Ray Stevens...those early '90s gems...

I've come across several on-line music sites and other web-sites pertaining to discographies, etc. etc. and mostly all of them are inaccurate about a few of the CD's from Ray Stevens. The reviews of a couple of his CD's from the early '90s incorrectly label the projects as compilation, rather than studio, albums. The first CD I came across that has an inaccuracy is titled #1 With a Bullet, from 1991. The review makes it appear that the CD features previously recorded material. Not only does the review make it appear that the CD is a compilation release it also incorrectly states that Ray recorded for Curb Records in the late '80s and early '90s. Ray began his association with Curb in 1990 and remained represented by that label through 1995. He returned to MCA in 1996, after having recorded for them first during the 1984-1989 time frame, and he remained with MCA through 1998. He returned to Curb Records in the following decade, starting in late 2001, and released various projects for the label during the next 3-4 years. His own label, Clyde Records, had been a part of Ray's career dating back to the late '80s but the label didn't have it's first big success until the 1992 release of Comedy Video Classics and from that point onward, his Clyde Records became the major distributive outlet for his home videos and later, DVD's, and now his CD's.

But going back to the CD review of #1 With a Bullet...the review apparently was picked up and shared all over the internet because I've seen quite a few places list this 1991 studio album in the compilation section rather than in the studio album section of web-site discographies. Elsewhere in the write-up, the reviewer laments that fact that the 'compilation' album doesn't contain any of Ray's songs from the '60s and '70s...which is one more example of the confusion that existed by the reviewer in not knowing that the CD was a studio album. The CD's title is based on any artist's hope that their album will hit the #1 spot on the album charts...and the album's cover art depicts the title literally...showing Ray, holding up a giant bullet, with his index finger pointing in the air (referencing, of course, the #1 in the CD's title).

Another CD that's long been publicized on-line as a compilation is 1993's Classic Ray Stevens. This particular CD features 10 songs that were all brand new at the time of release...well, the only cover song on the collection was his version of "The Bricklayer's Song" that had long been associated with Irish artists..but even that was brand new to Ray's career. Anyway, the CD was one of his studio albums for Curb Records but due to it's title you have modern-day reviewers who apparently didn't do their homework because they routinely label the CD as a "collection of previously released songs" when, in reality, all the songs were new to Ray's career at the time. The album's title is based upon the classical music cover art...showing a bust of Ray atop a piano in a Beethoven-like reference. The sheet music at the piano is titled Concerto for Cornball. Nevertheless, Classic Ray Stevens was indeed a studio album and not a compilation of re-recorded songs as referred to in the many reviews of the CD that appear on-line. Basically, each of the reviews make each of the CD's appear as low-budget compilations rather than impeccably produced and recorded studio albums of their day. 1991's #1 With a Bullet and 1993's Classic Ray Stevens are two of Ray's studio albums for Curb Records. His other studio album for the label was his 1990 release, Lend Me Your Ears. Ray issued a couple of music videos for some songs from the 1990 release: "Sittin' Up With the Dead" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night". Those two music videos would later surface on 1992's Comedy Video Classics along side his mid '80s music video of "Santa Claus Is Watching You" and his 1988 music video for "Surfin' U.S.S.R.". Four additional music videos were shot to compile the award winning #1 home video.

Ray only recorded three studio albums for Curb Records. The label issued several legitimate compilation projects on Ray during the 1990's: Greatest Hits (1991), 20 Comedy Hits (1995), and Great Gospel Songs (1996). #1 With a Bullet and Lend Me Your Ears, ironically, were both re-issued on CD in 2005...and I believe the 2005 re-issue is where the bulk of the more contemporary reviews of #1 With a Bullet have come from. It was during Ray's association with Curb Records that he became famous for his home video releases and his Branson, Missouri concerts...first as a popular guest at other venues and then as a headliner himself at The Ray Stevens Theatre which was in business for three consecutive seasons: 1991, 1992, and 1993. This activity, the home video productions and the Branson concerts, may have played a big part in why his audio output during the 1990's was low by comparison to the decade before. During 1990 through 1999 Ray Stevens released only five studio albums...3 for Curb Records, 2 for MCA Records...the rest of the time was spent on music video creations and concert engagements. The home video releases from Ray during the 1990's were Amazing Rolling Revue, Comedy Video Classics, Ray Stevens Live!, More Ray Stevens Live!, and the direct-to-home video movie, Get Serious!. It's interesting to note that 1992's Comedy Video Classics was inspired by the success of a similar home video that was sold exclusively at his Branson, Missouri theater. The concept was expanded on in the form of Comedy Video Classics and Ray went on to sell millions of copies of the home video through direct marketing and retail during a very prolific 2 year period, 1992-1994, which saw Ray become a leader in home video sales.  

Ray Stevens: Let's Get Political...

