Ray Stevens and Television...

In an article I found a few minutes ago via Twitter that was published yesterday, a writer at Examiner put together an article recounting her visit to the offices of Ray Stevens Music in Nashville, TN this past Thursday. The article can be read by clicking the following Ray Stevens article link. The writer of the piece is Donna Nolan-Wilson. In it, she mentions the recent death of George Lindsey, and that the visit took place this past Thursday, the day before the funeral. The article doesn't offer any direct quotes from Ray or any interview-style Q&A's but all in all it's a positive article that promotes Ray's You Tube activity and his 9-CD Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The article offers a new photo of Ray...decked out in a plaid shirt standing inside his recording studio. The article states that Ray is working on some new political songs...and I for one can't wait to hear them!!

The other day, on Facebook, it was announced that a sketch taped during the early '90s that was cut from the Amazing Rolling Revue television pilot will surface at some point on You Tube. The Amazing Rolling Revue, which I mentioned in a previous blog entry, was released on home video in 1992. The program was meant to be a pilot for a television series but there were no takers.

Ray is no stranger to the visual medium. Sure, today, he's known for his music videos and You Tube but not many people realize, if you've not paid too much attention to his interviews from the past, that there was a time when he pursued appearances on the big screen and the small screen. There was a time when you'd be able to catch him in a cameo role in various television productions...including the daytime drama, Texas, in 1981 where he performed his single at the time, "One More Last Chance". He appeared on The Fall Guy as Webb Covington and a couple of movies in the late '70s featured Ray in cameo appearances: Concrete Cowboys and Murder in Music City. These two films were released in 1979...and both have a country music backdrop...and both feature a cameo role from Ray Stevens. Claude Akins co-starred in both movies which causes confusion for those not aware that there were two separate movies that took place in Tennessee. Jerry Reed and Tom Selleck starred in Concrete Cowboys. Ray performed "Sunshine" in that film, a song from his Misty album from 1975. In the Music City film Ray performed a short song, with Ronnie Milsap, called "It's Only Temporary". Ray wrote the song according to the credits.

There was once a series called Nashville 99 and Ray made an appearance on this program. The show lasted a few episodes and it starred Jerry Reed and...drum roll...Claude Akins! Concrete Cowboys would become a television series. Jerry Reed returned for the series but Selleck's role was took over by Geoffrey Lewis. Akins had been a star in the series, Movin' On, which had a theme song performed by Merle Haggard. Notice all the ties between country music of the late '70s and both the small and big screen? The ultimate marriage between country music and the big screen would happen in 1980...with Urban Cowboy. Marty Robbins once hosted a television program and Ray made an appearance...

Did Ray Stevens ever appear on the television show, Dukes of Hazzard? The answer would be No...but he appeared on a wide variety of television offerings in the meantime.

Now, this sort of thing fits a pattern that was consistent in Ray's career for awhile during that point in time.  He made many appearances on Nashville-based programs...including Pop! Goes the Country and Hee-Haw. The latter appearances started to come in bunches during the 1980's...by the end of the '80s he had also became a frequent guest co-host on Hee-Haw. He taped so many segments that it wasn't uncommon for an episode to air featuring his performances and then several weeks later an entirely different set of performances could be seen. There were some episodes in which Ray wasn't the headlining guest but that didn't take away from his performances.

In Pop! Goes the Country I think a major reason for his numerous appearances had to do with his friendship with it's host, Ralph Emery. He also made appearances after Tom T. Hall took over as host in 1979...but for the longest time Ralph's television programs were certain to feature Ray Stevens at some point or another. While Hee-Haw became the show that Ray appeared on the most in the 1980's...with a close second being the Ralph Emery hosted Nashville Now...the program that Ray appeared on the most in the '70s was without question Pop! Goes the Country with a close second being his appearances in the early '70s on Andy Williams' program. When Jerry Reed was asked to host a country music special in 1979 Ray Stevens was among the guests. Ray performed an abbreviated version of "Freddy Feelgood" before launching into his current single at the time, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". In the famed Chet Atkins television special from 1980 Ray performed "Night Games" and "Frog Kissing". The latter was actually a Chet Atkins vocal hit...the recording had been produced by Ray in 1976. The song itself had been written by Buddy Kalb. Ray performed the background harmony in the recording, too.

