Ray Stevens: The Five Days of Halloween, Part Five...

Happy Halloween eve...here in my area the kids and younger adults did the trick or treating and running around in costumes this past Thursday evening/night but most of the country waits until either tonight or actual Halloween day (tomorrow) to participate in the trick or treating and scary movie watching, etc. etc. I've been writing this mini blog series for several days and in this installment I'm spotlighting a 1988 performance by Ray Stevens of "The Booger Man". The song comes from his comedy album that year, I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. I've seen Ray sing this song twice on television but this is my first time seeing this particular performance. The song is about a couple out on a date but it begins with Ray declaring that he isn't afraid of various monsters and characters from famed horror movies...he name drops several well known characters but admits that "The Booger Man" is the one thing that scares him. Terry McMillan is on hand in this 1988 performance on Nashville Now. Terry played the harmonica on the recording and so he's standing near Ray in the appearance. You'll also see Nashville Now musicians Larry Sasser (steel guitar), Jerry Whitehurst (piano), Fred Newell (electric guitar), and the camera may pick up footage of Billy Linneman (bass). I don't know the drummer's name. Larry Sasser, ironically enough, was credited as a Dobro player on Ray's 1988 comedy album...but he's known for playing steel guitar. When Ray was a guest host on Nashville Now in 1991 one of the people Ray interviewed was Larry Sasser and they discussed their experiences together in the music industry. Ralph Emery, the host of Nashville Now, is seen at the beginning of the video.

Ray Stevens: The Five Days of Halloween, Part Four...

In the previous blog entry I spotlighted a Ray Stevens novelty song from 1964...in this blog entry we're fast forwarding 44 years where we find ourselves in 2008 and the recording, "Witchcraft". The song had previously been a hit for Frank Sinatra in 1957 and Ray recorded his version in 2008 on the salute album, Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?!?. The song's writers are Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh. Ray's Sinatra album was later issued by Curb Records in 2009. The Sinatra salute album is great and in this Halloween-themed blog entry "Witchcraft" is an obvious selection to spotlight. There's an audio track from the 2008 album on YouTube...but there's also a performance of the song by Ray on his CabaRay Nashville television show. The performance is also on YouTube and it's also on Ray's Halloween YouTube playlist and so I've decided to embed the performance, too...

I hadn't decided if I'll post Part 5 on Saturday or wait until the 31st...actual Halloween day. More than likely I'll post the 5th and final Halloween-themed blog entry Saturday evening or night. In that blog entry I'll include a couple more Ray Stevens songs centered around Halloween and take a look into the month of November.

Ray Stevens: The Five Days of Halloween, Part Two...

Happy Halloween week Ray Stevens fans...and in this blog entry I'm putting the focus on two spooky songs that deal with legends and the kind of local small town folklore that's passed from one generation to another. I'm debating in my mind which song to embed first...and I think I'll go with a 2009 recording from Ray Stevens titled "Hangin' Around". This song is set in southern Georgia and it tells the eerie story of a child of a policeman named Grady whose wife died giving birth. Ray tells of the girl, named Lady, who later in life hooks up with a woman named Sadie. Eventually the two leave town but return half a year later with a guy, Tony, who Lady says is her husband. Sadie eventually goes crazy, we're told, and Tony disappears. Ray lets us know that some people in town say Tony's in the swamp "Hangin' Around" and as the music plays in the background with sharp hits on the harmonica the mood is dramatic and ominous as Ray sings about perhaps the locals are going to find much more than tree limbs and things twisting in the winds. What is Ray telling us? "Hangin' Around" is from his 2009 album, One For the Road. That album was originally sold exclusively at Pilot truck stops during the first half of 2009 before it was eventually made widely available. The song wasn't highlighted much and the album itself was overshadowed by a music video release in December 2009...but it was a good album nonetheless. Here's "Hangin' Around"...  

Another Halloween-type highlight, a spooky song is from his current comedy album, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore. It's "Soap Sally"!! Yes...the tale of the woman in the woods who takes great pleasure in throwing her victims into cauldrons so she can cook them up. I've spotlighted the song in a blog entry not too long ago but given it's Halloween week I'm spotlighting it once again! It's so engaging and funny but maintains the spooky, funky overtone throughout...I know you're going to love it...

Ray Stevens: The Five Days of Halloween...

Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! I usually do one or two blog entries per year focusing on the Halloween songs that Ray has recorded. The songs, I don't believe, were never recorded specifically for Halloween...they're songs that fit the Halloween theme. I title this blog entry as such due to it being five days before Halloween on October 31st. I don't plan on writing a blog entry every single day until the 31st but you never know...once I get on a roll I sometimes can go on and on.

An hour ago Ray uploaded onto his Facebook page his performance of "Haunted House" from an episode of the CabaRay Nashville television show. The novelty song is connected to a performer who went by the name of Jumpin' Gene Simmons. He put the song out in 1964 and had a hit with it. The song had previously been recorded several years earlier, in 1958, by Johnny Fuller but it's the 1964 recording by Jumpin' Gene Simmons that made an impact and the one that appears on numerous novelty song various artist compilation albums. Ray recorded his rendition of "Haunted House" for his 9-CD Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music, released in 2012. He uploaded an audio track of the song onto YouTube in 2019 and last year he uploaded the performance from CabaRay Nashville. Today he added the television show performance onto his Facebook page...

Ray Stevens audio clip: "Monster Mash"...

Oh yes, I know here in the East it's already 12:30am on November 1st but out in the West it's still October 31st and with that in mind there's a late entry into the Ray Stevens YouTube playlist for Halloween. This audio clip is of Ray's rendition of the all-time Halloween classic, "Monster Mash", which was originally a hit in 1962 by Bobby Pickett. The artist recorded the song in a vocalization resembling horror actor, Boris Karloff. The novelty was issued under the name of Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and the Crypt Kicker Five. The song is almost always guaranteed to be played on Halloween somewhere. In 2012 Ray issued his 9-CD box set, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. In this box set he recorded his versions of classic comedy and novelty songs and he added in some of his own songs, too. It's for this 2012 box set that he recorded his versions of "Monster Mash", "Purple People Eater", "Haunted House", and "Witch Doctor". Those songs usually make-up the Top-4 of Halloween favorites on Oldies formatted radio stations. Ray does his best impression of Karloff in his rendition of "Monster Mash"...yes, we all know it isn't Bobby 'Boris' Pickett, but Ray is one of the few people who can pull off a performance of the song in such a convincing manner and have it not come off like karaoke night at some local tavern somewhere.

Ray Stevens: Hilarious Halloween...

It's something of a tradition to write a Ray Stevens blog entry with a Halloween theme. Ray has recorded a few songs that either tie into Halloween or he's recorded songs whose titles fit the occasion. If we go back to 1964 there's a novelty song on the B-side of "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer" called "Laughing Over My Grave". The single was issued by Mercury Records. The A-side or B-side of this single wasn't part of any Ray Stevens album in the early '60s. The A-side began showing up on compilation albums released by Mercury Records and their subsidiary labels in the late '60s. The B-side was never issued on any future album until a Halloween themed various artists collection came along many decades later. If you search Amazon's digital music department you won't find "Laughing Over My Grave" available as an Mp3 anymore. That Halloween various artists compilation isn't available for purchase anymore. Ray uploaded an audio of the song on YouTube last year. 

In the earlier recordings from Ray Stevens he did what I'd call textbook novelty songs. As time has passed a lot of music historians and listeners, in general, have labeled any song with a comical overtone as 'novelty' but in reality that label applies to certain types of songs. A song based on a current trend or a fad is described as a novelty song because the subject matter is tied to something that's seen as a novelty (something unusual)...it doesn't mean a novelty song is automatically going to be laugh out loud comical. Anyway, "Laughing Over My Grave" would be considered something of a novelty record even though it's not humorous when you listen to it. The laughing that you hear is jarring but it's also comical. 

The 1964 recording was produced by Shelby Singleton as you can see on the image in the video embed. Ray wrote the song and he also wrote the A-side, "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer". At the time of this single's release Ray was signed to Monument Records as a music arranger and session musician while Mercury Records continued to control the release of his audio recordings. In 1965 Ray released two Halloween style novelty records on Mercury Records: "Rockin' Teenage Mummies" and "Mr. Baker the Undertaker".

