Ray Stevens: Three Volume Collection Turns 25...

Me and the 1995 cassettes; circa mid 2000s.

Longtime Ray Stevens fans should be aware of these 1995 releases from Warner Brothers. I've written about them plenty of times over the last 10+ years that I've been writing this fan created blog. Well, 2020 marks the Silver Anniversary of their release. I still have my cassette tapes and but I only have one of those in CD format. I have them in Mp3 format now but I won't toss out my cassettes...or CDs...or my vinyl. I have all of those songs, now, on vinyl on the original studio albums they appeared on. Anyway, in the years prior to these three releases coming along you couldn't find hardly anything in retail stores featuring Ray Stevens from his Warner Brothers years (1976-1979). You would come across compilation albums that featured one or two selections from that time period and that was it. Can you guess the songs from this era in Ray's career that got the most repeated exposure on compilation albums throughout the 1980s and into the mid 1990s? The novelty "In the Mood" late in 1976...released under a pseudonym, Henhouse Five Plus Too. The other song from this time period that's gotten a lot of reissue is 1979's "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". These 1995 releases went a long way at showcasing the obscurities that weren't kept in print on countless compilation albums. The irony is that these 1995 cassette releases, once they were re-released in CD format, went out print just as quickly as they arrived. A number of years later the releases were digitally uploaded for on-line sale...however, one of those 1995 releases is currently unavailable for digital/Mp3 purchase, but the other two are still available.

The titles of those releases are Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. The material compiled for those releases come from his studio albums for Warner Brothers in the late '70s. Cornball is a misleading album title...there are only three recordings that qualify as comical/novelty but there is a love ballad on there titled "Cornball" from 1976. The CD opens and closes with the chickens: "In the Mood" kicks off the CD and "Classical Cluck" closes out the CD. In between we have track two, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" and beyond that the rest of the recordings are serious love ballads and inspirational easy-listening music. I'm aware that there is a segment of music listeners that can't distinguish between Ray's humorous and serious recordings. I say this because there are many that feel his 1975 recording of "Misty" is a comedy song (believe it or not) but it's actually a straight ahead country performance of a jazz/pop standard...to them it's funny when they hear it performed the way that Ray does it. Cornball is not available for digital download at Amazon but the other two collections are. I'm going to list the songs found on each release.

Do You Wanna Dance?:
1. Feel the Music; 1977
2. Dance Trilogy- Do You Wanna Dance/When You Dance/Save the Last Dance for Me; 1978
3. Blues Love Affair; 1977
4. Country Licks; 1976
5. Honky Tonk Waltz; 1976
6. One Man Band; 1976
7. Can't Stop Dancin'; 1976
8. Old Faithful Trilogy- Shake a Hand/Since I Met You Baby/Always; 1978
9. You've Got the Music Inside; 1978

Cornball:
1. In the Mood; 1976
2. I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow; 1979
3. You Are So Beautiful; 1976
4. Money Honey; 1978
5. Cornball; 1976
6. Dixie Hummingbird; 1977
7. One Mint Julep; 1978
8. Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash; 1978
9. Save Me From Myself; 1977
10. Classical Cluck; 1976

The Serious Side of Ray Stevens:
1. One and Only You; 1976
2. Talk to Me; 1978
3. Alone With You; 1977
4. Daydream Romance; 1977
5. Once in Awhile; 1976
6. Set The Children Free; 1977
7. The Feeling's Not Right Again; 1978
8. Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right; 1978
9. L'amour; 1978
10. Be Your Own Best Friend; 1978

Ray issued two studio albums in 1978. In the first half of the year he released a covers project called There Is Something On Your Mind. This eight song album features Ray's renditions of rhythm and blues classics...and some obscurities that weren't heard on mainstream Top-40 pop radio. That album features commentary on both the front and back of the album by Ray where he discusses his desire to record this kind of an album and how that music was a big influence in his youth. If you have those 1995 releases the person that compiled the songs lists the material from that 1978 album as previously unreleased. I have no idea why those songs are noted as being previously unreleased when they appeared on that 1978 album. I've gotten some replies over the years that perhaps the reason they're noted as previously unreleased is because the 1978 album may have only been released in Canada and other predominantly English-speaking countries. It's possible...but it makes no sense, to me, why it wouldn't get issued in the United States as well.

Ray Stevens; 1978

The songs on these 1995 releases that come from that 1978 covers album are: "Talk to Me", "Money Honey", "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash", "One Mint Julep", "Old Faithful Trilogy", and "Dance Trilogy". The two recordings from that 1978 album that didn't get spotlighted in those 1995 releases were "Banned in Boston Trilogy" and the title track, "There is Something On Your Mind". The second studio album from Ray in 1978 was Be Your Own Best Friend. An abundance of songs from that album feature heavily on the 1995 CD titled The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. I don't think it will ever happen but nevertheless I still wish that Ray's studio albums for the label would get issued digitally.

In a 1977 video clip from an episode of Marty Robbins Spotlight here's Ray performing "Feel the Music". It's an even more soulful performance than the studio recording if that's even possible. You'll hear Ralph Emery provide the introduction...

Ray Stevens Marches to His Own Beat...

Oh hello...I'm a number of hours removed from when I wrote my previous blog entry. In that one I remarked about the closing of February and the emergence of March. If you're a fan of Ray Stevens then you should be very well aware that he's his own person...not that he hasn't had a lot of valuable help along the way...he gives a lot of credit to the people that supported his career in his memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, but for the most part he makes his own decisions when it comes to his career. He marches to his own beat...and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discover that I titled this blog entry based upon it being the first day of March.

A performance that most surely may have you marching and tapping your foot is his rendition of "In the Mood", a recording released late in 1976. It reached the Top-40 on the country and pop chart early in 1977. In the United States and Canada it was issued as The Henhouse Five Plus Too whereas overseas it was released primarily as Ray Stevens even though I've come across several picture sleeves of the single from international markets in which it credits The Henhouse Five Plus Too as the performers of "In the Mood". The single, if you have never heard it, features Ray Stevens clucking like a chicken. I wrote a blog entry late in January this year all about the single...search the archives to the right for the blog entry.

Earlier today Ray uploaded a video clip onto YouTube from his Branson, Missouri years...a 1992 performance of "In the Mood" done by his stage band, The French Fried Far Out Legion. The band performs the number in it's traditional way and then midway through the lights dim a little bit during a saxophone solo while the other musicians reach for chicken hats. As this is going on we hear the clucking of chickens over the loud speaker...and on cue the musicians begin physically performing the song while Ray's chicken clucks are played for all to hear. The performance is part of the 1993 VHS release, More Ray Stevens Live!, this was the video cassette not released through television ads nor available in retail stores. The only place fans could get the VHS was through his fan club or by purchasing the tape in person at his gift shop at the former theater.

In the video clip you'll see and hear Ray's band as well as hear Ray's voice clucking out "In the Mood" as his band pantomimes to the recording.

Ray Stevens: In the Mood for Chicken...