As early as 1970 Ray was working on the legendary story of Johnny Appleseed...from the few news articles I've come across, apparently, it was suppose to be a stage production of some kind...a lot like the Mark Twain adaptation musicals of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Here is a news archive from June 24, 1970 reprinted by Google detailing Ray's career at that point in time: June 24, 1970 news article. It's from a newspaper called The Bryan Times. The story was written by one named Mel Heimer and it briefly mentions the Johnny Appleseed project.

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 34...

On Monday, Ray Stevens released a statement about George Lindsey, who had passed away on Sunday at the age of 83. You can read Ray's message here at Music News Nashville. The statement's been picked up by quite a few news outlets as well as other blog sites and spread around the internet. I found out about Lindsey's death while surfing the internet...when I wrote my early Sunday morning blog publicizing Ray's upcoming appearance that night on a 1972 episode of Hee-Haw I was unaware of Lindsey's death and therefore I made no mention of it in the blog. I don't think the news had really broke when I was putting the Sunday morning blog together. Once I found out about his death I wrote a blog entry about Lindsey in my Animation blog, which doubles as my off-topic blog, where I comment about a lot of other topics not associated with Ray Stevens. You can find that blog address on my profile or you can click This Link and be taken right to the blog.

Ray posted a link to a short review of the Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. That review is Here. Within the write-up there's a link to Amazon...a product page for the Encyclopedia...it's from the Amazon marketplace, though, so it's not been officially released to Amazon as of now. The marketplace, for those unaware, is a seller generated sub-site where people can purchase things from Amazon members and deal directly with the Amazon member rather than the store itself. The seller's asking $150.00 for their copy of the collection.

Did anyone catch Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw this past Sunday? As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, this 1972 episode first aired on RFD-TV in early November of 2011 and so this was your last opportunity to see it. Ray's first performance was "Isn't It Lonely Together?". In the performance he's seated on a stool in casual attire...a red shirt and blue jeans. He's got a beard and the show's resident dog, Beauregard, was shown laying on the floor during the performance. The production was top-notch...several times in the performance they used split-screen camera effects. Later, during the performance of "Gitarzan", the mood is much more festive and upbeat as you can imagine...complete with several Hee-Haw Honeys prancing around behind Ray as he performed the song. He was in the same attire but this time he had the electric guitar with him. Instead of re-writing what I already wrote in a previous blog entry in November 2011 let me just say that it was a great performance!!!

I think I speak for all fans when I say we want to see more Ray Stevens...LOTS more vintage Ray from the '60s, '70s, and '80s especially. I say this because there's not been too much footage of him from those decades. I still look for the day to come where somebody or some company in Nashville or wherever gets copyright clearances or gets the permission of the various copyright holders of his many television appearances and then puts them out on a DVD collection for all the fans to see. I can say, without doing much research, that there are quite a few out there who'd love to see a DVD like that come available. The same holds true, obviously, for his summer TV show from 1970. I've seen performances of Andy Williams from his 1969-1971 variety program...the same exact years that Ray Stevens was a recurring cast-member...but yet any songs or sketches that Ray participated in don't show up. I don't know if that's a decision from Ray or whoever to keep those appearances out of DVD circulation...but all his fans would love to see those performances...especially those fans in my age bracket and younger who weren't even born when the summer TV show was on the air. All we have are a few clips from The Life and Times of Ray Stevens that The Nashville Network aired in the late '90s. The two clips that were shown come from the same 1970 episode...he sang snippets of "Mr. Businessman" and "Everything Is Beautiful". I was born in 1976 and became aware of Ray Stevens in the mid 1980's...but as time went on I researched his music and television appearances and am perhaps one of the MANY who want to see all of his television appearances. But of course, I know that can never be accomplished because a lot of his earliest appearances, I'd say, are lost to time...either taped over or destroyed when it was common practice for television stations and networks to tape over episodes or wipe their tapes for cost cutting reasons...but there were just as many appearances, I assume, that are still on tape and available for re-mastering for the DVD age. I won't hold my breath, of course, but it's something in the back of my mind that someday I'd like to see happen.