Well, Happy Friday the 13th all you fans of Ray Stevens! As you can tell from the images in the blog entry this morning the Let's Get Political book from Ray Stevens arrived in the mail. Actually it arrived in the mail yesterday but I was away from the computer most of Thursday. The book's pages aren't numbered and so there's no way to tell how many pages there are. I'm obviously not going to count them all because it's pretty thick and let's say it's more than 30 pages. The book is comprised of lyrics of all the songs from two of Ray's most recent CD's: 2010's We The People and 2011's Spirit of '76. I read the introduction/forward and some of the other parts of the book. I love the information and for those who already have those two CD's you need to get this book ASAP!! At the moment Let's Get Political is available as a free gift as part of your purchase of what's being promoted as a Tea Party special offering both CD's, the book, and a flag lapel pin. Now, for those who already have those CD's you can purchase the book separately which is what I did. There's commentary and discussion in the book which gives insight into a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes during the years leading up to the Internet release of the "We The People" music video in the late winter of 2009. The book is a real treat in my opinion and one any fan of Ray's shouldn't be without. On the back of the book there are pictures of the two CD's and below those images are individual photo's of Ray Stevens and the book's other contributor, Buddy Kalb. Each song is dissected and discussed, too, so it's not just a book filled with song lyrics. The songwriters and the publisher credits, of course, are on display too.    


When I removed the book from the packaging I was surprised by how it looked. On the web-store's page the image looks a lot wider and more along the lines of sheet music books (if any of you remember those!). So, anyway, I was prepared to receive a thin book with the appearance of a calendar and was pleasantly surprised to see a book of a shorter, more compact size and one that could easily fit onto a book shelf rather than having an over-sized book which is what I assumed it looked like. You can see what I'm referring to when you click this Let's Get Political link. In the image above the book looks bigger than it is so it must have something to do with the dimensions of the picture causing the book to appear horizontally stretched. I took a picture of the book's side view to illustrate that it's a lengthy read...lyrics to 33 songs plus commentary/opinion spread out all over this published gem. I especially like the forward...but there's also other portions of the book that jumped out at me, too, such as why he came to the decision of injecting his political views into his recordings rather than keeping them to himself. As I've often said in my blog entries, conservative humor is almost always attacked by the Hollywood media and those in the New York high-rises and by television critics while liberal humor and liberal points of view are rampant on any number of television comedies, drama's, and network newscasts and you don't hear an outcry from supposedly impartial television critics who are all too frequently blasting a writer or actor for injecting conservative politics into a script or performance. The bottom line is Ray and Buddy Kalb hit the nail on the head when they offer their opinions on all 33 songs found on the two CD's I mentioned earlier.

I think you all will get a kick out of the book!! 

Ray Stevens and the Government, Part 3...

"I'm tired of ObamaCare being called health-care reform. It's nothing like reform at all. It's more like TRANSform. The ObamaCare law transformed an entire health care system that simply needed tinkered with into a massive big Government, socialistic-style system that the people didn't want or need. Slowly but surely people are waking up to the harsh realities that will be mandated onto them by 2014 all in the name of 'social justice' and wealth re-distribution."
~ACcountryFan~

I thought of that a few minutes ago and left a much shorter, rough-draft of it on Yahoo in some comment section of a news article I was reading. The article was about the latest Judicial decision to strike down ObamaCare.

Ray's Anti-ObamaCare song/video, "We The People", is closely reaching the 4,000,000 hits mark. When this happens this will give Ray two music videos on You Tube with at least four million hits. As of this writing the music video is sitting at 3,984,442 hits. The other music video, "Come to the USA", has gotten 4,597,742 hits. "Come to the USA" holds the distinction of reaching the four million mark first, obviously, and it also created quite a bit of controversy...as did his other politically-themed music videos.

As I touched upon in other blogs, a lot of the complaints and controversial aspects were ginned up by antagonistic liberal bloggers who deliberately planted inflammatory comments on message boards, on conservative blogs, and on social network sites like Twitter. Those who oppose Ray's political material were trying to make it look like he was singing to a small group of listeners...marginalizing the impact that his music videos were having all over the internet. I assume a lot of those hate blogs are still around if one searches archives for specific entries...but a lot of those johnny-come-lately blogs may have been deleted once their goal to agitate people was either met or not.

"Throw the Bums Out!", a sentiment that rang true during the November 2010 mid-term elections, is sitting at 629,368 hits on You Tube. A much more serious video, "God Save Arizona", is sitting at 571,031 hits. This particular video, for those who've still not watched it, deals with the Federal Government's lawsuit against the State of Arizona over the illegal immigration law.

Meanwhile, there's a blow-out sale going on this month at the Ray Stevens web-site shopping store with regards to the fabulous T-shirts that have been available during the last several months. The T-shirts that usually sell for $20.00 are now on sale for just $8.00! The shirts are top quality...I personally own one of the various T-shirts and so I suspect the other T-shirts are made with top quality material, too. The information about the T-shirt blow-out sale is located at Ray's web-site store here. There's two versions of the T-shirt...one features his image standing in front of the flag, which is what I prefer, and then there's one that just shows the American flag minus his image. There are other items currently available at their regular price including an alternative version of the T-shirt that shows a different image of Ray in front the flag with the phrase "We The People Have Awakened!" on front. That T-shirt, incidentally, is the one that I own. It was the first T-shirt made available...I will soon purchase the "Great Awakening Tour" T-shirt as well...you can't beat the $8.00 on sale price! The image of Ray on the $8.00 T-shirt, of course, is the same one that appears on the We The People CD.

