Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville performance: "Nightmare Before Christmas"...

Well, here I am once again composing a blog entry about Ray Stevens...and on Christmas Eve! Well, you knew I'd do that sort of thing and I'm likely going to write some blog entries on Christmas Day tomorrow. In keeping with the Christmas colorization text the last blog entry I wrote was in bold, red text and as you can see this text is in bold, blue text. Will my next blog entry be bold and green? It might be...but let's focus on the blog entry I'm currently writing. Earlier today a video of Ray Stevens performing "Nightmare Before Christmas" on his CabaRay Nashville television show was uploaded onto YouTube. A couple of blog entries ago I made mention of the official music video and how it had reached 1,000,000 unique views. In this performance he sticks close to the recorded version...I mention this because he sometimes likes to change words or emphasize specific words in a performance that he didn't emphasize in the recording. Ray speaks about his distaste for political correctness prior to his performance of "Nightmare Before Christmas". 

Ray Stevens: "Nightmare Before Christmas" reaches 1,000,000 unique views...

Hello all you Ray Stevens fans!! We're slowly making our way to Christmas Day...it's this coming Friday! The pandemic has more or less mandated commercial television to not run many, if any, overly festive Christmas commercials because of the medical establishment's "warnings" of large get togethers. There's been several COVID-19 style Christmas commercials...one of the commercials show laptop computer screens with a collection of people on it...promoting some kind of isolated Christmas celebration among family. I know there's some out there who will actually attempt to have what they're calling a virtual Christmas but that won't be taking place in my house. We plan on having our usual Christmas dinner and I know well in advance I'll be watching whatever football games are airing...so Christmas Day 2020 won't be any different here. Now, of course, it helps that the only people at our Christmas Dinner are close relatives who we're pretty sure aren't out and about and on the town and therefore potential carriers of the virus. So, yes, we're taking precautions...as any family should...but we're not going to let any sort of Government over-reach ruin the holiday season.

Now, then, Ray's music video of "Nightmare Before Christmas" slowly amassed 1,000,000 unique views recently. The video made it's debut on November 3, 2010. A number of Ray's songs as well as his music videos have very long shelf lives...it's a testament to Ray's creative abilities first of all and secondly it's a testament to his enduring appeal. It's also a testament to his skills as a marketer in that he knew that Christmas music would receive annual activity and that there would perhaps be some sort of an audience awaiting the Christmas comedy videos year after year. In a television special on Ray Stevens that aired in the late 1990s on The Nashville Network the subject of durability and longevity came up. Ray remarked that quite a few of his albums crept along and eventually became Gold or Platinum with little to no mainstream hype or hardly any radio publicity. His success continues to mystify and baffle the so-called hip music critics...and given that his music video output on the internet has become so successful and omnipresent through YouTube and Facebook, it's generated one of the largest followings of a performer known almost exclusively as a 'comedian' or 'novelty singer'. His YouTube videos have collectively gotten more than 131,000,000 unique views since he opened his YouTube channel in 2009. I rounded the number rather than post specifics. If you visit his YouTube channel's 'About' section you'll see the most recent total of unique views his video content has received.

A couple of days ago I posted a blog entry where I highlighted "Nightmare Before Christmas" nearing the 1,000,000 mark. After I published that blog entry I went over to YouTube and refreshed the video statistics and at that time the video had pushed into the 1,000,000 level with a unique view total of 1,000,216. Today, before I began composing this blog entry, I looked at the recent unique views for the video and now it's got 1,019,578. There have been a couple of people, myself included, that have been posting links to the video on social media sites. I'd like to think I played a small part in re-introducing the video and helping it rack up an additional 18,000 or so unique views these last couple of days. 