As you can see this novelty record was produced by Shelby Singleton and Jerry Kennedy. Ray, to date, hasn't uploaded an audio clip of "Mr. Baker the Undertaker" and so I uploaded an audio clip of the song by some other YouTube member. It's audio is top quality as if it's been digitally remastered but I haven't seen any CD or Mp3 of this recording...so I don't know how the audio got cleaned up without much vinyl scratches or hissing detected. In the meantime "The Rockin' Teenage Mummies" was uploaded onto the Ray Stevens YouTube channel last year, too. This particular novelty revisits the Arabic theme and cadence of "Ahab the Arab" but this time around Ray tells us about a rock group, The Mummies, who wear band-aids instead of cloth rags...and one member of the group moans in displeasure when the screaming girls trying to rip the band-aids off. 'Ouch!!!!'. 

Now then...those early/mid '60s Halloween style novelty records were peculiar and off-the-wall. Ray and Buddy Kalb came up with what might be the quintessential Halloween novelty in 1988. If given a fair hearing it could rival "Monster Mash" and "Monster's Holiday". In 1988 Ray recorded "The Booger Man"...within the lyrics of the song Ray name drops a series of famous monsters and ghoulish creatures. By song's end we're informed that a man and a woman are out on a date. They're sitting inside a car...parked in the woods...and the man warns his girlfriend that "The Booger Man" may be out there and so she better slide even closer for protection against the creature. The song, as you'll hear, has a heavy harmonica presence and Ray vocally delivers the song in a bluesy rendition. Watch out...the Booger Man's gonna get'cha! 

Ray Stevens and a Halloween Holdover...

We had some terrible storms that passed through on Halloween and I had my computer off practically the entire day...it was storming all day and most of the night...heavy downpours of rain and then the temperature dropped to below freezing overnight. So, as a result, I wasn't on-line to see the latest Halloween-themed upload from Ray Stevens. It arrived yesterday (October 31st) and I'm embedding it below even though we're now in November...



In my previous blog entry I uploaded the audio upload of this song but as you can see it's a performance from Ray on his CabaRay Nashville television show. It's a great performance but all of you should know this already...you're fans of Ray Stevens or else you wouldn't be visiting this fan-created blog reading about his career...and as fans of Ray Stevens we know there isn't such a thing as less than great when it comes to his music.

Tonight is the night Christmas at the CabaRay gets underway. Each concert held at Ray's CabaRay showroom from November 1st until December 28th will have a Christmas overtone. To get tickets you'll need to click this LINK. Since this is the day of a show you will probably not be able to purchase them on-line...but click the link for details. The month of November concert dates are on display at the webpage. All the concerts scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday star Ray Stevens. The one exception, November 13th, is for a taping of Larry's Country Diner. There is no concert on Thursday November 28th for obvious reasons: it's Thanksgiving. Below is a banner advertising the Christmas concerts. It's only an image. It isn't a link to the CabaRay site. You must click the link provided above to find information about tickets.

Ray Stevens and the Halloween Harmonies...

Hello again...in my previous blog entry I spotlighted the upcoming Christmas season of concerts at the Ray Stevens' CabaRay showroom beginning November 1st. However, we don't want to forget about Halloween this coming October 31st. I sometimes post a blog entry each year spotlighting the novelty songs Ray has recorded with a Halloween theme...they're the same songs, of course, because to date he hasn't recorded any new songs with a Halloween theme...but in order to prevent my blog entries surrounding his Halloween songs from being buried in the archives I sometimes resurrect the concept this time each year. Oh I could easily instruct readers of this blog to search the archives on the right hand side of the screen for the month of October in each previous year but that could be a bit time consuming and so I bring back the topic with, hopefully, a different take or angle each time.

On the YouTube front Ray's been issuing audio tracks and performances from his CabaRay Nashville television series of Halloween themed songs from his career. The first of these happened to be a performance from his television series of "Spiders and Snakes". Now, for those very familiar with the song, you'll know that is has nothing to do with Halloween but the title of the song lends itself to creatures you might find slithering and crawling around in any number of deep, dark dungeons and basements. The song was a huge hit for Jim Stafford but Ray recorded a version of the song in 2012 for his 9-CD comical bonanza, The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. Ray performed the song on an episode of CabaRay Nashville and here's the performance...



