third single release and ultimately became the bigger radio hit...even though the LP's second single release has matched the Mississippi Squirrel for durability and popularity in the long and varied career of Ray Stevens. By the way, in case you missed it, you can read the first blog entry in this short series of Ray Stevens '80s Singles HERE.  This song deals with a squirrel that causes miracles at a rural church in Pascagoula.

The music video's been seen on-line by more than 3.4 million people since it's summer 2009 upload on You Tube. Millions had seen the music video during it's original release back in 1992 when it was part of Ray's million selling home video project, Comedy Video Classics, and briefly part of the music video rotation on The Nashville Network...but of course it's been seen by millions upon millions of people since 2009 thanks to the internet...

The LP's second single, "It's Me Again, Margaret", has also become closely identified with Ray ever since it's release late in 1984 (in spite of the fact that it never made the 'Top 40' of any music chart). That particular single, about an obscene phone caller, has delighted fans of Ray Stevens for decades and never a concert goes by without a performance. It's long been a visual song...and a music video seemed a perfect choice years later. Ray sings about Willard McBain, a man that has a fixation on a woman named Margaret...every chance he gets he calls her up and asks her personal questions. This song became a music video in 1992 as part of Ray's award winning Comedy Video Classics. The video arrived on You Tube in 2009 and since then more than 700,000 people have seen it. In performance Ray often mimics a telephone dialing up Margaret's number (as you'll see in the video) but for even more comedic effect, in concert, he has the 'phone' ring almost endlessly...building and building the anticipation before finally making a connection to Margaret and delivering the line that the audience is waiting to hear... "It's Me AGAIN, Margaret...hehehehheheheeee!!!". Just like the "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" video, Ray's friends and his brother, John, make appearances in "It's Me Again, Margaret".

Ray Stevens 1970 Summer Program...

An early Monday morning...and a reminder that those that may want to purchase any Ray Stevens item and have it potentially arrive before Christmas, place your orders by December 18th...that's this coming Wednesday! Ideally, these orders are for credit/debit card holders. If you don't mind if something arrives after Christmas then simply send a money order or a check through the mail.

In all likelihood, though, if you plan on placing an order today, tomorrow, or Wednesday but mailing in the payment (check or money order) then that payment more than likely is going to arrive at Ray's office after the 18th of December cut off date (unless you live local). The reason for the December 18th cut off date is because that's the latest one can place an order and have it in transit ahead of Christmas.

Ray's web-store has their annual shipping disclaimer posted in red letters at the store's Main Page.

My CD suggestions for those last minute shoppers are: The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music; The Spirit of '76; We the People; both of the Christmas CD's; plus Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What??; New Orleans Moon; and Bozo's Back Again. There's a DVD section, too, that you should explore.

Several days ago I received in the mail my copy of a magazine titled Southwest Georgia Living. I purchased this magazine because Ray Stevens appears on the cover and the hype surrounded the accompanying article and obscure pictures. It's a delightful article/story, featuring several pictures of Ray that you can't find anyplace on the internet. The magazine's cover has Ray as Santa during a photo session for his 1997 Christmas CD. If you visit their Facebook page you'll see the magazine's cover. This is a time sensitive comment so if you come across this months from today chances are their Facebook page will be showcasing the current issue at that particular time but for now it's the Ray Stevens issue. Is this magazine for sale on-line? The answer is no! Is this magazine available at all book stores? The answer is no! How did I get a copy of it? The answer is simple: I took the initiative and e-mailed the magazine's office staff as soon as I found out that the magazine existed and asked how could I get a copy of this magazine considering that I don't live in Georgia. I received a reply that provided a mailing address and total cost and so being the obnoxious fan that I am, I didn't hesitate...and off I sent a check to the magazine. I would not be surprised, though, if the issue with Ray turns up on eBay at some point...magazine back issues often do.