I came across a web-page today that offers commentary about Ray and his daughter, Suzi, and it includes a slide-show as well. It's located at Bob Edwards web-site and you get there by clicking his name. There's a particular picture that shows Ray standing in front of a wall lined with booklets of sheet music that had been issued on his various recordings through the years. I'm familiar with most of them but a couple were new to my eyes.

Ray's current music video on You Tube, "Nightmare Before Christmas", has enjoyed 56,128 hits so far. The video typically has gotten anywhere between 3,000 to 4,000 or so hits every few days. Will it crack 100,000 hits by Christmas? It's hard to tell...what needs to happen are a lot of blogs across the country need to embed it or give links to the official video through social network sites in an effort to spread it around even more than it's been. 56,128 is good but it could be even more higher. The song skewers political correctness and for those who, like a lot of us, feel that political correctness is nothing more than flat-out censorship you'll love this song/video. The Christmas CD that the song comes from, Christmas Through a Different Window, features other songs aimed at political correctness as well and this is the one that emerged as a music video...

Ray Stevens on Illegal Immigration!

Welcome one and all to my latest fan-created blog entry on Ray Stevens. I couldn't think of a title for this blog entry...I already used a couple of similar sounding titles already when writing about Ray's illegal immigration song. At this very moment the fire's raging and Ray is reaping the rewards of his latest smash hit music video, "Come to the USA". I did a general overview of Ray's music at Amazon's web-site and quite a few of Ray's CD's from the past have risen high among best-sellers in the "comedy music" area. No doubt the exposure of Ray's current music video is fueling that fire...also, the on-going success of his previous four music videos continue to help promote his CD's. I'm going to throw some numbers at you all so you'll be able to get a glimpse of how hot Ray Stevens is at the moment...

Ray's 1990 album, Lend Me Your Ears, is charting in the Top-60 of the country comedy list at Amazon. That 1990 album was re-released in CD format in 2005. Doing even better than that, on that same list, is the CD version of Ray's 1987 album titled Crackin' Up. That particular release is in the Top-10 among best sellers. Ray's 1993 release, Classic Ray Stevens, is sitting in the Top-20 among best sellers in the country comedy format. The Box Set collection from 2006 is sitting way high...#3 among country comedy releases. It's also ranked in the Top-30 best sellers when it comes to box set collections of all formats.

Here's some other Ray Stevens titles that are among the Top-100 best sellers of country comedy at Amazon: His All Time Greatest Comic Hits, 1997's The Best of Ray Stevens on the Rhino label, 1987's Greatest Hits, and several more.

The current Ray Stevens album, We The People, is charting in the Top-20 of comedy Mp3 albums. The CD counterpart earlier today was in the Top-100.

As if all of those stats weren't eye-popping enough it's with great pleasure to relay to all of you that his current music video, "Come to the USA", has obtained a whopping 148,116 hits in nearly a week's time on You Tube. The video was uploaded on May 13th. Some of the other activity from Ray's other music videos are as follows...and as you can see, "Come to the USA" has already surpassed "Throw the Bums Out!" in viewer hits in nearly a week's time. The numbers will continue to grow but here's a glimpse...

Throw the Bums Out!: 116,755 hits

Caribou Barbie: 83,964 hits

Thank You: 118,150 hits

We The People: 3,054,962 hits

The illegal immigration debate continues to be a hot item and Ray's hit music video captures all of the frustration and annoyance a lot of us have when it comes to America's reluctance to secure it's borders from illegal immigrants who want to come here not to "find work" or "find a better life", that's the liberal argument. Instead, statistics show the majority of those who come into America illegally by crossing the United States-Mexico border enter the country for illegal behavior...most common is drug smuggling and some say anti-American sentiment spawned from envy to full-blown insane jealousy of our way of life is another reason why the borders should be much more secure.

As Ray Stevens points out at the end of the music video...there's nothing wrong with immigration...just as long as it's done legally...

Here's that blazing hot "Come to the USA" music video one more time...

Ray Stevens spotlights those Congressional Bums...

It's truly fantastic being a Ray Stevens fan...although my enthusiasm hardly, if ever, has diminished through the years it's always kicked into high gear, obviously, whenever something new comes out concerning Ray. A week ago Ray gave us the music video entitled "Caribou Barbie" and as of now it's pulling in strong hits at You Tube. As of this blog entry, that music video is sitting at 42,824 hits. His military music video, "Thank You", is sitting at 91,577 hits. The big one, "We The People", enjoys 2,818,489 hits. Ray has since given us a new music video...it, too, is highly political. This time around he offers a battle-cry in the form of "Throw The Bums Out!". The song itself is catchy and it's music arrangement I'm wanting to say is rooted in jazz, perhaps flavoring traditional pop music. Whichever musical flavor one defines it as being, it immediately catches the ear before the lyrics are even sung...and what about those lyrics??!