Ray Stevens On Hee-Haw, Part 6!!!!!!

***Ray Stevens television alert!!!***

Tonight, May 6th 2012 at 8pm Eastern on RFD-TV, Ray Stevens' second appearance on Hee-Haw will be re-ran. 

RFD-TV is currently repeating the 1972-1973 season...this season originally aired for the first time on the channel during the latter half of 2011 through early 2012. 11 weeks ago the channel started airing the '72-'73 season once again. Ray Stevens, ironically, was one of the guests on the season opener performing "Turn Your Radio On" and "Along Came Jones". Dizzy Dean was one of the other guests on that particular episode. Typically what happens when it comes to airing of the reruns of Hee-Haw is a season of reruns will air, in chronological order, and then once those episodes have aired then they're repeated, only once, for the simple concept of filling a 52 week calendar year.

There were 26 episodes per season, airing weekly, during the first 23 seasons of the series (1969-1991) which adds up to 52 air-dates once you factor in the rerun. During the 1992 season there were only 22 episodes produced...enabling the show to have 4 open spots to air whatever rerun from 1992 that it chose.

Anyway, the particular episode that airs on RFD-TV later tonight, which also features Donna Fargo, was the 11th show of the '72-'73 season and so RFD has 15 more episodes remaining to re-air before they jump into the '73-'74 season later this fall. This 11th episode, for those keeping track, aired for the first time on RFD-TV on November 6, 2011. In this episode Ray, with a beard, performs "Gitarzan" and "Isn't It Lonely Together".

Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw, Part 4!!!!

In a couple of minutes I'll be ordering the Internet Video Hits DVD from Ray Stevens that I wrote about in my previous blog...but the main reason I'm writing this brief entry is to alert people to Sunday night at 8pm Eastern time. This is the time when RFD-TV will air their weekly episode of Hee-Haw. The episode airing tomorrow night was originally broadcast in 1972 and it features Ray Stevens and Donna Fargo as the special guests. Earlier in the year Ray's first appearance on Hee-Haw was reran on RFD-TV and tomorrow night we'll get to see his second appearance. Fast-forwarding 39 years to November 5, 2011 we see that Ray's current music video on You Tube, "Mr. President - Mr. President", has 310,245 views. This is another increase of nearly 10,000 views in a matter of a few days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray Stevens On Hee-Haw, Part 3!!!

Early Monday morning here...a few minutes past midnight...August 29th. On Sunday night the 1972 Hee-Haw episode with Ray Stevens re-aired on RFD-TV. This particular episode first aired on RFD-TV back in late February of this year. After it's February air-date RFD, for whatever reason, began re-running the 1971-1972 season for a second time. Here's hoping that the rest of the 1972-1973 season airs this time around. Ray will appear for a second time during this season. Ray appeared on episode's 78 and 88 in 1972...a 10 week span between appearances...so looking at this year's calendar if all goes well and my math is correct that second 1972 episode featuring Ray will air on November 6th.

As I touched upon in previous blog entries about this episode it marked the arrival of several key cast-members: Misty Row, Marianne Gordon, and Gailord Sartain. In the case of Sartain he wasn't mentioned in the opening credits but he appeared several times in police uniform on the show.

George Lindsey, who'd been appearing on and off as Goober throughout the 1971-1972 season, appeared several times on the 1972-1973 season opener but wasn't featured in the opening cast call either. Ray Stevens performed "Turn Your Radio On" and "Along Came Jones" but didn't participate in any of the comedy sketches. A lot of this happened due to the fact that a lot of the comedy sketches were taped during sessions in which the guest stars weren't at the studio. By the mid '70s and especially throughout the '80s the guest stars were often featured in quite a few of the sing-a-long comedy sketches but in the earliest episodes of the program many of the guest stars were on hand to sing their songs and that was it. The season opener for 1972, with Ray Stevens as a guest, will re-air on RFD-TV later this morning at 10am Eastern.