As I write this fan created blog entry the clock sits at 11:59pm on a Wednesday night. As I glance down I see that we're now into Thursday morning, January 30th. On the social media posts of Ray Stevens yesterday there happened to be a YouTube video upload of the audio track of "In the Mood". This recording goes back to 1976 in the career of Ray Stevens. It was his third single release for Warner Brothers. The novelty was released as the Henhouse Five Plus Too and it became a Top-40 single early in 1977. In the liner notes of a CD released by Rhino Records in 1997 titled The Very Best of Ray Stevens the notes author, Dr. Demento, quotes Ray on the inspiration for "In the Mood" performed as a choir of chickens. I'll paraphrase the quote by saying that Ray had the idea to cluck the song, which also includes vocal accompaniment from a vocally mimicked cow and a goat, just to see how it would come off. The instrumentation is sparse. Ray insists that he didn't want to issue it as a single but Warner Brothers loved the concept and it was issued as the Henhouse Five Plus Too in December 1976.

The single hit the Hot 100 pop chart on January 8, 1977 and by it's 4th week on, January 29, 1977, it was knocking on the door of the Top-40 half of the Hot 100. On the country chart it had a similar brisk climb up the chart and was actually in the country Top-40 on January 29th. It spent several weeks at number 39 on the country chart. On the Easy-Listening chart, believe it or not, it reached the Top-40 in that format as well. In it's fifth week on the Hot 100 it pushed it's way into the Top-40, anchoring the chart for one week...for the week ending February 5, 1977. In it's sixth week on the country singles chart, February 12th, it fell ten notches. The same week, on the Hot 100, "In the Mood" fell out of the Top-40 by a single position and into pop music history as the very next week it was outside the Top-50 and on it's way off the Hot 100. Ray's pseudonym, Henhouse Five Plus Too, is officially credited as the performers of "In the Mood" and they're often cited as One Hit Wonders. Last year I wrote a blog entry titled Symphonic Chickens which goes into detail about Ray's various novelty songs featuring the chicken as the subject matter. This blog entry, as one could tell, was put together as a response to the YouTube audio track upload of "In the Mood"... 

Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Nine...

Hello once again!! I put the finishing touches on Part Eight earlier this morning and now we've come to Part Nine. We are also entering a point in time in the career of Ray Stevens which signaled major changes as far as career direction was concerned...even though the changes weren't so dramatic to cause much of a noticeable change overall. Did that even make sense? If it didn't I'll be more clear within my commentary. Ray's publishing company was experiencing success with the chart hit of "Don't Boogie Woogie" by Jerry Lee Lewis early in 1976. The song, if you remember, had originally been recorded by Ray in 1974 and it's from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr. The recording by Jerry Lee Lewis was on Mercury Records and produced by Jerry Kennedy. It wasn't a major Top-40 pop or Country hit but it made the Country charts nevertheless and if you listen to Ray's recording of the song it eerily anticipates the eventual recording from Jerry Lee.

Outside of his career Ray had something of a scare on March 30, 1975...for those that didn't know about it Ray was involved in a car accident on a back road in Kentucky around 1am. The details of the car wreck indicated that the Mercedes he was driving hit a pile of mud, grass, and other debris...apparently from a mudslide...and he lost control of the car and slid into a ditch. The car was totaled and obviously covered in mud and grass. Inside the car, as passengers, were Ray's brother, John, and Ray's manager, Don. Ray and his brother were treated in a Kentucky hospital but transported to a Nashville hospital while Don was treated and released in Kentucky.  

The first single release from Ray in 1975 shown up in the spring. The song in question happened to be "Misty" and during it's first weeks of availability Ray was recovering from the car wreck. The reports said he had a black eye and several facial bruises. The arrangement of this song featured not only the piano but it also showcased the fiddle, banjo, and the steel guitar among the dominant instruments. The arrangement was country...aligning itself more toward a Bluegrass flavor...and it was the first single from a forthcoming stellar album from Ray which was also titled Misty. "Misty", the single, would go on to reach the Top-10 on the Country music chart and the Adult-Contemporary chart here in the U.S. and it also reached the Top-10 in the United Kingdom, Australia, and on Canada's Country music chart and their Adult-Contemporary chart. The single reached the Top-20 on the Hot 100 in the U.S. and the Top-20 on Canada's pop music chart. Ray performed the song on several country music programs...one of those performances took place on Pop! Goes the Country hosted by Ralph Emery and another performance arrived on an episode of Hee Haw. In both of these appearances Ray had a beard but yet on the album cover of Misty he's noticeably clean shaven.

Barnaby finally released a follow-up single...arriving in the fall of 1975 in the form of "Indian Love Call". This happened to be arranged by Ray in a classic rhythm and blues sound...it could very well be considered borderline Doo-wop...a far cry from the traditional performance of the song which had become a monster hit for Slim Whitman as an uptempo love plea showcasing his yodeling and tenor vocals. Ray took his version of the song into the Country music Top-40 as well as the UK Top-40 pop chart. The sheet music for "Indian Love Call", by the way, featured a bearded Ray Stevens leaning against a tree. I made a collage awhile ago of the Misty album side by side with a compilation album as a visual comparison of clean-shaven Ray and bearded Ray side by side from the same year.

The Misty album, as mentioned, is a stellar project. Ray did his versions of several pop music standards and one country music classic. All of the cover songs feature different arrangements from the original recordings...and in addition to "Misty" and "Indian Love Call" there's his versions of "Over the Rainbow", "Cow Cow Boogie", "Oh, Lonesome Me", and "Deep Purple" just to name several. Barnaby Records released "Young Love" as a single in December of 1975...and if you've never heard his version of the song before it gives new meaning to the phrase 'slow, dramatic ballad'. Ray more or less rings every ounce of emotion from each and every word to distinguish it from the super up-tempo delivery often accompanying the performance from pop and country music singers alike. Ray's version charted Country here in the U.S. as well as the Country music chart in Canada (peaking just inside the Top-50 in both countries) and it made an appearance in the lower reaches on the Hot 100 pop chart. The song also landed on the Adult-Contemporary chart here in the U.S. where it peaked outside of the Top-40.

A very serious looking Ray Stevens...full of beard...leans up against a tree. This photo appeared on the cover of the sheet music for "Indian Love Call". In contrast to the smiling Ray Stevens...full of beard...on the cover of 1975's The Very Best of Ray Stevens this serious looking Ray was more along the lines of how he wanted his music to come across. His contract with Barnaby Records was soon to expire, it turned out, but perhaps contractually Barnaby was allowed to release one more single on Ray in the spring of 1976...and it was his take on "Lady of Spain" backed with "Mockingbird Hill". This single Bubbled Under the Hot 100 and didn't appear on any other national chart publication in spite of it's greatness. Ray does a vocal impression of Fats Domino as he sings an uptempo version of "Lady of Spain" set to a sort of Spanish-Mexican rhythm and sound. In the meanwhile Ray had signed a recording contract with Warner Brothers early in 1976 and had recorded some songs for what would be his debut album with the label. Ray had been on Barnaby Records since 1970 and the bulk of his commercial successes were on that label. Ray had been a recurring presence on the Country music charts and on mostly regional country music television programs as far back as 1969 thanks in large part to the efforts, help, and industry influence from the likes of Chet Atkins, Ralph Emery, and people we'll never know about that were instrumental in guiding Ray's career and steering him into the Country Music industry. Ray's tenure with Warner Brothers began with the release of "You Are So Beautiful" in the spring of 1976. This cover of a familiar love song was arranged in a Bluegrass fashion along the same lines as "Misty" but it had a blended arrangement ranging from uptempo to mid-tempo and at one point it veers off into a soulful delivery before picking back up during the closing moments of the song. The single was a Top-20 country hit in the U.S. as well as Canada. His debut album for Warner Brothers, Just for the Record, is filled with Country sounding songs but he retained his own style and his choice of songs in addition to the ones he wrote were uniquely his own. No matter the music format that his songs were finding their way to his influence over those songs still took center stage which is why so many music critics over the decades have sometimes found it maddening that they can't categorize him. In short Ray Stevens sings what Ray Stevens wants to sing...no matter the genre or the song's origins.