The lyrics drive home a sentiment that a lot of people, a lot of frustrated and annoyed people, seem to share. It's timely in that it comes in the aftermath of the House of Representatives passing ObamaCare by a vote of 219-212. It passed by a mere 7 votes. The song's title should become a theme for the mid-term elections this November. The campaigns during election years often kick off in the late spring/early summer and they run non-stop through the fall...picking up even more momentum by election day in November...and so by the summer of 2010 expect to see a lot of rallies become even more intensified with a sizable majority of the voting public on a mission to Throw the Bums Out!

Ray Stevens: We The People music video, Part Four...

2,582,851 hits have accumulated for the You Tube music video from Ray Stevens, "We The People". The video continues to rake in several thousand hits per day. This is February 3 and in nine days the music video will mark it's second month on You Tube. December 11, 2009 through January 11, 2010 is it's first month; January 12, 2010 through February 12, 2010 will mark it's second month. If you're going by a month by month basis, though, it's three consecutive months: December, January, and February.

There have been a lot of political dynamics at play over the course of the last several weeks in an attempt to push health care to the back burner but a decision in Virginia elevated health care back into the fray once again on Tuesday. The state legislature passed a bill making Government mandated health care illegal in Virginia. This is perhaps the start of a growing trend across the nation where other states take action well before Congress in Washington, D.C. has any opportunity to push through ObamaCare should the Democrats entertain the notion of doing so. Imagine the message it would send the Federal Government if states all over the country began drafting and passing bills in the State legislature that rejected the national health care bill proposal, affectionately known as ObamaCare, and in effect making it illegal. I don't think anyone has ever witnessed such an uprising in modern times from the State Government's toward the Federal Government should other states follow Virginia. Constitutional scholars no doubt will weigh in on these kinds of situations in the days to come.



From time to time I like to do these Ray Stevens through the years picture displays. The two black and white pictures of course originate from the 1970's. The first image was used as a publicity picture in the early to mid 1970's. It appeared on several picture sleeves of singles that were issued overseas. The picture, as far as hairstyle is concerned, is also similar to the one that appears on his 1973 Nashville album. The second image is from the mid 1970's. A variation of that picture appeared on the back of his 1975 Misty album. The image was also used in trade publications/magazines of that time period.



In the images above we see a publicity picture of Ray from the early 1990's. The image appeared on his 1991 Greatest Hits album that Curb Records released. I do not know if that album is where the image originated or not but since then it's appeared all over the internet and in country music reference books. Of course, the fourth image is the current single, "We The People".

Has anyone ever thought to take into consideration just how much Vice President Joe Biden has strikingly similar facial expressions to former President, Andrew Johnson? Are the two of them descendants or anything? Google images of both Andrew Johnson and Joe Biden and see the similarities. Joe Biden does smile more...but pretty much they both have that withdrawn, somber, down in the dumps expression.



It's one of the eeriest similarities that I've come across...as far as this sort of thing is concerned. You can click on each image for a bigger view.

Ray Stevens: The New Battle of New Orleans

In what seems like a never ending quest today I'm going to attempt, once again, to explain away the claims of racism by those who hear this song. I have owned this single for several years and when I heard it for the first time I chuckled at it because I always chuckle whenever I hear a Ray Stevens comical effort for the first time. When listening to the song for that first time and all the subsequent times I loved the song even more. I came across a web-site a couple years ago and the reason why it's still fresh on my mind is because it's the very first time I had actually seen racial accusations being charged at Ray. It was certainly an eye-opening rant by someone royally ticked off because in his or her mind Ray had no right to sing about the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in a light-hearted way. First off...the song is satiric...there isn't anything "light hearted" about it. Secondly, the song isn't making fun of the hurricane victims as some people have come to believe. Lastly, there's not one thing racially charged within the lyrics but yet even today you may come across web-sites and blogs where racist accusations are thrown in the direction of Ray Stevens.

The lyrics are loud and clear...the song is satirizing the looters and the politicians of that area during the aftermath of Katrina...and yes, there's a jab at Jesse Jackson but it isn't race based. The comment deals with Jackson's personality. However, because it's a jab at an "African-American", people on the far-left see it as racial or racist. That kind of madness where people accuse one other of being racists back and fourth hopefully comes to an end this year! There is a much different version of the song by it's writer, Chuck Redden, that you can find if you Google the name of the song. Ray's version doesn't include all of those lyrics found in the Chuck Redden version but because bloggers, I think, find the full and un-edited lyrics on-line they ignorantly have passed along the misinformation that Ray recorded those lyrics when he didn't. The writer even admitted back in 2006 that Ray recorded a "much tamer version" of the song. Ray's recording was released in 2006 but it wasn't widely distributed. I found my copy of the song on-line. Check eBay for those who want to own a copy of the song...it's very hard to find.

Ray Stevens: We The People MP3

I wonder if Congress hopes that we swallow that huge pill known as ObamaCare? It's as big as an orange...and leaves heartburn...