Arlene Harden and Dizzy Dean are the other guests. Check out my previous entries titled "Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw" and "Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw, Part 2!!!" for further commentary about that particular episode.

In the meantime, Ray's current Spirit of '76 CD is ranked among the Top-40 best selling Amazon Mp3's in the Singer-Songwriter category.

As you can tell I did a redecoration project on this blog page. I removed the Ray Stevens time-line that ran along the right side of the page to only showcase a few items. I did this because the time-line was rather lengthy and it ran quite a long way down the side of the page. Even though I've always known the time-line was lengthy I decided to shorten it up considerably to where it ends right around where the third blog entry ends. This way the blog page looks a lot more concise and compact which is how I prefer it looking for awhile.

Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw, Part 2!!

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

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

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

Ray Stevens on Hee-Haw!!

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

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

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

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

RFD-TV Video-on-Demand

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 22...

Good Sunday morning all! I'd been on vacation from work this past week which explains why my blog updates appeared with much more frequency than usual. I return to work on Monday and more than likely I'll blog once or twice a day, or every other day, depending on what's going on in Ray's career at any given moment. Tonight Ray Stevens appears on a 1972 episode of Hee-Haw on the RFD-TV channel. The show airs at 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central. I'll be writing a re-cap of the episode here and over on Ray's official message board later tonight. One of the burning questions is: will Ray Stevens be clean-shaven or will he have a beard? It's difficult to predict because I've seen pictures of him from as early as 1969 with a beard...and then there were pictures taken of him in 1973 with a glorious beard that you could lose your hand in...then in 1975 he had a beard part of the time...so tonight's 1972 episode of Hee-Haw should answer that question.

The big song that Ray had out in 1972 was "Turn Your Radio On". The single had been released late in 1971 but reached it's peak in early 1972. The gospel single was just one of the several gospel-flavored recordings issued by Ray during that time period. "All My Trials", "A Mama and a Papa", and "Love Lifted Me" were released as singles, too. That same year Ray released his Turn Your Radio On album. The single reached the Top-20 on the Country chart in America and the Top-10 on Canada's Country chart. On America's Pop chart, the Hot 100, it reached the Top-70. In the United Kingdom the single reached the Top-40. On Easy-Listening radio the single reached the Top-30 in America and the Top-5 in Canada. Judging Ray Stevens based upon exclusive chart statistics for one format or another doesn't truly represent his popularity. One song may not connect with a country audience the way it may connect with a more wider pop audience. Also, a song that fails to connect with the American public may have become a big hit in Canada or Europe. This is why it's never fair to focus exclusively on the pop chart in America or the country chart in America. To get a sense of his overall popularity it's best to focus on all the weekly commercial charts that are or, were, in publication during the time the songs and albums were released.

There was a point in time when several of his singles were hitting in Canada but not connecting with people in America to the point of pushing the song into the radio-oriented Top-40. A 1963 single, "Funny Man", reached the Top-20 in Canada but on America's pop chart it ranked in the Top-90! Radio listeners in America weren't hearing that wonderful ballad from Ray Stevens but Canadian radio listeners were.

You'll never see his Canadian chart stats quoted much...but there were plenty of times where a song of his hit in Canada but didn't hit as big in America. "Unwind" reached the Top-20 in Canada and "Mr. Businessman" reached the Top-10...by comparison, in America, "Unwind" reached the Top-60 and "Mr. Businessman" reached the Top-30 on the pop chart. This same thing holds true with the various radio formats in America. Several of Ray's singles in the mid '70s hit with country audiences instead of pop audiences. One single in particular, "Love Lifted Me", didn't reach any of the American or Canadian based music charts...but it managed to obtain a Top-5 ranking in Bangkok of all places in the fall of 1972. Apparently the music buyers there appreciated Ray's aggressive, rock-oriented take on the gospel song. You won't see that chart statistic quoted much, if at all, by the numerous authors of liner notes, the biographers, and music historians of the world who either want to focus exclusively on the American pop music chart or the American country music chart.