This album contained songs such as "Gimme a Smile", "Once in Awhile", "One Man Band", an unusual ballad dealing with meditation called "OM", as well as his next single release, "Honky Tonk Waltz", which hit the Country music Top-30 in the fall of 1976. Layng Martine, Jr. penned the uptempo "Country Licks". Those that are devoted to Ray's career will know this interesting bit of trivia but for a general audience it may be noteworthy. This album marked the debut of a songwriter credit for Buddy Kalb. He penned "One and Only You"...and Buddy would go on and become a fixture in the career of Ray Stevens. His name is often given, officially, as C.W. Kalb, Jr. but there are some credits that use the nickname of Buddy. The album opens up with the melancholy but majestic ballad, "Cornball". The following year the pop duo, The Captain and Tennille, would have a Top-20 pop hit with Ray's song, "Can't Stop Dancing". You can hear Ray's version on this 1976 album. In the early months of Just for the Record one of Ray's prior releases, "Misty", received a Grammy award in the category of 'Best Arrangement accompanying a Vocalist'. This was Ray's second Grammy win. Now, on the heels of "Honky Tonk Waltz", Ray issued a bizarre novelty song...a chicken clucking version of the pop music standard "In the Mood". The single was officially credited to the fictional group, The Henhouse Five Plus Too, with the intentional misspelling of two as too. This single became a Top-40 pop and country hit in the U.S. and it reached the Top-40 in the United Kingdom. The international releases credited the single as Ray Stevens...only the domestic release featured the fictional Henhouse Five Plus Too credit. This single arrived in the last weeks of 1976 and it reached it's peak in January the following year.

In Part 10 I'll be looking at the years of 1977, 1978, and possibly 1979. Are you afraid I'll reach 2019 well before mid October? My idea behind this mini-blog series was to provide an overview essay/narrative of his career from 1957 to the present and have it conclude right around the time he's to receive his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in mid October. I'll being putting together Part 10 at some point tomorrow or I may hold off until next weekend.

My largest Ray Stevens Collage...

Hello all once again!! A very early Sunday morning here as I write another fan created Ray Stevens blog entry. There hasn't been any updates over on WSM's website in their Opry archive section and so, as of this writing, I don't have any audio link to provide of Ray's July 3rd guest appearance. In my previous blog post I made mention that I already had the idea of what this blog entry would be about and so I'm unveiling what could possibly be my largest Ray Stevens collage. I make collage's for pure enjoyment and to spotlight albums, single releases, or photo's of Ray over the years...often I add photo's of myself showing off whatever I might be writing about.

After I finished writing a recent blog entry about some of the compilation albums that have been issued on Ray Stevens I got the idea to try and put together a collage of nothing but Ray Stevens on Warner Brothers Records. This would cover the years 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979 in his career timeline. What I did was I gathered up images of his vinyl studio albums from those years and I gathered up images of his single releases from those years on the label and I put them all together in a collage. I didn't concern myself with whether or not the single release I chose to place on the collage was from the U.S. or the international market but I did attempt to arrange everything in chronological order.

If you're long time readers of this fan created blog page then you should be very aware of how much I champion Ray's music and career, in general, but then I often give heightened coverage to his Warner Brothers recordings. A lot of it has to do with my personal feelings given my enjoyment of the songs he recorded but also what drives my focus is how under-rated that era of his career generally is and so after I began this fan created blog nearly 10 years ago I took it upon myself to spotlight his late '70s material at any opportunity. In a lot of the compilation albums that were issued on Ray Stevens over the decades (from the mid '80s onward) and then in the ones that appeared later in the 1980s and especially the 1990s there tended to be a pattern of covering an abundance of his Monument and Barnaby recordings (specifically the years 1968 through 1975) while more or less skipping over Warner Brothers (1976-1979) and RCA (1980-1982) except for a couple of novelty recordings for each of the two labels. I may do one of these collage projects spotlighting his RCA recordings but for now here's the one I did spotlighting his Warner Brothers era:

Now, I know this is way too small for anyone to actually see the writing on the albums and the single releases but you can click the image for a somewhat larger view. Anyway...this is probably...well, actually, it is the largest Ray Stevens collage I've created. In his three years with Warner Brothers he recorded four studio albums and one compilation album. The compilation album arrived in 1979 to cover the years 1976, 1977, and 1978 but it also featured his hit, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", from earlier in the year which up to that point was only available as a vinyl single. The 1979 album is the fifth one in the collage off to the left (the first panel in row two). If you are familiar with Barry Manilow then you should see the comical connection in art work. Barry's 1975 album had a similar cover design and letter font and the name of his album that year was Trying to Get the Feeling whereas Ray's album in 1979 is titled The Feeling's Not Right Again (named after a song on Ray's previous studio album in 1978). I also added a comparison image of the single release of Ray's recording next to the cover design of Barry Manilow's second studio album. I have almost all of Ray's studio albums on vinyl and I have a vinyl copy of the "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" single but my copy doesn't feature the picture sleeve. My copy, which I bought on-line, arrived in a plain paper sleeve. I've seen auctions on eBay for the single and it's picture sleeve but those, obviously, were always out of my price range and so I opted for the cheaper alternative. I wanted the vinyl single anyway...not having the picture sleeve didn't change my feelings concerning the actual song. As you see in the collage there are five images of vinyl albums, 2 comparable cover art depictions, and eight single recordings. Here is the breakdown of everything you see...starting with the vinyl albums:

Just for the Record (1976); Feel the Music (1977); There is Something on Your Mind (1978); Be Your Own Best Friend (1978); and The Feeling's Not Right Again (1979).

The single releases, the month and year of release, and their catalog numbers:

"You Are So Beautiful" (April 1976; WBS 8198)
"Honky Tonk Waltz" (August 1976; WBS 8237)
"In the Mood" (December 1976; WBS 8301)
"Get Crazy With Me" (January 1977; WBS 8318)
"Dixie Hummingbird" (May 1977; WBS 8393)
"Be Your Own Best Friend" (July 1978; WBS 8603)
"I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" (March 1979; WBS 8785)
"Get Crazy With Me" (June 1979; WBS 8849)

The comparable cover art depiction is of the picture sleeve of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" and Barry's second studio album, Barry Manilow II. If you look at the chronological listing of single releases you'll notice a couple of things...at least I took notice right away. The first is the lapse of time between the release of "Dixie Hummingbird" and "Be Your Own Best Friend". There's more than a year separating the two. Then there is no further single releases throughout the rest of 1978 even though the Be Your Own Best Friend album had plenty of single worthy recordings such as "Comeback", "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right", or the re-recorded "You've Got the Music Inside" which had originally been recorded in 1973 by Ray. Another thing you should notice is the re-issue of "Get Crazy With Me".