Welcome to this latest blog entry focused on the smash hit from Ray Stevens, "We The People", NoBamaCare! Although I know the sales ranks change hourly I felt like I needed to show some attention to the fact that "We The People" has risen all the way into the Top-20 on Amazon's MP3 digital single chart. This is a list of best-selling MP3's in the country format. Throughout the course of Thursday there were quite a few news stories centering around Ray's single. I've been monitoring the coverage off and on ever since the single became a music video hit on You Tube and yesterday there were several on-line news reports being circulated where Ray gave his direct opinions of ObamaCare and compared it to socialism and Marxism. For me it was the strongest language I'd yet to hear being associated with Ray outside of the song's lyrics. I touched upon those news stories in my previous blog entry and then, to add some icing to the cake, the music video received some exposure on The O'Reilly Factor Thursday night. It wasn't a lengthy promo but I think it connected with some who perhaps just found out about the song through that exposure. Why do I say that? Well, because of the Top-20 ranking of "We The People" where earlier it was in the Top-70. Also, there have been a slew of new blogs uploaded focused on "We The People" specifically and so it's as if the song is at it's zenith...reaching it's peak...and time will tell if "We The People" will be a significant commercial success or if it's appeal will forever remain as a music video. Also, time will tell if public outrage over ObamaCare carries into the summer and fall months prior to November 2010. I heard some commentary saying that people shouldn't vote against the Democrats out of revenge for passing ObamaCare but that isn't the way I look at it. It isn't revenge...it's voicing disapproval for what a Senator or a Representative voted for...and those people in Congress who vote in favor of the final version of ObamaCare, they'll have tough races during re-election unless they conveniently retire.

Ray Stevens: Tea'd Off...

Forgive the comical title of this blog entry when dealing with a serious subject but about an hour ago I came across a news article focusing on "We The People", the on-line smash hit from Ray Stevens. I loved the article as anyone could probably guess. The quotes and the write-up can be found at the CNSNews.com site. The author of the write-up is Pete Winn so if you visit that web-page and search for 'Ray Stevens' you should be able to locate the write-up very easily. You can also find a few other write-up's about the song in blog sites about current events, one in particular is a page called politicalthinker.blogs.cnn.com which starts off with a reference to 1990. I suppose the author wanted to highlight the 20 year passage of time because this is a new decade?

If my comment gets approved you'll see that I commented on Ray's sales achievements because the author of the blog, in my opinion anyway, made it appear that Ray only had a couple of big selling albums prior to 1990 and that it wasn't until "We The People" came along in December 2009 and it's subsequent 1.4 million plays on You Tube that he re-gained popularity. In my comment I wrote that Ray had always been a singles seller rather than an albums seller and that in the 1990's his biggest success was music video projects. Given that the comment wasn't directly about the song/music video it might not get approved...but if it does it'll be there for all to see. Ray's own web-page of course features a similar write-up in their news section.

The actual commercial single of the song is dancing around the Amazon Top-100. The highest position it's obtained is #42 on the comedy MP3 list. In country music it ranked earlier at #67. The totals are updated hourly so it isn't a weekly tally like other charts.

The name of this blog entry, of course, comes from Tea Party. The tea party movement and those who supported it are viewed in the mainstream media as a "fringe element" of society and one that shouldn't be taken seriously. In one of my previous blog entries I wrote about the whole concept of marginalization. The tea party crowds were marginalized in the mainstream media because the reporters who covered them sought out the most extreme participants in an attempt to label the entire thing as nothing more than "extremist ideologues spewing their venom". Of course that was a completely false representation of the whole tea party movement by those afraid that the crowds would inspire more and more questions aimed at Government. Time will only tell what happens from here on out, though...but now onto the lighter side of things to wrap up this blog entry...

Always on the hunt for anything about Ray Stevens that I didn't know comes this portion of the blog entry. I didn't know this little tidbit until late last night while browsing the internet...Ray Stevens co-wrote a Brook Benton single called "My True Confession". The co-writer of the song is Margie Singleton. I looked up the statistics for the single and it hit the Pop Top-30, the R&B Top-10 and the Adult-Contemporary Top-10 in 1963. I had known that Ray worked on the sessions of Brook Benton but I had assumed it was only as a session musician or music arranger. It's always fun/exciting to find out things about a singer that you feel you know just about everything. The troubling thing for me is why is Ray's songwriting contributions for other artists rarely, if ever, highlighted? You can watch a video upload of the song on You Tube.

Ray Stevens: We The People update

In a more normal blog entry than the previous one I wanted to update those who don't keep up to date with statistics that "We The People" earlier today ranked #50 among comedy MP3's at the on-line music store, Amazon. Among all MP3 singles in all formats it ranked #881. The single has placed on the various Amazon MP3 best-seller charts for several days. A lot of the time, as most readers of this blog have come to find out, novelty songs don't necessarily garner mainstream support or much respect...even songs that have become million sellers in the novelty and comedy field are marginalized. This marginalization in hindsight causes a song or a singer to be labeled as a cult favorite or a cult hit. The term implies that a song or a singer achieves their popularity through secondary methods by mostly working outside the mainstream and developing what critics wrongfully label as a cult following. Almost any act that is labeled to have a cult following generally doesn't appear on what some call the "national radar" even though the singer may in fact have remained popular with specific audiences for years and years. Such following is, you guessed it, called a cult following.