"Love Lifted Me", as mentioned, didn't make the charts in America or Canada...and it didn't reach the United Kingdom chart, either. A particularly scathing write-up, punctuated with crass and cynical observation, appeared in a July 21, 1972 UK newspaper. Apparently, and of course I have no proof, but the critic seemed annoyed that Ray's biggest hits were happening in America and not in the United Kingdom...something the critic pointed out in his own kind of way. Either that or the critic was marginalizing Ray's popularity as an artist. In hindsight Ray made the United Kingdom charts 7 times as compared to his American chart appearances...which boasts more than 50 appearances altogether when you factor in song, album, and home video releases.

Shifting gears from 1972 and landing 39 years later, in 2011, we find that Ray Stevens' latest music video on You Tube, spoofing the TSA, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", has obtained 71,114 unique views during it's first 10 days on-line! The video was uploaded during the late afternoon on February 17th and it looks as if it'll obtain 100,000 views any day now. I often use the term "hits" when referring to "unique views" but recently I discovered that the phrases aren't interchangeable and that unique views is the proper term to use. I'm sure a lot of other people use those words interchangeably, just as I do, but for the purposes of specificity I'll use the phrase unique views from now on.

Reminder: Those who get RFD-TV, Ray Stevens will be a featured guest on tonight's 1972 episode of Hee-Haw!

Ray Stevens and the TSA, Part 8...

The music video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", gained 14,760 hits over the last couple of days to bring it's overall total to 62,137! The video's been on-line for just 1 week and has gotten more hits than the previous release, "The Nightmare Before Christmas", during the same time period. The Christmas music video had pulled in a little more than 21,000 hits during it's first week...and it needs to be mentioned that the Christmas music video was uploaded on November 3, 2010...a full month and a half before Christmas so that by the time the Christmas rush was underway the video was more than a month old and difficult to find in public listings of Christmas-related videos (unless a person knew the name of the song and did a specific search).

As many of you may know when you upload something onto You Tube or any other video hosting site it doesn't stay at the top of the search results indefinitely. Once other videos get uploaded it pushes (buries) the current videos further down the search results. If a person searches "Ray Stevens" on the You Tube site what typically comes up are the videos that have gotten the most hits or videos that have been embedded/shared more than others...what a person needs to do, obviously, is type "Ray Stevens" and next to his name type whatever music video you want to search for. Example: "Ray Stevens + The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore" will come back with a couple of search results. Ray's video is the first one listed. Now, of course, you can always by-pass this and just visit his web-site and watch the video there.

On Sunday February 27th RFD-TV will air a September 1972 episode of Hee-Haw at 8pm Eastern. I watch Hee-Haw every Sunday but this particular episode will star Ray Stevens! This episode marked the first time Ray made an appearance on the program. Arlene Harden and Dizzy Dean will be the other guests on this particular episode.

My 300th Ray Stevens blog entry!!

I wrote about this particular souvenir item several blogs ago. I can't really recall when...but I know I touched upon this item. This is one of those road books, some refer to them as tour books, where an artist is highlighted with pictures often taken of the singer in concert or in a concert setting. Although this is officially billed as a "programme", note the British-style of spelling, it serves the same function as a road book in that it hypes the artist. Actually, another artist, in addition to Ray Stevens, is hyped in this booklet. Del Shannon is the other artist written about...he was appearing with Ray at a venue in England in 1977. Their appearance obviously was the reason behind this souvenir booklet. There are several obscure pictures of Ray throughout the booklet and it even has reference to his aspirations of being a playwright with an adaptation of Johnny Appleseed.

The back of the booklet is a picture of Ray that was used for his 1976 album, Just For the Record. I came across this booklet on eBay several years ago and I bought it...and if any of you want a chance at owning this same booklet I suggest you go to eBay. There is an eBay member from Ireland currently selling a copy of the booklet...it'll be posted for just four more days...so anyone seriously wanting a copy of this 1977 booklet that you see me hilariously showing-off now would be your opportunity!! When I bought my copy I had to send an International money order to the seller as he lived in England somewhere. Unfortunately eBay doesn't offer a check/money order option and everything's PayPal whether you want to use your credit/debit card or not!!