Warner Brothers originally issued the single in January 1977...right on the heels of Ray's surprise novelty hit with his chicken clucking rendition of "In the Mood". In the original release of "Get Crazy with Me" in January 1977 the B-side happened to be "Dixie Hummingbird". Ray's "Get Crazy with Me" isn't a novelty song but it's title would suggest otherwise and it's my guess Warner Brothers felt the title could serve as a follow-up and therefore become an immediate hit. Later on Warner Brothers re-issued it upon the strength of Ray's novelty hit, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

The re-issue of "Get Crazy With Me" in 1979 featured "The Feeling's Not Right Again" as it's B-side. Let's add more to this vinyl sea of confusion by pointing out "Dixie Hummingbird", the original B-side of "Get Crazy with Me" from January of 1977, when it was issued as an A-side single in May of 1977, it's B-side happened to be "Feel the Music". The funny thing is Ray performed "Feel the Music" on television several times in the mid '70s and once in the early '90s but I don't think he ever performed "Dixie Hummingbird", the actual A-side, on television...ever!

In the last couple of paragraphs I had some fun relating the single release pattern of Ray's Warner Brothers recordings but let that not scare you from seeking out those recordings. You are likely to find Mp3 copies of select recordings at Amazon. If you look up the 1995 compilation albums: Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance?, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens then you'll find a lot of his Warner Brothers recordings. They're, to date, the only definitive look at his late '70s recordings. The only thing that could top those releases were to be if Warner Brothers were to re-issue Ray's actual studio albums in a series of CD's or Mp3's but there's been no indication such a thing will ever happen so those 1995 releases are your only hope in hearing those obscure recordings.

Ray Stevens: Late 1970s obscurities...

In this brief (?) blog entry I've decided to post an experimental collage I finished about 10 minutes ago. I've been consistently scouring the internet over the last couple of weeks in search of a free website that offers collage making opportunities. A site that I used to rely heavily upon has been off-line for the last several weeks with no signs of returning under a different name and so I've kind of been in a mini-state of upset given the fun I'd been having creating collages on a site that made the creating so easy and less technical. I came across another site and experimented a couple of times. One of those experiments focuses on the 3-CD collection of recordings issued on Ray Stevens back in 1995. The recordings found on those 3 CD's originated in the mid to late '70s during his all too brief stay at Warner Brothers Records (1976-1979).

The reason I've written at length about those recordings over the last 8 years is because of their lack of familiarity...even among fans of Ray (!)...and given the fact that the songs have never been properly respected, appreciated, or presented in any prestigious kind of fashion (aside from those 3 CD's in 1995) I feel it's my unofficial duty to every so often keep those recordings from remaining obscure. So, after that bit of information to set up the focus of this particular blog entry, it's that time again to celebrate the late 1970s obscurities from the highly entertaining Ray Stevens...

1995 3-CD Collection

The 3-CD set first emerged in cassette form in 1995 and for this devoted fan of Ray it was something like the discovery of buried treasure. Some of the readers/visitors of this fan-created blog page probably won't be able to truly understand the sense of shock, amazement, happiness and total feeling of euphoria on the day I came across these cassettes sitting there among some other Ray Stevens cassettes in the music section of the local Wal-Mart just asking for me to purchase them. CD counterparts of the cassettes had also become available but at that particular time in my life (1995) I hadn't yet graduated to a CD player from the cassette player (even though CD's had been available for purchase for nearly 10 years by then). I never purchased a CD player until some point in 1996 or 1997 (!!) and even then I continued to purchase cassette tapes rather than the more expensive CD's (unless something released on Ray happened to be available on CD-only). I didn't start to purchase CD's exclusively until, you guessed it, the point in which cassette tapes began disappearing from retail stores. The names of the cassettes are: Cornball, The Serious Side of Ray Stevens, and Do You Wanna Dance?. The collection goes a long way at spotlighting the various music styles and moods that Ray delivered on a series of studio albums in the late '70s in which each album is dramatically different from the other. Pop, Country, Rhythm and Blues, Comedy, and MOR Adult-Contemporary are all on display. At the time of those releases in 1995 only 2 recordings by Ray from his entire Warner Brothers era had continually appeared on dozens of compilation albums: 1976's "In the Mood" and 1979's "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

I remember being frustrated in the mid/late '90s as to the reason 2 songs from that time period continually appeared on compilation albums and yet he had several more hit songs for the label that routinely got overlooked and therefore continued to become unfamiliar to a latter-day fan base that had probably discovered Ray's music in the mid 1980s during his country comedy resurgence. Later on in the early 2000's I had began to wonder why the studio albums he recorded for Warner Brothers had never been fully restored onto CD, either. It's a mystery I'll probably never solve.

Some of the fans of Ray that I often socialize with on-line via social media pretty much share my conclusion that the label doesn't see any sort of profit or demand for the re-release in CD format of those late '70s studio albums and so why bother? I realize this is a minority opinion but I don't necessarily think you need a demand for something to get a re-issue. There are scores of CD/Mp3 projects available in which record companies (major, independent, domestic, and foreign) offer 2 albums on 1 CD of almost any vinyl album from any number of legendary performers...whether the vinyl album featured any hit songs or not doesn't come into the decision making because I've seen CD's of 2 albums on 1 collection featuring albums I'd never heard of even though I'd heard of the singer's. The goal, I thought, was to introduce recordings to music consumers that were born long after vinyl stopped being the dominant form of music distribution and to bring back recordings that in some cases hadn't been in print and had only been available on vinyl for decades.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I wish any record company that specializes in re-issuing vinyl albums onto CD would take a look at the studio albums Ray Stevens recorded in the late '70s and get those songs in circulation again and introduce this music to his diverse fan base. I have all of these vinyl albums but I'd purchase CD copies in the blink of an eye if they became officially available...

1976: Just for the Record (features 10 songs; chart hits include "You Are So Beautiful" and "Honky Tonk Waltz"; Ray's debut album for the label and it's deliberately more country music sounding; although it being primarily a West Coast pop oriented label and not too heavily entrenched in country music it nevertheless took on country music artists in the late '70s with various degrees of success; this album features one of my all-time favorite Ray Stevens recordings, "Gimme a Smile" and then there's the otherworldly "OM" and the sing-a-long toe tapping "Country Licks"; although "In the Mood" is a 1976 release it happened to be a single-only release in December and reached it's peak in February 1977 and therefore it isn't part of this album).

1977: Feel the Music (features 10 songs; chart hits include "Dixie Hummingbird" and "Get Crazy with Me"; not heavily publicized/promoted by the label; his image doesn't even appear on the front of the album cover as it's title called for the illustration of a stereo speaker to demonstrate the literal meaning of feeling the music. Ray performed a couple of the songs found on this album on an episode of television's Pop! Goes the Country and then much later in the early '90s performed "Feel the Music" during a televised award's ceremony; Yes, at that point in time, I thought it happened to be a new song! That's how little I knew of Ray's catalog of music back then as at the time I only had a little less than half a dozen cassette tapes of his).

1978: There Is Something On Your Mind (features 8 songs; 3 of those 8 are medleys which combine brief performances of 3 songs a piece; no chart hits; it's a lovingly put together tribute to early rock music and his beloved Rhythm and Blues influences; Ray records his versions of "One Mint Julep", "Money Honey", "Talk to Me", the comical title track; and in the form of medleys he performs abbreviated versions of songs like "Shake a Hand", "Do You Wanna Dance?", "Since I Met You Baby", and "Sixty Minute Man"; On both the front and back of the album there are liner notes provided by Ray Stevens himself and he offers his feelings and opinions regarding the choices in songs that he selected to cover for the project; It's possibly the most obscure and rarest of his vinyl albums and there's long been information suggesting that the album had never even been released in America and that it only seen commercial release in Canada).