The video features several camera tricks...in several scenes we see Ray Stevens playing three parts: Santa Claus, The Judge, and the hyper Prosecutor. A camera trick enabled Ray to appear on screen side by side by side. He'd done this sort of thing earlier in his music video for "Freddie Feelgood" where all five members of the band (all played by Ray Stevens) appeared on screen at the same time. The song originated in 1997 on Ray's first Christmas album titled Christmas Through a Different Window. Once Ray opened up his video hosting channel on YouTube he began issuing direct-to-YouTube video content in addition to posting music videos from the past that had originally only been available on VHS tape. This music video debuted, as previously mentioned, in November 2010. YouTube and Facebook have been good for Ray Stevens these past 11 years...his YouTube channel came along in July 2009. I don't know when his official Facebook page debuted...but I'd say it's been around just as long as his Facebook page. It took 10 years for this music video to get to 1,000,000 unique views...talk about durability!! In a future blog entry I might post a screen cap of Ray Stevens from the music video where he's on screen as Santa, the Judge, and the Prosecutor. I know you'll love the song/video in case you've never seen it before.

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

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

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

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

A Ray Stevens Christmas...

Merry Christmas to all the Ray Stevens fans and those who drop by here out of curiosity. I thought I'd re-visit the color lettering for today's blog entry since it's Christmas. Also there's a couple of Christmas music videos from Ray Stevens that I've decided to add. 1985's "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and 2010's "Nightmare Before Christmas"...





Ray's Christmas music can be found, as I mentioned in a previous blog, on two CD's: 1997's "Christmas Through a Different Window" and 2009's "Ray Stevens Christmas". These represent the only Christmas music video's that he's put together...time will tell if he makes more! I'll be keeping track of the "Nightmare Before Christmas" music video a little while longer...I often "report" the video's You Tube hit count over on Ray's web-site and I'll do so for a couple more days since Christmas season, for a lot of people, lasts through New Year's Eve.

Let's Discuss Ray Stevens, Part 19...

In my previous blog I left a URL link to Bob Edwards' web-site and told everyone about a slide-show to look at. Ray's web-page uploaded a 2-part interview that took place yesterday. In the pictures from the slide-show we saw images of the two, in addition to those in the technical staff, standing at microphones in Ray's recording studio. The 2-part interview is available in the News section of Ray's web-site. When you click the link the first item, as of December 14th, will be a promo for Ray's magazine interview with the publication The Direct Buzz. Below this you'll see the audio link to Ray's interview with Bob Edwards. You'll need to click "Interview Part 1" in order for the audio to start playing. The first part is a little over 15 minutes and the second part is a little over 11 minutes. Ray talks about his career and snippets of his songs are played throughout the commercial free interview.

In the Direct Buzz interview it's in the form of an actual magazine. It's a brief Q&A centered around Christmas but it includes a career write-up, images of his two Christmas CD's, and a video link to "Nightmare Before Christmas". Attempting to describe how to navigate through the web-page would be too confusing but I assume everyone who clicks the link will be able to figure out how to navigate the site and have no issues. The article begins on page 9 and continues briefly on page 10. To enlarge the article simply left click...it may need reduced in size afterward and you can do this by clicking the minus sign up at the top of the page.

Ray Stevens: Nostalgia Valley, Part 17...

In this edition of the Nostalgia Valley we visit the next to last week in November 1974. This was the week that Ray Stevens entered the Adult-Contemporary charts with his elegant single, "Everybody Needs a Rainbow". The song was one of the several cross-over hits in the career of Ray Stevens as it hit both on the Adult-Contemporary and the Country music charts. It debuted on the country music charts this very week back in 1974. The pace of a hit country single is somewhat slower than the pace of a pop single. In pop music, then and now, singles consistently leap-frog up the charts. One week a single could be at #34 and the next it could be up to #22 and then up near the Top-10 the following week, etc etc. In country music, singles don't usually have that kind of rapid chart action. One week a single could be at #34 and the next it could rise up to #30 or only move up one place, to #33, and then during it's 4th or 5th week it continually moves up the charts that by week 10 or 11 it's nearing the Top-10 (if it gets that far, that is!)

I bring this up because "Everybody Needs a Rainbow" debuted on the Adult-Contemporary charts a week before it's Country music debut...but it reached it's Adult-Contemporary Top-20 peak before the end of the year. During the same chart span over on country radio the single didn't reach it's peak position until January 1975. The single was charted for the same number of weeks on both music formats but yet it took awhile longer for it to reach it's peak position on country radio. This particular inspirational single was written by Layng Martine, Jr. and it was only available as a single-only. Layng wrote several songs that Ray recorded through the years: "Piece by Piece", "Put It In Your Ear", "The Flies of Texas Are Upon You", and more recently, "Rub It In". Yes, the same song that Billy "Crash" Craddock had a hit with. Ray did his version of the song in 2008 and it's on the Hurricane CD. Ray has a history with "Rub It In"...he produced a version of the song which was recorded by the writer, Layng Martine, Jr., in 1971. According to Ray, the record label rush-released the song but the timing wasn't correct and it didn't become a real big hit. Later on, Craddock recorded the song and it became a huge hit for him in 1974. Craddock's version was produced by Ron Chancey.