However, I will caution those reading this that the so-called "cult following" or "cult popularity" that many mainstream critics label Ray Stevens and his fan-base isn't exactly the same as the cult followings of Star Trek or Star Wars movies and television programs. I have yet to see a collection of Ray Stevens fans at concerts or at any meet and greet function dressed as Shriner's or wearing trench coats getting ready to streak...nor have I seen fans dressed as Arab's. So, in that scenario, Ray's fans are far from being part of some cult following.

As far as "We The People", the latest spin from several on-line media outlets that have mentioned the song is the predictable marginalization approach. The mainstream media marginalized the Tea Party movement and the liberal talking-heads on talk shows summarized it as nothing more than a small segment of the population "behaving like angry mobs". For those who may not know, marginalization is pretty self-explanatory. It's when someone's views or someone's influence is shoved aside and deemed unimportant or ineffective although often is the case marginalization seeks to silence an otherwise factual argument because the opposition has nothing to counter with. The practice of ignoring or pushing concerns or opinions off to the side is marginalization.

Everyone knows what a margin on a sheet of notebook paper is. It's the side of the page which may contain notations or doodling but often doesn't get the eye-catching attention as the items on the "full page" do. So, in social jargon, when someone or something is being marginalized it means it's being shoved to the side and pronounced unimportant. The recent announcements by several Democrats of not running for re-election this year is being marginalized as of right now because the media spin-doctors and those in charge of damage control have gone out of their way to make it appear as if the decisions are based on other factors instead of ObamaCare. If this were the case and they're not wanting to run for re-election based on fall-out from ObamaCare, why make the decision in January 2010? All the evidence points to the ObamaCare controversy being the impetus for the decisions. The two Senators in question are Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado has also announced he isn't running for re-election.

There was a double-edged sword comment pointed at Ray Stevens that I came across on a blog earlier this morning. The blogger wondered why Ray, in the song, is satisfied with saying the health care bill is a Republican vs Democrat issue. That blog, I should point out, targeted Independents who don't have much support for either major political party. So in that sense it was like 'consider the source' because an Independent would prefer to look for people outside the political spectrum to "fix things in Washington" as the saying goes.

The You Tube play count for the "We The People" music video, as of now, is 1,445,149 and in a few days the video will mark it's 1 month anniversary at the web-site. Does anyone else think that the music video could eventually top 2 million plays? If a little more than half a million people view the video it's possible. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Ray Stevens: We The People re-cap

So far, "We The People" has risen to the Top-100 on Amazon's list of top-selling MP3 country singles. I wrote about this several blogs ago and with the single attracting some buyer attention I think it's okay to hype the image of the single. This is the image of the physical copy CD...the MP3 copy, of course, is downloaded onto your computer and you don't literally get to hold the CD single in your hands. The music video of the song is still enjoying phenomenal popularity on You Tube with 1,221,247 total plays the last time I checked. There are also a couple of newer uploads of the song that were uploaded by member's of the site...three in all. Anyway...when it's all said and done, "We The People" will be linked to Ray Stevens amongst the internet users and You Tube watchers one way or another. Unfortunately, as of now, Ray hasn't appeared on any television programs that cater to country music to promote the song. He's appeared on a couple of radio programs, though. I'm surprised that he hasn't been booked on any Fox News programs...but it's only January 3...and the song has only been out 3 weeks. Some cynics out there believe that once ObamaCare passes then everyone is suppose to shut-up and stop talking about health care but a lot of this is a tool being used by the Democrats to perhaps keep health care and it's passage a non-issue come election time and distract the voters. The Christmas day 2009 terrorist attacks that didn't come into reality because of a malfunctioning bomb was the top story the day after the Senate passed their version of ObamaCare on a party-line vote and it became pretty much the most-talked about story the next several of days as priorities shifted from health care to the war on terrorism.

Such occurrences are unpredictable and I'm not saying coverage shouldn't have been placed on the failed terror plot on Christmas day but it struck me as odd that an administration that up until that point, one that didn't exactly have a positive attitude when it came to the middle east wars, was suddenly now talking tough and having a winning attitude about the war on terror. I'm in the minority, perhaps, when it comes to that line of thinking but part of me felt that the focus by the administration on the failed terror plot was to distract attention from the health care controversy. So, in my way of thinking, I think it's best for people who oppose ObamaCare to continue to oppose it even after it's eventually signed into law by Obama because those in favor of the bill, referring to the representatives and senate members, will hope and pray you forget come election time.

Reaching back 21 years we have Beside Myself from 1989. The album is one of those projects that I've written about at length in any number of my previous blog entries. This is the album that introduced the fans to "I Saw Elvis In a U.F.O" which became one of the most popular songs at his Branson, Missouri theater in the early 1990's. It's one of my favorite album covers, too, with the serious and comical Ray Stevens beside one another. The album opens up with the serious, bluesy "Your Bozo's Back Again" which is appropriate in a way seeing that Ray is wearing his clown nose and red facial cheeks. I'd like to have seen some photo out-takes during the session. A lot of times the album covers naturally become so normal looking that seeing other pictures taken during the same session create an entirely different visual. Like, for example, why is serious Ray sitting where he is...why couldn't clown Ray be seated on the left hand side? I often say that it reflects the emotional sequence of the album. Side one is serious songs and side two are the comical songs...and just like numerals the first image of Ray is serious and the second image is comical. First image represents side one and second image represents side two.