1978: Be Your Own Best Friend (features 9 songs; the title track is the only chart hit from the album; the album's songs feature an overall soothing, mellow feel; the album's photo with a tanned Ray Stevens in white tuxedo and black shirt, seated at a white table, with the stark white background could have some thinking he's relaxing inside the padded cell of a sanitarium given his reputation for nutty, comedy songs but this happened to be his fifth non-comedy album in a row going back to the release of 1975's Misty album; the choice of colors could also be a reflection of the reflective nature of the inspirational title track in which Ray encourages people to believe in themselves rather than striving for acceptance from others; the album features another self-help ode in the form of "With a Smile"...featuring a very soothing delivery, almost a lullaby whisper, to convey the message in the song; In the same soothing vein is "You're Magic" and he transforms the previously recorded "You've Got the Music Inside" of 1973, featuring a more harder vocalization the first time around, into a much more softer presentation to compliment the overall feel of this particular album; the album has it's share of uptempo songs: "Comeback" and "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right", in particular, and the glorious, grandiose opening track, "L'amour", is amazing; this album also features the ballad, "The Feeling's Not Right Again", which became the title of his next release).

1979: The Feeling's Not Right Again (this is largely a compilation album, not a traditional studio album, and it features 10 songs; it features one previously unreleased song and the success of that song happened to be the reason for this album's release in the first place; Ray's surprise hit in the early part of 1979, "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", inspired the concept of this compilation album; the single-only release featured cover art on it's picture sleeve parodying Barry Manilow cover art from 1974 and so, for the 1979 compilation album, a song Ray recorded the previous year, "The Feeling's Not Right Again", became the title track of this 1979 project; the song's coincidental similarity in title of an earlier song recorded by Manilow called "Tryin' to Get the Feelin' Again" pretty much meant that the cover art for Ray's 1979 album should parody the cover art of Manilow's 1975 album, Tryin' to Get The Feeling; the 1979 album became the final project released by Warner Brothers on Ray Stevens until 1995).

Here's that experimental collage I made reference to at the top of this blog entry...I spotlight the back of those 1995 CD's. I have no idea where in the world those photo's of Ray came from that were featured on the back of the CD's...the information credits the photographers but I've never thought to look them up on the internet to see if they have any of their photo's on-line...

Ray Stevens: The Elusive Ten...

Hello to all the fans of Ray Stevens! September is here and for those that took advantage of the half-price sale of Ray's Such a Night DVD (sale ended yesterday), good for you. I'm sure it and or other items are going to be on sale in a couple of months as the Christmas season begins but perhaps not at such a steep discount as the one that just ended. By that time could it be possible that the long-awaited Volume 2 of his gospel recordings might be available?

I don't, of course, have any idea about the contracts and other things that go on in Ray's business life but I'd like to hear the remaining songs from those gospel recording sessions...at some point.

The reason I bring it up is because during the publicity and promotion for the Ray Stevens Gospel Collection, Volume One CD Ray often remarked that he'd recorded more than 20 songs and the first 10 appear on the Volume One CD and the other batch of songs are going to appear on Volume Two. The gospel CD hit the market on August 19, 2014 and so, given that it's been more than a year, could it very well be possible that the follow-up is right around the corner?

Getting to the heart of this particular blog entry I'm bringing attention to a series of LP's in the career of Ray Stevens that have, to date, remained exclusive to vinyl, cassette, and 8-track format in an era of CD, digital downloads, and other technological inventions. As a result of the LP's not being available in a contemporary format there's a chance that some of his fans may want to track these albums down on internet auction sites to hear what they've been missing.

There's proof via social network commentary that a lot of Ray's younger and or newest fans discovered his music by accident given the lack of mainstream publicity on radio/television...therefore these newer fans of his are more often than not only familiar with Ray for whatever video clip they discovered on YouTube from him. This fan created blog is designed to spotlight his career, from all time periods, for those that have discovered him on YouTube but may not know much at all about his music.

In keeping with that goal here is a list of 10 studio albums from Ray Stevens that have never been available on CD or Mp3...

1. Have a Little Talk with Myself; 1969 Monument Records-  This is one of Ray's cover albums. In this collection he delivers the hits originally recorded by the likes of The 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, The Beatles, Bob Dylan...a varied collection of pop music artists and groups. There are three original songs among the covers...first there's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" from the pen of Kris Kristofferson. Ray recorded this song before Johnny Cash...but it's Johnny that ended up having the big hit single on it. Ray's recording afforded him the chance to appear on the Country music singles chart for the first time in his career...both here in America and in Canada. The other original song is "The Little Woman", a tale of fidelity and devotion. The third original song is the album's title track...the inspirational tale of attitude correction and prioritizing one's life. The title track also reached the country singles chart. The cover songs include "Help", "Aquarius", "Hey Jude", "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight", and "Hair" among others. The highlight among those being "Hair"...the production and time put into making the record sound almost exactly like the original by the cast of the musical, Hair, is a testament to his genius in the recording studio. The entire LP is incredible. It's a travesty it's never been issued on CD/Mp3.

2. Losin' Streak; 1973 Barnaby Records- For whatever reason this LP didn't see a re-issue from Collectible's Records even though the company re-issued the other studio albums Ray recorded for Barnaby (1970-1975). It still remains a mystery as to the reason it was skipped over. The title track appeared as a single release but it never charted. One of the tracks, "Inside", found itself as the B-side of several single releases from Ray in this era. There's an instrumental on here called "Laid Back". My favorites are "Golden Age", "This is Your Life", and "Idaho Wine". Physically, this is the first album of his to show him having a beard. Typically clean-shaven for photo sessions the beard didn't become a physical fixture until around 1978 or so. If anybody has a clean-shaven photo of Ray from the 1980s, 1990s, or even this decade I'd love to see it! I doubt any exist.

3. Just For The Record; 1976 Warner Brothers- Ray's debut on a different label after 5 years at Barnaby. The music he recorded on this album, country-pop, fit in nicely among the other songs on country radio and he enjoyed a pair of Top-30 country music hits in the process... "You Are So Beautiful" and "Honky Tonk Waltz". A non-album single, "In the Mood", hit in December of 1976 and it became a novelty hit in the early part of 1977 in America, Canada, and in the United Kingdom. The single, clucked like a choir of chickens and initially released as The Henhouse Five Plus Too, is one of those rare instances of a single hitting the market out of the blue without any advanced publicity to speak of. It never appeared on any LP but the label promoted the single, heavily, to pop music markets and it became an international Top-40 hit. It's long been said by historians that being primarily a West Coast music company, Warner Brothers didn't necessarily know how to market to country music outlets (especially the southern markets in the Eastern portion of the United States). Also, the label hadn't been in the business of marketing music for too long. Legendary country music artist Buck Owens, also signed to the label around the same time, seen a dramatic drop in his album sales, too, compared to his previous albums for Capitol. In fact, Buck's first 2 studio albums for Warner Brothers never even appeared on the sales charts. Ironically, this Ray Stevens album happened to be a success, however...