Elsewhere on that 2012 project are Ray's versions of several other novelty songs that have long since been identified with the Halloween season: "The Purple People Eater" (originally recorded by Sheb Wooley in 1958), "The Witch Doctor" (originally recorded as David Seville, alias of Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., in 1958), "Monster Mash" (originally recorded by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett in 1962), and "Haunted House" (originally recorded by Jumpin' Gene Simmons in 1964). A bit more obscure is Ray's take on "Transfusion"...itself not explicitly a song dealing with monsters and ghouls but, in my mind at least, it's title conjures up imagery of mad scientists. That particular novelty song was originally a hit in 1956 by Nervous Norvus, a pseudonym for Jimmy Drake. Ray uploaded an audio track of his 2012 recording of "Haunted House". Ray's version features vocal effects not heard in the original from Jumpin' Gene Simmons as well as the prominent vocal presence of Ray's female harmony singers (a big part of his sound) but keep in mind this is an audio track and not a music video...



Ray unleashed a couple of Halloween-type novelty singles in 1965. One of those happened to be titled "Rockin' Teenage Mummies". The novelty was written by Ray and produced by Shelby Singleton and Jerry Kennedy. Bill Lowery was the publisher and it was issued on Mercury Records. Recently the audio was uploaded onto YouTube and I've embedded it below. You can hear the profound influence The Coasters had on his earlier novelty songs...he does an impeccable vocal impression of Billy Guy, the lead singer of The Coasters, in the 1960 novelty single, "Sgt. Preston of the Yukon"; you'll hear Ray using a Billy Guy vocalization throughout most of that song. The scat-singing from Ray heard in "Rockin' Teenage Mummies" has the gravelly vocal cadence associated with Coasters classics like "Searchin'" and "Poison Ivy".



The second Halloween-type song from Ray Stevens in 1965, also on Mercury Records, and written by Ray...produced by Shelby Singleton and Jerry Kennedy...and published by Bill Lowery...was "Mr. Baker the Undertaker". This novelty was far less jaunty, if that's the proper description, of "Rockin' Teenage Mummies". The mummies, in my opinion, was satirical but you'll have to dig for examples of it underneath the layers of frenetic vocalization and uptempo delivery. The story about Mr. Baker, on the other hand, maintains the same uptempo delivery but Ray is far less frenetic vocally and the lyrics create a scene of an undertaker and his assistant, an Owl named Al, cheerfully awaiting the next mistake from the hospital. You can hear the audio of the song on a site called 45cat which features an embed originating from YouTube. I'm not embedding the clip due to it not being officially uploaded from Ray but I'll share a link to the 45cat website with the embedded audio clip. The site also contains audio of the novelty song's B-side, too. You can visit the site by clicking HERE.

One of the later recordings from Ray, from 1988, tackles the Halloween concept head on...a bluesy novelty titled "The Booger Man". Ray sings about a fictional monster that could put the classic movie monsters to shame...by song's end the focus shifts to Ray and a nameless woman parked near the woods. Ray uses the story of the previously unseen monster to coax the woman into getting a bit more intimate and cozy...suggesting that he hears something out there and she better slide closer...proclaiming the monster's now sitting on top of the car. A couple of years later, in 1990, Ray released "Sittin' Up with the Dead". This song, also adopted as a Halloween novelty, is about an archaic southern custom of keeping the recently departed company until an undertaker/funeral director is able to get to the residence to retrieve the deceased. A very famous music video from Ray was released on the song in 1990 and it's available for viewing on YouTube (it's received more than two million unique views since being uploaded). It was part of Ray's Multi-Platinum 1992 VHS, Comedy Video Classics, as well. I'm going to embed a performance of the song from CabaRay Nashville, however. The reason being is that it's a song that Ray rarely ever performed on television or even in concerts, even though it was made into a very popular music video, but he performed it once on his television series and here it is...

Revisiting Ray Stevens, Part 14...

Halloween day...October 31, 2011...I posted a Halloween themed blog a couple of days ago where I spotlighted some of the songs Ray recorded with a Halloween overtone. Search the archives on the right side of the screen for the blog titled The Entertaining Ray Stevens, Part 2. In this particular blog entry I decided to post the other side of The Best of Ray Stevens, a compilation that Mercury Records issued on Ray Stevens in 1970. This release features material Ray recorded during the years of 1961 through 1963. It's a combination of album songs and single releases. The collection is notable for a very rare recording of "Ahab the Arab" from some point in the early '60s. I do not know, even to this day, when this performance was recorded. The recording is made more rare by the fact that country music personality, Ralph Emery, is heard at the beginning introducing Ray to a small audience. My guess is this is an audio taken from a television program...I know Ralph hosted a pop music program at one time in the mid '60s and perhaps that's where this audio comes from!? Wherever it comes from it's an obscure recording. Purists are dismissive of the recording and complain that it doesn't belong on a collection like this but I have a differing opinion on the matter.