Ray Stevens makes the cover of the Pasadena, California issue of TV Week, June 14, 1970. This is the first time I have seen this and as a result it's the first time it's been posted on this fan created blog. As soon as I seen this on-line I immediately saved the image thinking that it'll soon become unavailable and just as obscure in months, years to come just as it's been since 1970. Thankfully there are those such as myself and others that deliberately collect and save any image of Ray they come across because of just how obscure his vintage appearances truly are. Speaking of his 1970 summer program for Andy Williams...you can still take in all the fun and laughs on his You Tube channel. The clips from his summer program continue to be discovered daily but if you haven't seen these clips yet, go to You Tube or better yet click This Link and explore his videos. His most recent uploads are the first 2 and then the various clips from the 1970 summer program are listed. I posted most of the clips back in the late summer/early fall of this year but there had never been any sort of national publicity campaign from Ray about those clips being available for You Tube viewing and so for those most part the clips have garnered less than 2,000 views a piece. There are 3 uploads from the summer program that have gotten more than 2,000 and those are the performances of "Gitarzan" (4,684), "Ahab the Arab" (3,715), and "Everything Is Beautiful" (4,352). This, if anything, demonstrates perfectly the power of familiarity...those three songs are among his biggest recordings and so it's no surprise that the performances of those specific songs from his 1970 summer program would net the most viewers. Technically, "Ahab the Arab" is performed along side a cast performance of the Beatles "Let It Be" but it goes to show that out of all the clips posted from his summer program, the familiar song titles are the ones that captured the most action.

Ray Stevens Christmas Fun...

Hello to all the Ray Stevens fans out there...some are still learning about the interview that took place yesterday on Mike Huckabee's radio program. It was a great interview of Ray giving details about his upcoming CD and there is even a poignant moment as he discusses the time of his mother's funeral. His mother passed away in 1997. I knew that it had happened at some point in the late '90s because he mentioned it during the Life and Times special that the original TNN had aired in 1999. I did some research for this blog entry, rather than relying on my memory, given the nature of that particular subject matter. His mother passed away on February 11, 1997. Her headstone, shared with her husband (Ray's father passed away in 2001), can be found on-line but I'm not going to post it. Those that want to see it can find it on their own. In the meantime, those that missed the Huckabee interview, you can still hear it (for the time being) at this LOCATION. Mike's radio program comes to an end on December 12th and it's not certain if any of the audio links and other things associated with the program are still going to be accessible after that date and so if you haven't yet heard the interview, which also contains a snippet of "If Jesus is a Stranger", one of the songs on Ray's upcoming CD, I highly recommend any Ray Stevens fan to listen to the interview before it's potentially removed for all time.

This is one of the Christmas music videos that Ray put on You Tube in the summer time this year. It hit You Tube on May 1, 2013 and it's gotten a little more than 5,000 unique views. It's called "Guilt For Christmas" and it's a stinging attack on political correctness. I had posted about this back in the summer but considering it's now December and 20 days before Christmas it's the perfect time to spotlight it again and create new awareness for it...



The video carries some exclusivity in that Ray performs it in an Americanized dialect (German/Austrian)...the original recording from 1997 lacks this and is recorded in his natural voice.

Almost a year to the day, actually December 3, 2012, Ray unleashed "White Christmas" in video form. His version includes a vocal salute to The Drifters, too.



You can get an audio copy of this on his Ray Stevens Christmas CD from a couple of years ago. The video's gotten more than 20,000 views but it's become overshadowed by a couple of other Christmas music videos from Ray that have taken on lives of their own: "Merry Christmas" (more than 130,000 views!) and the bouncy "Redneck Christmas" (more than 110,000 views so far!) plus the annual favorites "Nightmare Before Christmas" (more than 300,000 views since it's November 2010 debut). The actual number as of today is 324,527...I'd say that works out roughly to a little more than 100,000 views per year. Then there's the classic "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and it's gotten 461,656 views so far. It debuted on You Tube in July 2009, one of Ray's first video uploads to his then-new You Tube channel. The actual video itself is Ray's first ever music video...and it originated back in 1985...the year that he re-recorded the song with different lyrics and changed it from a children's Christmas song (the original from 1962) to a tale of suspected adultery. He'd re-record that particular adultery version once again in 1997 for his first and only comedy Christmas album.