What could I possibly be looking at?? Hmmm, is there an image of a female streaker in the booklet? Now, of course there isn't such a thing!! But what in the world could I possibly be looking at? Okay...I'll give a hint...it has something to do with Ray Stevens. Does that narrow it down for anybody? Okay, here's a better hint...1970. That's my last hint. It could be anything from 1970...lots of things were happening in Ray's career in 1970...but yes, 1970, is the best hint I can give without giving away what's hiding in the center of the booklet. All in all the booklet/program/programme is great although I did wince at the swipe at Hee-Haw, though. It wasn't a vicious remark or anything but it did carry a condescending tone, based upon the words being used, as if the writer was irritated that the show was still on the air. I'm not going to expect the impossible and hope that one day the show will get respect universally...no one person can be hopeful that long. Anyway...9 times out of 10 those who make fun of the show only do so because they feel it's a hip thing to do or worse yet all they've really known is to make fun of the show...whether they've actually seen a complete episode or not.

As you can tell from the title of this particular installment of the blog this is my 300th Ray Stevens Music Journey post. This blog started toward the end of 2008...and here we are toward the end of 2010...only a couple more months left. I could've written 100 blog entries a year to reach the 300th right now. 100 in 2008, 100 in 2009, and 100 in 2010...but that isn't exactly the way it happened. As you all can see from the archive totals: 43 in 2008, 79 in 2009, and a whopping 178 in 2010!! Ray wraps up his concert series in Branson, Missouri tonight...this is also the day he appears at a local Tea Party rally in Branson! His You Tube music videos continue to gain hits...with his latest, "God Save Arizona", sitting at 481,898 hits. "Caribou Barbie", the song about Sarah Palin, is at long last getting close to 300,000 hits! I refer to this and "The Global Warming Song" as the forgotten music videos! You would think a music video centering around Sarah Palin would've gotten half a million or more hits within a month or two but after 7 months on-line the total is 291,174. This is still a good, healthy response but for those who had higher expectations, given the subject matter, you can't help but wonder what happened??

"The Global Warming Song" I don't think was meant to be a major music video upload given the lack of publicity and attention it didn't get. The song is cute but perhaps it only gains appreciation from those who are into ecology and the climate? Maybe the topic isn't a hot button issue...that could always be the case. That particular music video has gotten 60,200 hits. It was uploaded 3 months ago. My guess is the video was simply over-shadowed by it's predecessor: "Come to the USA" which is currently sitting pretty with 4,220,021 hits! "Caribou Barbie", uploaded on March 11, was over-shadowed by the video that followed it less than a week later on March 22: "Throw the Bums Out!". That music video has gotten 561,910 hits so far. So, here you have a case where two music videos are over-shadowed by other releases...usually over the course of time a forgotten video will ignite and find it's audience and that may be what ends up happening with "The Global Warming Song". The global warming video is sandwiched between "Come to the USA" and "God Save Arizona" and in music industry jargon the video of "The Global Warming Song" simply got lost in the shuffle.

Ray Stevens past television Appearances

On June 29, 1988 a lot of Ray Stevens fans were in for a treat that day. It was comedy night on Nashville Now, the talk-show that aired on The Nashville Network for ten years: 1983-1993. The network was commonly referred to as TNN for short. An even special treat was in store because our favorite, Ray Stevens, played the part of co-host. I remember some episodes of the show where Ralph Emery used a co-host. On these particular episodes Ralph would sit in the audience or be off-stage and the guest co-host would conduct an interview. I recall an episode where Ray was the guest host...on this episode the guests were Holly Dunn and a member of the show's band, Larry Sasser. I also recall Minnie Pearl as a guest on another episode that Ray played guest host on. The episodes that I'm recalling, though, are from 1990-1991 and not 1988.