The liner notes, as you see here, were written by someone named Bob Scherl. Since the collection was released in 1970 the liner notes slip in references to some of the songs Ray recorded in the late '60s (which aren't part of this collection). Tracks 6, 7 and 11 were originally released as commercial singles exclusively and weren't part of his 1962 or 1963 albums for Mercury, which is where 7 of the songs on this 1970 compilation comes from.

The songs on the collection were all written by Ray Stevens:

1. Ahab the Arab
2. Funny Man; 1963
3. Harry the Hairy Ape; 1963
4. It's Been So Long; 1963
5. Speed Ball; 1963
6. Santa Claus Is Watching You; 1962
7. Butch Babarian; 1963
8. Loved and Lost; 1963
9. The Rock and Roll Show; 1962
10. Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills; 1961
11. Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer; 1964

Ray's 1962 album for Mercury is titled 1,837 Seconds of Humor. Tracks 9 and 10 in the above collection are from that album. His 1963 album for Mercury was titled This Is Ray Stevens...tracks 2 through 5 and track 8 are from that album. Track 1 was previously unreleased while tracks 6, 7 and 11 were issued as single-only releases. Some of Ray's singles featured b-sides that have not yet appeared on any commercially released album. His version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" is the original b-side of "Scratch My Back" from 1962. The b-side has never made it to any LP or CD in the last 49 years. "Scratch My Back" never made it to the Hot 100 but was released as a follow-up to "Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills".

"Don't Say Anything" is the b-side of 1963's "Butch Babarian". "It's Party Time" is the b-side of 1963's "Speed Ball". A song that I commented about several blogs ago, "Laughing Over My Grave", is the b-side of 1964's "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer". A couple of other singles, both the A and B side, that Ray recorded for Mercury have never been available since their original release: 1965's "Rockin' Teenage Mummies" and it's b-side "It Only Hurts When I Laugh" as well as "Mr. Baker the Undertaker" and it's b-side "The Old English Surfer". The releases in 1964 and 1965 came after he had signed with Monument Records. The recordings took place at some point in the early '60s when he was still with Mercury.

The Entertaining Ray Stevens, Part 2...

One of the CD's from the Entertaining Ray Stevens is New Orleans Moon, a collection released in 2007 which features marvelous recordings from Ray centering on all things Louisiana...specifically New Orleans and it's music/culture. I've written about this big easy CD several times so I won't spend a lot going over what I've already covered. I'll supply a link to Ray's web-store for those who want to purchase a copy of the CD. On Sunday Night Football the New Orleans Saints clobbered the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 62-7! In reflection of that I decided to highlight Ray's New Orleans CD from a few years ago once again. I remember quite well when this CD was released...and I remember the confusion I felt when very little hype/publicity came for the CD outside of the New Orleans area. I don't know if Ray did any concerts in the Southern states or not that year...but the CD deserves to be known by more people than just the dedicated fans. The collection features the one new song, the title track "New Orleans Moon", and the rest are his versions of songs associated with Louisiana. The song was written by Ray and Chuck Redden. Those who pay attention to songwriter credits will recognize Chuck's name on several other songs that Ray's recorded within the last several years. Chuck wrote "Midnight in Baghdad", a song found on Ray's We The People CD from last year. On Spirit of '76, Ray's CD from early this year, Chuck co-wrote "November Storm" with Ray and Buddy Kalb. On the Hurricane CD that Ray released in 2008 Chuck wrote "Down Home Beach" and co-wrote "Bubba, The Wine Connoisseur" with Ray and Buddy Kalb. Ray and Buddy rewrote a lot of the lyrics of Chuck Redden's "The Real Battle of New Orleans" in 2005. Ray released it as a CD single under the alternate title "The New Battle of New Orleans".

Here's the link to Ray's web-store where you can see a track list for the New Orleans Moon CD.