There's a music video for "Blue Christmas" (comical version) that debuted one day before "Redneck Christmas" in December 2012. I'll post those videos next time. The "Blue Christmas" music video features Ray stuttering the song in the vein of a fictional group called Seymour Swine and the Squealers. In essence, it's a cover song from Ray. There's the non-comical recording of "Blue Christmas" on the Ray Stevens Christmas CD, by the way. The 2 separate recordings are referred to as "Blue Christmas" (serious version) and "Blue Christmas" (comical version).

Ray Stevens and a Christmas Medley...

We had some storms pass through on Monday afternoon and into the evening hours so I had my computer off. During my on-line hiatus I found out this morning that Ray made an appearance, yesterday morning, on a local television station in Tennessee, WZTV, and performed a medley of three Christmas songs. The link appears on Ray's official Facebook page and it's been liked and shared by quite a few already. The link became available at some point on Monday but I'm posting it here, of course, because this is a fan-created blog about Ray Stevens where all of his appearances and all of his music is held in high regard. Yesterday, December 17th, was the last day fans and shoppers in general could order items from Ray's web-store and ensure their arrival before Christmas. I'm sure local orders in and around Nashville, if ordered prior to December 19th, will arrive before Christmas but it's never a safe bet to assume such a thing during the hectic Christmas rush that takes place every year in the postal system. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, the office staff at Ray's company will be on Christmas vacation from December 21st through the first of the year and if orders are placed at any time during that period you'll have to wait until the first week of 2013 before the orders are shipped out. Last minute shoppers and procrastinators, in general, shouldn't wait until the 20th of December to place an order if it's meant to be a Christmas gift. I'd say today, December 18th, would definitely be the last possible day fans in the greater Nashville area and it's vicinity could place an on-line order and have it arrive before Christmas. If you don't order on-line you can call their office and order by phone. Mail orders, though, take so much time to process which is why it's not the ideal ordering method to choose a week before Christmas.

Meanwhile, in the television appearance, Ray sings a medley of "White Christmas", the comical version of "Blue Christmas", and he finishes the upbeat appearance with "Redneck Christmas". Each song comes from three separate releases: "White Christmas" comes from the serious project titled Ray Stevens Christmas, the comical version of "Blue Christmas" comes from the EP special offer at Ray's web-store, and "Redneck Christmas" is a song from the classic Ray Stevens Christmas-Through a Different Window comedy project that you see in the picture above.

Enjoy the Ray Stevens Christmas Medley

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series, Part 31...

Studio album 31 in the career of Ray Stevens arrived in the second half of 1997 in the form of a project titled Ray Stevens Christmas: Through a Different Window. This project was the very first Christmas album from Ray Stevens...but it wasn't his first brush with Christmas music. In the early '60s he wrote and recorded the original "Santa Claus Is Watching You". In the mid '80s he re-wrote "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and changed it from a children's novelty song into a more mature novelty with a much more mature plot line. It isn't to say that children wouldn't like the re-written performance once they heard it, since I certainly loved the song and music video as a kid and I still love it. The same year that he issued the re-written and updated "Santa Claus Is Watching You" he also delivered the "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz" for inclusion on a various artists compilation titled Tennessee Christmas. Those two songs obviously made the final cut on Ray's 1997 Christmas comedy album. In the case of "Santa Claus Is Watching You", this marked the third re-recording of that particular classic.