Who was on the June 29, 1988 episode of Nashville Now you may be wondering? Along with co-host Ray Stevens there was Jerry Clower, Minnie Pearl, the Riders in the Sky, and Cousin Bubba. In the fall of 1988 Ray issued his comedy album, I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. It was also during this point in time that some far out animal rights activists were crying foul over the so-called mistreatment of a hamster in the Ray Stevens recording, "The Old Hippie Class Reunion", the last song on Ray's just released album that year. I came across that non-story late last year while browsing the Google news archives and laughed when I read it. Can you imagine listening to a hilarious comedy song like that and then zero in on a hamster reference...and as a result, throw a fit. Ray, also, found the outrage laughable.

On February 22, 1985 Ray was called on to host a Pre-Awards Grammy special. The program ran 1 hour and it was a nationally televised program...it wasn't a program that aired on TNN. An introduction of this 1985 special can be seen on You Tube. The Grammy Awards honor material recorded in the previous year...so the Grammy awards of 1985 would focus on music from late 1983 into the cut-off date in 1984. This meant that if a song debuted late in 1983 it could possibly win a Grammy in 1985 if nominated. In the You Tube clip Ray only gets to speak for a few seconds before the clip ends. I wish the clip were longer. The program was taped during that transition period in Ray's career where he shifted from recording serious songs and began his gradual slide into the realm of country comedy.

On December 28, 1985 Ray appeared as one of the artists on a PBS show called Country Express. I have no idea if this was a continuing series or a program that aired as a special. It was a Christmas themed program which also featured Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Deborah Allen, and The Statler Brothers. It's my guess that Ray performed "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and, or, "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz".

On January 2, 1986 Ray appeared on an outdoor sportsman program on TNN. During the days of TNN, sports programs typically filled the airwaves on Sunday. Racing, fishing, hunting, and other outdoors activities were all featured on TNN on Sundays. Country Sportsman was the name of the program Ray appeared on. The program details indicate that others were part of the show, too: Chet Atkins, Irlene Mandrell, Boots Randolph, and Jeanne Pruett. Bobby Lord was the star...the episode was billed as Bobby Lord at the LaBelle Celebrity Fishing Tournament. Several days later, on January 13, Ray was a featured performer/presenter on the Music City News Songwriters Awards. An appearance on The Tommy Hunter Show came along for Ray in the fall of 1986. Also appearing on the September 27, 1986 episode was Johnny Lee, Reba McEntire, and Charley McClain. Hunter's program was an import from Canada where it had been on the air since 1960, first on radio and then on television beginning in 1965. TNN began airing episodes in 1983 but then stopped airing the program in 1989. Hunter's show continued to air in Canada until 1992. The reason that the program left TNN, and a reason why a couple of other programs ended in 1989, had to do with TNN's schedule shake-up. The morning hours were taken over by music video programming as were the late afternoon hours. VideoMorning and VideoPM to be specific. Ray appeared on those programs during the mid 1990's when he was promoting his home video releases. Anyway, 1990 marked a kind of new direction for TNN, and a lot of the programs that had been a part of the network since it's debut in 1983 came to an end in 1989. A few shows stayed but quite a few went out of production.

This comedy CD came along in January 2008. The official release date was January 31, 2008 through Ray's web-site store. An Mp3 digital album was then released nationally a month later...and then in late 2008 an audio CD hit the market. "Hurricane" closely resembles "The Streak" and I believe that was done on purpose. Aside from the title track there's political humor in "Sucking Sound" where Ray sings about NAFTA and the economic situation and predictions of Ross Perot. Ray offers some down-home flavor in two back to back Bubba songs. Track four is a talking routine, pretty much, about a man from the south who fancies himself as a world class wine taster. I bought seven of the twelve songs on-line. I already had five of the songs on other collections and so I bought tracks 1 through 6 and track 11.

1. Hurricane
2. Sucking Sound
3. The Cure
4. Bubba, the Wine Connoisseur
5. Hey Bubba, Watch This!
6. Rub It In
7. Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat
8. Camping Trip
9. Makin' the Best of a Bad Situation
10. Stuck on You
11. Down Home Beach
12. Hugo The Human Cannonball