The B-side of "Everybody Needs a Rainbow" is "Inside", which is another song in the same inspirational vein, but "Inside" was written by Ray.

As today is December 1st I thought I'd post a side-by-side picture of myself and a 1985 picture sleeve of Ray Stevens...as you can see it's "Santa Claus Is Watching You". The B-side of the single is "Armchair Quarterback". Each of these songs were taken from I Have Returned, the comedy album Ray issued in 1985. The album would eventually reach #1 in the spring of 1986. Those of you seeking out Ray Stevens holiday material look no further than his web-site store. You can purchase his 1997 all-comedy Christmas CD...which is titled Christmas Through a Different Window...and you can get his 2009 all-serious Christmas CD titled Ray Stevens Christmas. You can get both of those CD's plus a single DVD of his music video, "Nightmare Before Christmas", here. The music video, by the way, has gotten 39,520 You Tube hits in a little under a month. Ray hasn't pushed the music video as heavily as he does the political releases and so that's why it's nearing 40,000 hits in a month's time whereas many of his other You Tube releases have gotten well over 100,000 hits within a month's time. A couple of days ago Ray left a message on the social network site, Twitter, that he'll be returning to the studio to work on 10 new political comedy songs. I assume these new songs will start to trickle out at some point next year. This month marks the 1 year anniversary of "We The People" being uploaded on You Tube...maybe later this month a new political comedy song/video will emerge?

Ray Stevens and the Government, Part 2...

Well hello all you Ray Stevens fans out there!! The day after the midterm elections of 2010 has proven to be what a lot of us were predicting and hoping for. Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives by such a wide margin in addition to all of the local races and State Government's being flipped from Democrat control to Republican control really goes a long way at displaying just how upset and opposed to the direction that the President and the Democrats, in general, were taking the country. There were several Democrat wins, though...and the Republicans gained several more Senate seats which makes the gap between parties even more close in the Senate. In other words the Democrats no longer have a commanding majority in the Senate, even though they remain in control of the Senate. The Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives as I mentioned. The next goal on the horizon will be to defeat the President in 2012 and I'm pretty sure ObamaCare will continue to be one of the major issues given that it doesn't even take full effect until after the 2012 elections.

The thing that'll cause ObamaCare to not be a big issue in 2012 is if it gets repealed outright or if there are amendments made to the existing law prior to it taking full effect. The Government mandate that people must have health care of face fines from the IRS is the biggest controversial element of the bill. Considering that any bill requires the President to sign it into law or veto it leads a lot of people to rightfully assume that the fight will continue through 2011 and into 2012. In the best or worst case scenario the President will stick to his ideologies and not make any attempt to work with Republicans and if this happens I expect to see more Republican gains in 2012.

In the meantime Ray Stevens issued a brand new music video on You Tube today. The video is "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and it's taken from his comedy Christmas album. The album, Christmas Through a Different Window, has quite a history. It was originally released in 1997 and it's become an annual success ever since. It was re-released a few times and even served as the backdrop of a couple of holiday themed concert productions from Ray in the late '90s billed as Christmas with Ray Stevens. This marks Ray's second Christmas music video...his first came along back in 1985, "Santa Claus Is Watching You". "The Nightmare Before Christmas" deals with political correctness getting it's ugly claws dug into Santa Claus. Ray has a nightmare that Santa gets arrested and is charged with political incorrectness among other things. Within the song Ray gives examples of the "crimes" as he plays the nutty prosecutor, Santa, and the Judge. It's a cute yet hard-hitting indictment of political correctness and it's one of my favorite songs on his comedy Christmas album. Hopefully Ray will be making more music videos from this album...they all tell funny stories! Here's his latest...