4. Feel the Music; 1977 Warner Brothers- For this album Ray penned 9 of the 10 songs! He also, as usual, produced and arranged the music from his own recording studio and contributed his musical prowess on keyboards/piano. Unfortunately the extreme lack of publicity for the LP caused it to literally anchor the Top-50 album chart during an all too brief visit. The label's continued publicity for "In the Mood" may have also hurt this album's potential (commercially speaking, of course). The number of positions on the Country album chart at the time happened to be 50. Even though, by comparison, one of the single releases from the LP titled "Dixie Hummingbird", managed to peak just outside the radio-oriented Top-40 portion of the Country singles chart; however, the funky audio sound effects in "Get Crazy With Me" and it being marketed to country music outlets as it was, well, obviously, the song seen resistance from programmers unwilling to add it. One gets the sense that there wasn't any clear direction, from a label stand-point, as to which way to market his music. He remained just as popular as ever on tour but clearly the label's inability to market/promote his records properly certainly must have caused strained relations...

5. There Is Something On Your Mind; 1978 Warner Brothers- This is a covers album featuring Ray paying tribute to classic rhythm and blues artists and groups. The album is one of his most personal given that he supplied his own liner notes (a rarity) and discussed, song by song, his thoughts and opinions about each of the songs and how he became familiar with them during his child-hood/teenage years. It's a marvelous collection but it never reached the album charts and no song became a single release...almost as if it's a ghost album that existed at one time but yet there's no trace of it's existence in music trade publications. I've yet to come across any article in Billboard from 1978 (via Google archive research) to mention the LP in any write-up or any promo ad from Warner Brothers. If anybody has any publicity about the LP let me know! I've got the LP in my collection but as a fan I like seeing advertisements/publicity for Ray's music at the time it originally surfaced.

6. Be Your Own Best Friend; 1978 Warner Brothers- This is the fourth and final studio album Ray recorded for the label. Surprisingly the album received publicity in a more traditional sense by appearing in a large print ad in Billboard. The album never reached the charts but the title track became a Top-40 country music hit in America and a Top-20 country music hit in Canada. In Canada it happened to be a fairly decent hit...peaking in the Top-20 on October 14, 1978 (after leaping from the lower half of the Top-40 a week earlier). It can be said that the single peaked too soon because, for a Top-20 hit single, it was only among the Top-20 for one week before falling back into the upper Top-30. One also could say the single either had massive sales spikes or enormous airplay during an 8 week period (September 9, 1978-October 28, 1978).

1979's release, The Feeling's Not Right Again, is a compilation album consisting of 9 songs taken from Ray's previous LP's for Warner Brothers and one brand new song, the satirical "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". That particular single, chart-wise, is his biggest single release for the label. It charted country (ironically enough) and it peaked in the Top-50 on the Hot 100 pop chart but more ironically is it's performance on Adult-Contemporary/Easy-Listening radio (the format ruled largely by Barry Manilow during the latter half of the 1970s). The single peaked just outside the Top-10 on Billboard's Adult-Contemporary chart. The single reinforced his reputation as a novelty artist, though. His biggest selling hits for the label happened to be this and 1977's "In the Mood". Not long after the success of "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" Ray quietly left Warner Brothers and joined the roster of RCA Records. His move to RCA took place in the latter half of 1979...and publicity surrounding his arrival appeared in Billboard that same year. The blurb mentioned that he'd soon be in the studio to start working on his debut for the label.

7.  Shriner's Convention; 1980 RCA- This is Ray's debut album for the RCA label and it's an all-comedy project. It marked the first all-comedy album from Ray in 6 years (his previous being the 1974 album spotlighting "The Streak"). This album also reached the Top-10 on the Country album chart...a major success in both sales and publicity. It's big hit, "Shriner's Convention", also became a Top-10 hit on the country music singles chart. The album contained another single release, "Hey There", but it never charted. The title track and "The Dooright Family" have consistently appeared on numerous compilation albums released by RCA and their family of labels.

8. One More Last Chance; 1981 RCA- Like the other LP's this one is also unavailable on CD and Mp3. This collection of songs are meant to compliment the Urban Cowboy craze that had been sweeping the nation for the last couple of years. Even though Ray's previous LP happened to be a Top-10, all-comedy smash hit he immediately began to work on this album. In fact, during a couple of print interviews that surfaced in newspapers at the time of the album and single's success, Ray defiantly took the stance of distancing himself from comedy as soon as possible so he could get back to serious recordings once more. The album's first single, "Night Games", appeared in the latter half of 1980 and it climbed into the Top-20 on the country singles chart in America...but at the time there happened to be no LP in the stores featuring the single and so it remained a single-only release until this album appeared in 1981. In a show of the times Ray is decked out in western attire and on the back of the album he's wearing a cowboy hat. "Night Games" did even better in Canada...peaking 9 positions higher than it's peak position in America. The album's title track reached the country singles Top-40.

9. Don't Laugh Now; 1982 RCA- Ray's third studio album for the label carries a bit more Rhythm and Blues and pop-country than the previous collection as the opening track, "Such a Night", clearly demonstrates. This album didn't reach the charts (neither did the 1981 LP) but it contained a Top-40 country hit in "Written Down in My Heart" and a gospel-tinged novelty single titled "Where The Sun Don't Shine", which also reached the country chart. In contrast to the 1981 LP, this one carried a much more uptempo feel and an optimistic one. Most of the songs on the 1981 LP happened to be ballads and the feel of the collection had an overall melancholy flavor in spite of several rousing uptempo songs. For the 1982 LP there's the fair share of ballads but not all of them are slow ballads...a couple of them are mid-tempo, actually, such as "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" and "Oh Leo Lady" and then there's "Why Don't We Go Somewhere and Make Love". Even though it's a romantic ballad the chorus picks the song up delivering an easy-listening sing-a-long. The only slow ballad is "This Old Piano"...in close second is the title track.

10. Me; 1983 Mercury-  Lastly there's this 1983 studio album on Mercury Records...the label that made Ray Stevens a recording star in the early '60s. This time around Ray delivered an album of songs mostly self-written but like his last 2 studio albums for RCA this one didn't make the charts, either. It did contain one single that reached the country charts...the majestic "My Dad", from the pen of Dale Gonyea (the one that wrote "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow"). The LP didn't receive much publicity and beyond the brief chart run of "My Dad" it didn't get much notice except for an extremely rare promo by Ray Stevens on an episode of The Fall Guy titled 'The Pirates of Nashville'. In that episode Ray plays a character named Covington, a country music artist estranged from his son. There's a performance of one of the songs from the album at the end of the episode but there's no mention of the album's existence or anything. The album hit in the last half of 1983 and the single releases didn't arrive until 1984. "My Dad", "Love Will Beat Your Brains Out", "Mary Lou Nights", "Game Show Love", "Me", and "A Piece of Paradise Called Tennessee" appeared on single releases from Mercury throughout the first half of 1984. Once his contract expired Ray set his attention on MCA Records and an incredible run of commercially successful albums and singles soon followed.

And there you have it! Those 10 studio albums have never seen a re-issue of any kind on CD or Mp3. Some may say it has to do with the lack of major hit recordings contained on those albums....some may say the albums themselves aren't worthy of re-issue...and some may say the albums had no commercial value then so why would there be any audience all these years later. I think there's an audience...a built-in audience of fans that are familiar with his songs but hadn't actually heard the various styles of music those albums represent because the complete studio albums are hard to come by and if found can only be heard on vinyl or cassette tape.