One of the hallmarks of this project when it was released was the intentional stabbing in the heart of political correctness. The societal disease known as political correctness is held up to much needed ridicule within quite a few of the hilarious holiday songs on the CD. The project gets started with "Guilt For Christmas" which quickly establishes the mood and atmosphere of the overall CD. The music is traditionally festive but the lyrics are hilarious and the story-lines are zany. "Guilt For Christmas" tells all about the pressures a person is facing while being told that he has to be politically correct when buying Christmas gifts. Ray gives several examples of toys that advocates have labeled as degrading or sexist if given to certain people and members of certain age groups. Reaching somewhat of a boiling point, shopper Ray decides that he's going to bypass the actual purchase of gifts and instead he'll give people a more longer lasting gift: guilt. It's a perfect opening song. "I Won't Be Home For Christmas" is an uptempo sing-a-long where Ray tells us all about his wild and bad mannered relatives and gleefully sings that he won't be home for Christmas and he'll be in hiding. The third track, "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz", was first recorded by Ray in 1985 but here it's presented as a re-recording. It's another sing-a-long but this time around we're told a sad story about a man who's been on his own ever since the woman in his life left him the previous Christmas Eve. The man comes up with an idea of rolling all of the holidays into one which would create the greatest Christmas of all-time. "Home for the Holidays" describes the upcoming misery that a man goes through as he prepares to visit his hometown and re-establish familiarity with relatives that he'd much rather forget about. Certainly these are sentiments that a lot of people secretly feel but it's not the proper way of behaving during the holiday season and so, in the song, Ray and his family pack up to visit the old hometown for Christmas.
 

"Bad Little Boy" is track 10 and it's in the cute category as Ray plays the part of a little boy who laments the fact of his not getting anything for Christmas due to his bad behavior. It's in the same vein of Spike Jones' "Nuttin' For Christmas" and other similar songs and stories that revolve around little kids and bad behavior during the holidays. I saw Ray perform this just once...it's was quite a memorable performance as Ray performed the song on a giant rocking chair to create the illusion that he was a small kid. If I recall correctly that performance was on The Statler Brothers Show but it could have been on another program that aired on The Nashville Network but I definitely think it was their weekly TV show. I heard "Bad Little Boy" on a local classic country station yesterday morning by the way. The station is on the FM dial and it's call-letters are WNKR. Meanwhile, "The Little Drummer Boy-Next Door" uses some of the frame work of the traditional Christmas song, "The Little Drummer Boy", but spins it in a new and contemporary way as Ray plays the part of an irritated neighbor driven more irritated by a kid's drum lessons. The boy got the drums as a Christmas gift. This particular song, when the CD was brand new, got quite a bit of airplay during the few weeks leading up to Christmas time. Some FM stations program Christmas music all month long from late November through late December. On some country radio stations they play nothing but Christmas music starting late on Christmas Eve and all through Christmas day. I think that practice is still in place. "Redneck Christmas" is exactly what you might think it is. It's comical and satiric and plays on all the stereotypical imagery ever created about rural America. It, too, is a sing-a-long featuring loads of vocal sound effects and a catchy collection of harmony singing. "Nightmare Before Christmas" returns to the politically correct topic as we hear the story of Ray's nightmare where Santa Claus is arrested and charged with being politically incorrect.  

In "The Annual Office Christmas Party" Ray sings about a company party and the happenings that take place by the straight-laced executives during off hours. Societal bragging is the focal point of "Xerox Xmas Letter" where Ray sings about getting a letter from a family who brags about everything they've achieved during the last year.

Ray Stevens Christmas: Through a Different Window would find itself being an annual offering from 1997 onward. The music from the CD led to a series of holiday themed concerts from Ray at the Acuff Theater in Opryland. If you were listening to WSM radio during the holiday seasons, specifically 1998 through 2000, chances are you would've heard promotional spots for Ray's Christmas concert series at some point. The CD reached the Country Album chart in 1997 more or less on the strength of word of mouth and timely national publicity on various programs on The Nashville Network.

The Christmas project features 11 songs rather than the usual 10. Buddy Kalb wrote the majority of the songs in this project...either by himself or in collaboration with other writers. Ray, Buddy, and a writer named Paul Alter wrote "The Little Drummer Boy-Next Door". Ray supplied "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz". Buddy Kalb along with Glenn and Sonny Fortner wrote "I Won't Be Home For Christmas". The remaining seven songs were all written by Buddy Kalb.

The following year Ray parted ways with MCA. He signed himself to his own label, Clyde, for a couple of years, 1999-2001, and issued one studio album in 2000. This studio album would be re-issued on a nationally distributed label in 2002 with a new title and a re-sequencing of it's track list. A few new tracks were added to the 2002 release while some from the 2000 release were omitted. I'll provide details in my next installment of the Golden LP Series.