From the sounds of New Orleans we travel back to the sounds of screams...1965's spooky novelty single from Ray Stevens titled "Mr. Baker, the Undertaker". It's Halloween week all across the country...climaxing on Halloween night: October 31st. A lot of towns celebrate Halloween on the actual holiday...but a lot of other towns do the annual Halloween thing on the Thursday preceding the holiday. On October 27th it will be what's called Beggar's Night around here...where people dress up in costumes and go door to door getting candy. As mentioned, other places do this Beggar's Night on the actual Halloween night. I have no idea why Beggar's Night has always been on Thursdays in my area but that's the way it's been for decades upon decades. "Mr. Baker, the Undertaker" tells the story of a mortician's love for his work. It's filled with a lot of mortician jokes and funeral home references as one could imagine. The song features a repetitious background choir of voices singing the title of the song after almost every line. You'll be able to tell that the choir of voices is Ray who often over-dubbed his own voice to create a harmony effect. He doesn't do this a lot these days but once upon a time he did.

In addition to "Mr. Baker, the Undertaker" Ray's also recorded other Halloween-style songs. "Laughing Over My Grave" is currently available as an Mp3 on Amazon. It became available in August and I mentioned it a few blogs ago. The song isn't comical in the same way Mr. Baker is but it has it's funny moments. It's more or less a love song about a woman who's had enough of a man's lying and cheating and she's out for justice. The comical aspect comes from how Ray delivers some of the lines when he's playing the part of the fearful husband and what his wife may be capable of doing to him. You can purchase the Mp3 for only 99 cents at Amazon's Mp3 store.

It was around this same era when Ray recorded the "Rockin' Teenage Mummies" as well. That particular novelty song dealt with a group of mummies that make it big as rock singers...eventually leading to an appearance on Ed Sullivan's show. It wouldn't be until 1988 that a Halloween theme found it's way into a Ray Stevens song and it was accomplished with "The Booger Man", a bluesy comical song describing the legend of many people's nightmares. The song is on his 1988 album, I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like, which is out of print. The CD version was released in 1990...which has long been out of print. There has never been an Mp3 reissue and so a lot of people's best bet is to track down the album on eBay and invest in a record player as I did several years ago. In 1990 Ray recorded "Sittin' Up With the Dead" and to date that's been the last song he's recorded that could fit in with the overall Halloween concept of scary stories, ghosts, graveyards, etc. etc. He made a music video of the song in 1990 and given that it's been kept in print you can easily find an Mp3 of the song on Amazon. The video that Ray shot in 1990 and uploaded onto You Tube in 2009 is located below. Those familiar with 1992's Comedy Video Classics will know right away where this video was lifted from.

Let's Discuss Ray Stevens, Part 34...

Good Saturday afternoon!!

CONCERT ALERT!! Ray Stevens performs tonight in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the Alabama Theater!!

The show kicks starts at 7pm.

Those who attend the show I hope will blog about it or give commentary on-line about the show and what he sang or what he spoke about. Obviously I'm envious of those who can go! Ray isn't appearing anywhere near my locale this time around...hopefully in 2012 he'll stop at a venue a wee bit closer to me. For those who live nearby and want to go at the last minute here's the link to the concert page...

Alabama Theater

In the meantime, the current on-line video from Ray Stevens "Mr. President - Mr. President" is a smashing success. It's gotten more than 177,000 views since it's debut on September 27th. On the October 7th episode of Mark Levin's radio program the fill-in host, Tom Marr, played the song. Mark's program is heard by millions of people daily. The video's been getting anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 views per day since it's arrival as to how it's nearing the 200,000 mark in little more than a week's time. Specifically the video's gotten 177,232 views. 22,768 is what's separating it from the 200,000 plateau. Given that the video's been getting at least 20,000 views per day it wouldn't be out of the question for the video to reach that mark rather quickly.

Stepping back a few years, though, we come to an obscure song from Ray Stevens called "Laughing Over My Grave". Originally released as a single-only...the b-side of "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer" in the mid '60s on Mercury.

As you can see, I've got the vinyl single but the b-side's never been kept in print. However, to tie in with Halloween, a record label's issued a low-budget various artist CD of Halloween-style songs. Ray's mid '60s b-side, "Laughing Over My Grave", is one of the songs chosen for the project. You can click the Amazon link below to get more information about the song's availability...

Amazon Mp3

Ray Stevens sings...