It just dawned on me that I've been writing Ray Stevens blog entries for almost 2 years. I write these blogs for creative enjoyment and to promote one of my favorite singers, Ray Stevens. I'm not being paid to write them and I don't work for Ray Stevens or any of his associates, neither. I say that because it dawned on me that people who stop by might think I have some personal connection to Ray or that I'm paid to write these blogs and I'm not. My mission or agenda has always been the same since day one...to give Ray the kind of respect and acknowledgment that I think he deserves and to shed light on all aspects of his career. The more active he is the more I tend to write blogs. "We The People" of course became the catalyst for the sheer amount of blogs I wrote during the month of December...and I'll probably slack off whenever "We The People" runs it's course.

Ray Stevens: Healthcare...We The People...

December 1, 2009...a day shy of my thirty-third birthday finds me writing up another blog about Ray Stevens. The social network of Twitter has become a place where Ray has posted audio links to new recordings. Previously there was the comical song "Cooter Brown" from his trucker CD, One for the Road. Then there was the re-recording of "If Ten Percent Is Good Enough For Jesus". These weren't Ray's only journey onto on-line selling. You can go back to mid-decade, around 2005/2006, and learn that Ray is no stranger to promoting music exclusively on-line. The examples being the songs "The New Battle of New Orleans" and "Ruby Falls". Itunes, if I'm not mistaken, were the original homes of those two songs. If you're reading this and thinking "Ruby Falls"?? Never heard of it! Well, check Itunes or some other on-line music store and do a search for Ray and the song title and see what comes up. It's one of those tempo blender songs as I call them...mixing ballad and up-tempo within the same performance.

Several days ago I wrote of "We The People"...I posted a URL link to the audio but this time around I decided to embed the audio link into the blog. It's a whole lot more easier to click the play button than to right click and open a URL link in another window, etc etc. If truth be known I wasn't aware that I could copy and paste the code but I was looking through a long list of other blogger web-pages and saw that they have numerous displays of You Tube, Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter videos and audio links of their favorite singers or TV shows decorating their blogs and so I decided to go ahead and embed the Twitter link. This song is being promoted as the "radio version". The previous URL that I supplied was for the on-line version. The earlier recording that Ray put out according to the Twitter stats has been listened to over 8,000 times.

Obviously Ray's latest recording is centered around the basic principles and fundamental rights of the American citizen as described in the Constitution. It goes farther than this because it incorporates the topical subject of healthcare reform, nick-named Obama-care by those who oppose the extreme ways the reformers are wanting to change things. I gave a more detailed description of the song in a previous blog entry. A phrase not often heard much anymore is "bleeding heart liberal". This phrase can certainly be applied within the context of the healthcare ordeal because of the deception that's taking place among those with "bleeding hearts". In some web-sites and blog sites I've seen commentary making the Republicans out to be the bad guys because they oppose "Obama-care". In truth, Republicans actually want healthcare reform but not at the extreme levels the Democrats are wanting.

I've seen commentary where one asks why it's such a terrible thing for the Government to supply healthcare to "the needy", etc etc. This is where the bleeding heart factor comes into play, though. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book to play on one's sympathies. The thing that Democrats aren't saying is that all of this "compassion" for the needy and all of that requires huge tax hikes and more Government invasion on the private sector. When you break things down into it's simplest form the Republicans want people to be independent, for the most part, from Government, except when it's absolutely necessary for the Government to be called on. The Democrats on the other hand feel that the Government has all the answers and should offer all sorts of assistance and social programs to every Tom, Dick, Jane, and Mary while at the same time keeping it a secret from their constituents that each and every time the Government "helps" that it means more tax increases and more Government spending and more burden on everyone, regardless of political affiliation. I've often felt that you can tell the political leanings of two people based upon a simple situation at hand...for example...Bob, a Democrat, is angry about something beyond his control. Bob would more than likely think that the Government should take care of his problem and insist that they step-in. Frank, a Republican, is angry about something beyond his control. Frank would more than likely realize that the situation is beyond his control and not look toward the Government to fix things and figure out something on his own to try and fix a situation. It doesn't get any simpler than that when breaking down the two political parties.

Enjoy "We The People" and for those who stumble across the site by accident, take a listen to the song as well.

Politically speaking, Ray is about a complete opposite from his views during the early 1970's, this is based on the lyrical content of the songs he wrote/recorded during that time period compared to today. During 1969-1972 you could perhaps describe Ray's political leanings as moderate-Democratic. I always point to the emotionally powerful "Talking", a song he wrote and recorded in 1970 during the Vietnam War period. The song is about the political figures "wasting time" trying to talk and with every delay more people are dying. These feelings resonated with the anti-war protesters and those who just didn't like the war period, those with no political axe to grind. In that same year, 1970, Ray put out "America, Communicate With Me"...both songs are on his Unreal album. In that song Ray comments on the various topical issues of the time and asks the nation to communicate with him so he can understand what in the world is going on. Those fans who cheered his political feelings at that time perhaps scratch their heads now and wonder "what happened?" when listening to songs like "We The People", "If Ten Percent Is Good Enough For Jesus", "The New Battle of New Orleans", and several others with a slightly more Republican point of view. I've never really care one way or the other about the political views of my favorite singers. A good song is a good song...and Ray's knack for making his songs catchy goes a long way.