Ray Stevens to release brand new novelty song CD...

Has it really been a couple of weeks since I last posted here? My previous blog entry about Ray Stevens happened to be on December 31, 2014...but since there hadn't been any major announcements released in the interim I didn't compose any blog entries but that's all changed...

Ray made an appearance on Bill Cody's morning radio program in Nashville a couple of days ago (January 21st). I found out about the appearance by hearing a commercial for Tuesday morning's program that aired on Eddie Stubbs show. I was on my way to work Monday night and so hearing that commercial made the night go fast. The interview hasn't been archived and so it's one of those kinds of appearances that you either had to be aware of by viewing Bill Cody's page prior to January 21st or luck out and be listening to the station, as I happened to be, and hear a commercial promoting the appearance. The appearance on Bill's radio program served a couple of purposes, actually. 

First of all, Ray appeared at a book signing later that day. He's on an unofficial book tour...by unofficial I mean he doesn't have an itinerary of book signings lined up. Every so often they'll make an announcement of an upcoming book store appearance and he'll sign copies of the book. Ray's memoir, titled Ray Stevens' Nashville, has long since sold out in paperback form. The January 21st book signing took place at a store called Parnassus Books. 

If you missed the Parnassus book signing, don't fret, because there's another book signing that was announced yesterday. The upcoming book signing is to take place in Chattanooga, Tennessee at a shopping mall called Hamilton Place. The actual signing is at the Barnes and Noble book store located at the shopping mall. The date and time for the Ray Stevens book signing is February 7th at 1pm.   

You can read about the February 7th book signing HERE.

Secondly, in addition to promoting the book signing on January 21st, the Bill Cody interview also promoted the book, obviously! 

Lastly, near the end of the interview segment, Ray made the announcement of an upcoming novelty CD to be released this coming March!!! He gave the title as Here We Go Again and he even described the CD's album cover. Bill played a song that's to be on the CD...a song called "Pickin' on the Chicken" (from the pen of Ray's longtime friend/collaborator, Buddy Kalb). It's a song about a chicken...it has lyrics...so it's not a return to an all chicken-clucking performance like "In the Mood", for example. You'll hear cackling and clucking of chickens in the background, every so often, adding to the chicken's personal fowl mood.

Once it gets closer to March there should be more announcements made about it's release date. Bill mentioned March 12th as the release date but I could've misheard it...so be on the lookout for any statements from Ray surrounding this upcoming CD. My guess is the CD is going to be available at his on-line store, first, and then it'll be released all over the internet at a later date. 

I can't wait to add it to my collection!!

Ray Stevens has a birthday coming up on January 24th...this coming Saturday.

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series Extra...1990...

Welcome to 1990...the start of a new decade in the career of Ray Stevens. Ironically enough the new decade brought about a few changes and one of the changes was a new record label home. After having been with the MCA family for 5 years (1984-1989), Ray joined the Curb Records label in 1990. Another irony was the label's first project with it's newest roster addition happened to be a compilation titled His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits. I assume given Ray's longevity in the music industry the label wanted it's first commercial release on Ray to feature material a general audience would more than likely be familiar with. This latest compilation more or less collected nine recordings from both Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits, Volume Two which had been released in 1987 by MCA. There was one recording on this 1990 project that didn't appear on either 1987 compilation and that was 1970's "Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues". It's anyone's guess why that particular hit single wasn't included on any of the 1987 compilations from MCA but whatever the reasons it found it's way onto the 1990 compilation. It is this very project that introduced me to that 1970 hit single from Ray. The collection also features "Would Jesus Wear a Rolex?", "The Streak", "Shriner's Convention" and others.

As you can tell from the picture and as you can see on the cover photo, one of the songs on the 1990 collection is 1984's "It's Me Again, Margaret". The image used on the cover is the actual publicity photo of the single that appeared in country music publications of the time period. Ray appears in character as an obscene phone caller forever on the quest to bring irritation and harassment to his victim, Margaret. I wrote about this single in previous blog entries and so this time around I'll make mention of the inclusion of "In the Mood". This recording appeared on 1987's Greatest Hits, Volume Two as well as other compilation projects down through the years. The performance, released as The Henhouse Five Plus Too, features a band of chickens who cluck out "In the Mood" backed primarily by a saxophone and a few other instruments. The recording was a Top-40 pop and country hit in America while it also reached the Top-40 in Canada and the United Kingdom early in 1977. The single was released under Ray's name overseas whereas in America it was released as The Henhouse Five Plus Too. Also on this collection, "Ahab the Arab" is the 1969 re-recording he did on Monument Records. The original recording from 1962 is most often featured on compilation releases from labels associated with Mercury Records, the label Ray originally recorded the song for. There have been multiple recordings of this song and it all depends on the record label when it comes to which version you're going to receive.

His two 1969 hit singles for Monument are included, "Gitarzan" and "Along Came Jones". His Top-20 country hit from 1985, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", is track six. This collection would become a Gold album within a few years of it's release. The main reason for this, in my opinion, was due to the previous compilations no longer being available in wide distribution and so this 1990 project made up for the lack of classic Ray Stevens hits that weren't readily available anymore. I'm also of the opinion that the inclusion of "Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues" played a role in the sales of this album. The song hadn't been featured on any major compilation release by any of the labels that Ray recorded for during the 1980's. It's obscurity on American released Ray Stevens compilation albums perhaps caused the curious to purchase the collection just to hear that particular song!? The song's been a fixture on overseas compilation projects released on Ray Stevens considering that it hit the Top-5 in the United Kingdom in 1971 and charted on other international music surveys throughout early to mid 1971.

Ray's debut studio album for Curb Records would follow this compilation in the summer of 1990.

Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series Extra...1977...

In this Extra feature of the Golden LP Series we take a look at a single-only release from Ray Stevens titled "In The Mood". The recording represents a series of firsts in that it was the first single release by the totally fictional group, The Hen House Five Plus Too. It would also be the first and, to date, only Top-40 single by the fictional group. The novelty song, as mentioned, was released as a single-only and it's B-side is "Classical Cluck". It's to nobody's surprise that once you hear the recording you'll immediately have a craving for a chicken sandwich or maybe some fried chicken...but then some people may have a sick stomach after hearing it...not everyone likes chicken I guess? It's like the critics wanted to pluck the feathers from the chicken before it had a chance to roost. As I've mentioned many times over the course of my fan-created blog page, not everyone appreciates bizarre, odd, nonsensical recordings whose sole purpose is to be bizarre, odd, nonsensical, etc. etc. People then, and to this day, always make the mistake of trying to look at the novelty song in the same manner one might look at a run of the mill love ballad or whatever. I've read commentary by those who simply don't like novelty songs. I've read commentary from those who consider novelty songs as wastes of time on both the singer and listener's part. I've even read commentary from those who valiantly struggle to find some sort of heavy, philosophical connection between any recorded song and human life. Those with that frame of mind are doing a disservice to themselves because novelty songs aren't meant to be heavy, deep, and philosophical. They're meant to be whimsical, nonsensical, odd, bizarre, and all the other adjectives that go with it.