Halloween always causes me to highlight Ray Stevens recordings that have a Halloween theme of some kind. He's rarely recorded songs about ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and the like but there are a few exceptions sprinkled throughout his career. The earliest happens to be 1963's "Laughing Over My Grave" which takes the concept of the love song to extremes. In it we're told of a couple who've hit bad times...the man's caught cheating and the wife wants to seek revenge on her husband. The man's guilt is reflected in the song's title as he says that's what he can hear her doing. It reaches a climax when the wife approaches him holding a gun...ready to pull the trigger. I have no information about when the song was actually recorded but I'd say 1963...it appeared as a B-side to a single that Mercury Records issued on Ray titled "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer". The catalog number is Mercury 72307. The single was officially issued in 1964 even though Ray had ventured to Monument Records in 1963. I believe Mercury still had the contractual rights to release singles on Ray for a few more years...and I believe Monument had to wait until his recording association with Mercury wrapped up and that's why Monument couldn't release any singles on Ray until 1966...at least that's how it appears. I take it that Ray was free to play on sessions for any record label in addition to working with artist's on the Monument label...all the while recording for Mercury Records through 1965.

Anyway...a couple more releases on Mercury also carried a Halloween theme...first off is 1965's "Rockin' Teenage Mummies" about a band of mummies that become rock stars. For bandages they wear band-aids...which create a fury of excitement amongst the band's female fans. Along the way we hear a brief impression of Ed Sullivan...as the band made their way onto his television program. Their singing style, perhaps as a jab at rock bands of the time, features nothing but groans and howls with an added touch of scat singing. It's catalog number is Mercury 72382. That particular single was an A-side...and he followed it up with another Halloween style 1965 novelty, "Mr. Baker the Undertaker". That particular song deals with the happenings at a mortuary where Mr. Baker and his owl assistant, Al, eagerly await each call from the local doctor. Throughout the song we're treated to some undertaker jokes and light-hearted references about death. It reminds of the kind of song that could've been sung by Digger O'Dell from the Life of Riley radio program given all of the morbid, yet funny, one-liners about death. It's catalog number is Mercury 72430.

Much later Ray recorded the bluesy ode to all things Halloween in "The Booger Man". This song was issued in 1988 and can be found on his comedy album I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. In the song Ray sings about a monster that never got much recognition or fame but it's a real creature preying and spying on people...and much of the reason why the monster slips by without much fanfare is because his victims don't survive the attack. Two years later, 1990, Ray issued "Sittin' Up With the Dead". As of this writing that's the last Halloween-style recording from Ray Stevens. The song deals with an old-time tradition of sitting up with dead people in an effort to make sure the departed isn't robbed or taken advantage of in the hours or days prior to an undertaker arriving and taking the body to the funeral home. The song is funny, of course, and it takes a slight detour from the innocent sitting up with the dead concept and makes a turn toward the surreal. Ray sings about an uncle that's so affected by arthritis that when the uncle died he was stooped over so much that they needed a chain to keep the body laying flat in the casket. However, a thunderstorm erupted and the chain snapped and the Uncle sat up in the casket! This was followed by a loss of electricity, which created more chaos. The song was made into a music video in 1990...and it's available on You Tube. Shifting gears...

This particular single has a catalog number of CBS-7235. Barnaby Records material was at one time distributed by CBS. There were also associations with GRT and the Janus label, too. This particular picture sleeve accompanied the release in France and the more I think about it the more I assume that since "Bridget the Midget" is written in big, bold letters that it's the A-side and "A Mama and a Papa" is the B-side in spite of how the songs are arranged on the picture sleeve. I assume "A Mama and a Papa" was recorded at some point in 1971 around the time he recorded "Turn Your Radio On" and "All My Trials" and when it came time to issue "Bridget the Midget" in France they tacked on "A Mama and a Papa" as the B-side. In case some didn't know, "A Mama and a Papa" reached the Adult-Contemporary charts here in America in 1971...peaking in the Top-5 during the summer. The chart was officially referred to at the time as Easy-Listening. It's B-side is a very rare, obscure recording with the unique title of "Melt". This song, as far as I know, has never appeared on any Ray Stevens compilation and it's only available as a B-side on that 1971 single. The "Melt" song is a love ballad in spite of it's title...it has to do with a romantic and the way he feels whenever the woman in his life gets around him. The very first time I heard the song I instantly loved it.

I know rattling off all of those single releases may sound confusing to some but this may help...

"Bridget the Midget" originally was issued with "Night People" as it's B-side late in 1970. Then along came "A Mama and a Papa" in the summer of 1971 and it was issued with "Melt" as it's B-side. Then, later, "Bridget the Midget" gets released overseas where in this case the B-side is "A Mama and a Papa".