Ray Stevens: We The People...

"We The People" is the most recent single from Ray Stevens. As of now I have no idea if the song will be available commercially or not. It was posted on Ray's Twitter web-page. This particular song is all about current events and actual political figures are name-dropped in the song. The most controversial political ordeal going on right now is the health care issue. Obama-Care is what the critics are calling it and within this song you'll hear a lot about Obama-Care. It's a very topical song...and one that should have a cult following given that I don't look for this song to break into the mainstream due to the over-sensitivity awareness of modern-day programming in both TV and radio. I listened to the song a few times and liked what I heard.

I suspect those who are all for the over-haul of health care and see nothing wrong with the way things are being done in Washington will seethe or roll their eyes when listening to this song. I especially like the way it incorporates a few sound effects as censor bleeps...I imagine Ray may perform this song the next time he appears on Fox News Channel. Over the course of the last several months he appeared on Sean Hannity's program and Mike Huckabee's program. At the time he was promoting the re-issue of "If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus", which, I might add, reached #1 on an Independent music survey recently. Is there future appearances on the cable channel on the horizon? It's likely...but probably at some point in 2010...the more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that "We The People" will be at it's most popular in the next several weeks.

Today's date is Saturday November 21st...later on tonight the Senate will be casting a "vote" on the health care bill. This vote is more or less the ignition vote to jump-start the debate on the Senate floor over the health care bill. If the Senate gets 60 "yay" votes then the bill will be debated on the Senate floor several days after Thanksgiving. If the vote doesn't reach 60 then those who created/wrote this health care over-haul will have to go back to the drawing board and edit/delete things or add in things to please a majority of Senators. Until then, listen and love the latest Ray Stevens single, "We The People". The Music City News issue is from 1990...there's nothing comical, though, about "We The People" unless you find it a scream that politicians are name-dropped in the song.

Ray Stevens: The Huckabee Appearance

Ray Stevens recently appeared on the Fox News program, Huckabee, where he spoke about taxes and politics briefly before launching into a performance of "If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus (It Oughta Be Enough for Uncle Sam)". Ray explained the reason for the song's out-of-the-blue resurrection and why he decided to re-release the song. The song was originally recorded in 1993 and was "mildly popular" according to Ray. The picture of Ray that I use to kick-off this blog is from the early 1980's. In fact, it's an up-close picture of Greatest Hits, an RCA album from 1983. By the way, that particular collection is where I heard "The Moonlight Special" for the first time.

I recall that Ray introduced "If 10% Is Good Enough for Jesus" on the 1993 edition of the Music City News Country Awards and then a few months later it was the featured song on his album, Classic Ray Stevens, on the Curb label. That particular album at the time turned out to be Ray's final studio album for Curb...for Ray would concentrate more on music video projects during the mid 1990's but in 1997 he signed with MCA Records for two albums and then signed himself to his own label, Clyde Records, and then returned to Curb Records in 2001. Ray had performed "If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus" a few times on television back in 1993 in addition to the awards program but then he moved away from the song afterwards...I've always felt that the song went over people's heads even though the message was loud and clear.

Classic Ray Stevens in spite of it's title featured 10 all-new recordings. As I've pointed out in other blog entries, people on-line see the album's title and assume it's a collection of previously recorded songs or a collection of re-recorded songs when in fact all 10 songs were brand-new at the time...well, except for one...Ray does a cover of "The Bricklayer's Song" which is often recorded by Irish comedy groups and artist's. Noel Murphy is the one noted for having the popular recording. Ray's version was performed/recorded at his now-closed theater in Branson, Missouri. That song and "If 10% Is Good Enough For Jesus" were both recorded at his theater.

Fast-forward 16 years later and the song's gained some new life through on-line word-of-mouth and apparently word got to Ray and his people that the song was popular with certain segments of the on-line community. So, he re-recorded the song and issued it as a digital download single several weeks ago.

Ray's appearance on Huckabee was a re-scheduled affair. Originally Ray was suppose to appear on the show around the time he appeared on Hannity's Fox News program but things came up and the appearance was postponed. Re-scheduled for August 1st, Ray appeared at the keyboard and delivered a joke about congress, tying it in with a parrot and a grandfather, and then performed the song to a rousing applause. The appearance occurred during the show's final 15 minute segment and a video of Ray's appearance is on You Tube. Search "Ray Stevens + Huckabee" and the video will show up in the search results.

All in all I felt that the appearance was excellent and the performance was great as well.

It made me wish that Ray would appear on TV more often but unfortunately there's not many major TV outlet's for artist's in Ray's generation and so they have to use the internet, more or less, to try to reach an audience. Since the internet is free from age discrimination and any artist of any age, if they put the effort into it, can reach audiences a whole lot quicker and easier on the internet than on commercial TV or radio.