Like it or not the consumers were "In the Mood" for this single in the final weeks of 1976 into the early part of 1977.         

"In the Mood" was originally a huge instrumental hit for Glenn Miller. The melody was already familiar to many people. Ray had the idea of clucking the instrumental as a group of chickens. Chickens are the main contributors but you'll also hear a cow and a goat, too. According to various interviews where he recollected the Hen House single, the recording was meant for private use but the label wanted to release it as a single. I assume the label felt that it would be something of a novelty hit of some kind and the concept was too irresistible to back away from. Whatever the reason, it did in fact become a hit single. Released in the final weeks of December 1976, "In the Mood" reached it's peak in the early months of 1977. It hit the Top-40 on both the pop and country charts and it also reached the Top-40 in the United Kingdom. It was in the U.K. where the single was released under Ray's own name rather than under the pseudonym of the Hen House Five Plus Too. It was also in the United Kingdom where it charted higher...nearly reaching the Top-30. On the American pop and country charts it scratched it's way into the Top-40 for a few weeks whereas in the U.K. it had several weeks to scratch, cackle, sizzle and then simmer.

The recording has appeared on a few Ray Stevens greatest hits releases through the years but it's not officially available in Mp3 format at this time. You can search around for the song in CD format at numerous on-line music stores...one such CD is The Best of Ray Stevens from Rhino Records.

It's available on Amazon...take a look at it...don't be chicken!   

The Warner Brothers Era

Touching base upon a specific time frame in the career of Ray Stevens I want to journey back to the late 1970's when Ray's music home was Warner Brothers. Down through the years, either for financial reasons or otherwise, there was not much catalog repetition from Warner Brothers when it came to Ray Stevens. I don't know if it was a contractual decision...some artists may not want previously released material available and if they sign a contract stating so then that's the way it'll be. Also, some labels pick and choose which alumni they'll continue to release material on. It used to be second nature for labels to issue albums on artist's that had long since left their label. Sometimes this still goes on...usually if the artist is no longer living a record label will celebrate the artist's birth or remember their death with music releases. As an inquisitive fan of Ray Stevens it had always puzzled me why a lot of compilation releases didn't feature many Warner Brothers recordings. If any were included it was one or two songs at best...there was no real spotlight on his late 1970's songs for almost two decades.

This all changed in 1995 when Warner Brothers issued three special collections of Ray Stevens material. Cornball, Do You Wanna Dance, and The Serious Side of Ray Stevens. In reality, 99% of the songs on the three collections were serious...so it was a bit ironic to title one of the collections as such. These 1995 collections were my introduction to a large amount of material that Ray Stevens recorded in the late '70s. At the time I didn't own any vinyl albums as I do now...so I nearly wore out the 1995 cassette tapes. I didn't own a CD player at the time either, believe it or not! CD's cost too much in comparison to cassette tape. If I had a CD player of course, I would've bought the CD versions instead. Anyway...

Ray's tenure on Warner Brothers is often highlighted by two novelty songs. The first being "In The Mood" in which he clucked the performance in the vocals of a chicken. This recording isn't just a cluck or two...there are a lot of chickens clucking along in different harmony. A cow also lends a moo or two along the way. To the casual listener it may come off as a cheaply made recording that didn't take much effort but if you actually dissect the performance and realize a lot of effort and over-dubbing went into it you may walk away with more respect for the work that went into the performance and respect for Ray's creativity in the recording studio. The recording was released under an alias of all things: The Hen-House Five Plus Too. There was a time when people didn't really know it was Ray Stevens and would genuinely credit the fictional group as the "artists". I even heard a radio DJ refer to the performers by the fictional name instead of crediting Ray, the real person behind the song.

"In the Mood" in a lot of ways continued a concept, or a pattern, that was happening in Ray's career of covering pop-standards or covering pop songs in general. Prior to "In The Mood", Ray had enjoyed two back-to-back country hits in 1976. "Honky Tonk Waltz" became a Top-30 entry while Ray's debut on Warner Brothers was "You Are So Beautiful", a single that hit the country Top-20, and was a recent pop hit for Joe Cocker at the time. These two singles were taken from his debut album for Warner Brothers, Just For the Record. The album also featured his version of "Can't Stop Dancing" which would become a hit for the pop duo, The Captain and Tennille. Ray wrote and published the song as he did mostly every song he's recorded.

"In The Mood" had become a commercial single in late 1976, somewhere along the lines of the month of December, and so it didn't exactly reach it's peak until early 1977. It was one of those rare occurrences of a single hitting due to it's unique nature...which is one of the traits of a novelty song. It was a Top-40 pop and country hit in America and pop hit in England. It was released under Ray's name in England but in America it was continually referenced to the Hen-House Five Plus Too. Two is intentionally mis-spelled as "too" on the official single. If you scroll down the right hand side of the blog you'll see a picture sleeve for the single with the illustration of chickens.

Throughout the rest of 1977 and through 1978 in hindsight Ray's albums weren't promoted heavily. I did some research and looked through some news archives and found that there was barely any write-up's or any publicity focusing on any of Ray's singles or albums during that time period. As a consequence not much is chronicled and in terms of sales it's as if the albums didn't exist. Feel The Music was the lone album from 1977. It was a departure of sorts because it consisted of experimental sounds and a mixture of all kinds of genres. "Feel The Music" is a song that's inspirational and it features a grandiose chorus which is necessary for the message being delivered. "Get Crazy With Me" features a funky sound...I want to say that the arrangement is meant to sound far-out and crazy. "Junkie For You" is a wonderful bluesy ballad using clever lyrics in a love song that substitutes what a junkie is viewed as by society and he turns the word around to a positive meaning saying that he's addicted to a woman in every way and just her sight makes the man tremble and shake...in excitement. The album also features the slow love ballad, "Daydream Romance", and the bouncy single "Dixie Hummingbird".

In 1978 Ray issued two albums. Be Your Own Best Friend and There Is Something On Your Mind. Aside from my blog and perhaps a few others you won't really see much about these Warner Brothers albums on-line as far as blogs are concerned. Fortunately those 1995 collections that I wrote of earlier in this entry have become available as MP3's and can be purchased on-line...so for those interested in Ray's under-rated Warner Brothers era seek out those collections for yourselves. "Be Your Own Best Friend" became a Top-40 country hit in 1978 but that was the only single release of the year, strangely enough. The album contains several wonderful performances including "L'amour", "You're Magic", "Comeback", "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right", and a re-recording of "You've Got the Music Inside". The second album from 1978 was a salute to classic R&B artists and it featured Ray's versions of the songs from that era like "One Mint Julep", "Money Honey", "Talk To Me", etc.

Ray closed out his association with Warner Brothers in 1979 following the surprise success of you guessed it...a novelty song. This time around Barry Manilow served as the subject matter. "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" is a satiric look at the sound/songs of Manilow while at the same time is fully entertaining at the same time without coming off as a "let's see how many Manilow references I can squeeze into the song". Dale Gonyea wrote the song and it hit the Top-50 on the pop chart and the Top-20 on the Adult-Contemporary chart. The single was later put on a compilation album that Warner Brothers specifically released to promote the song. The album, The Feeling's Not Right Again, contains songs that Ray had recorded during his first three years at Warner Brothers: 1976, 1977, and 1978 with the addition of 1979's "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow".

After the release and success of that single, Ray departed the label for RCA Records.