Hello fans of Ray Stevens!! As Ray was departing from RCA Records in 1983 the record company issued a compilation album on him simply titled Greatest Hits. Ray had signed with the record company late in 1979 and his album debut for RCA arrived very early in 1980. Those who are fans of Ray, as I am, often cite his Warner Brothers years (1976-1979) as the turning point where the marketing of his music, overall, shifted from a general pop music audience to a country music audience. I agree with that but I'll further add that when he joined the roster of RCA Records he became even more woven into the fabric of country music...becoming very visible on all kinds of country music programming on television, increasing his appearances at county and state fairs across the country, and performing/appearing at country music themed awards show. Now, of course, this isn't to say that Ray was a stranger to county fairs, country-oriented television shows, and nightclubs prior to his signing with Warner Brothers or RCA...it's just that when you see him on television programs from the early to mid 1970s and then see him on television in the late 1970s and into the 1980s you'll notice some subtle changes in his stage presence and delivery...and obviously you'll notice that the beard became permanent in the late 1970s. A lot of Ray's comedy songs I'd categorize as fun songs, recordings that are heavy with southern comedy/southern humor, but there are plenty that can be categorized as topical and satiric.
The 1983 Greatest Hits album that RCA released I've written about and spotlighted numerous times during the life of this fan created blog page. The collection includes 10 songs...and Ray wrote 9 of the 10 recordings. The mystery that I don't think will ever be solved about this album is why the record company decided to feature just two recordings that Ray did for the company (from 1980) and fill the rest of the album with songs from decades past. Ray recorded three studio albums for RCA during the years 1980, 1981, and 1982. In that three year time frame RCA released 6 singles on Ray...5 of the single releases reached the national best selling charts...and so it's baffling why those single releases weren't spotlighted on the 1983 album. The track list of the 1983 album: "Shriner's Convention" (1980), "Ahab the Arab" (1969 recording), "The Streak" (1974), "Everything is Beautiful" (1970), "Mr. Businessman" (1968), "The Moonlight Special" (1974), "Misty" (1975), "Gitarzan" (1969), "Freddie Feelgood" (1969 album cut), and "The Dooright Family" (1980). Do you want to know what single releases on RCA that could have been included on this 1983 album but weren't? Here they are: "Hey There" was released in 1980 in international markets instead of "Shriner's Convention". "Hey There" and "Shriner's Convention" contained the same B-side, "You're Never Goin' To Tampa With Me". "Night Games" was issued in the latter half of 1980 as the first single from his yet to be released 1981 album. The title track of that 1981 album, "One More Last Chance", was issued as a single in the first half of 1981.
Inexplicably, RCA never released another single or album on Ray throughout the rest of 1981. This brings us to 1982 and the release of Don't Laugh Now. This album contained the final two single releases on Ray from RCA: "Country Boy, Country Club Girl" and "Where The Sun Don't Shine". As mentioned, 5 of the 6 single releases charted on the various best selling charts.. the one that didn't happened to be "Hey There". I have not, to date, come across any weekly sales or airplay chart from overseas that lists his comical take on "Hey There" as having made the charts. The other RCA single releases all reached the Top-100 best selling singles charts here in the United States.
Now, from the 1983 Greatest Hits album, is the 1974 audio track of "The Moonlight Special". Ray wrote this song as a parody of the television series, The Midnight Special, upon which it's announcer was disc jockey Wolfman Jack. It's an example of how Ray's music played to a general, pop music audience at that time. I don't know if country music audiences at the time were even aware that TV show even existed?! You can listen to the track by clicking HERE.
In this 5th installment of the Audio Diary series of blog posts, I'm spotlighting a 2015 recording from Ray Stevens which doubled as a salute/tribute to the comedy legacy of the late Jerry Clower...but first a little, brief backstory on Jerry Clower's friendship with Ray Stevens.
In country music circles Ray Stevens and Jerry Clower are two of the most popular and beloved entertainers when it comes to country comedy. On YouTube their recordings are being heard by hundreds and thousands of people weekly.
Jerry Clower, in his comedy stories, always said that he backed into show business. He said this because he didn't begin recording comedy albums until he was middle age. In fact he was perfectly content to remain a fertilizer salesman for the Mississippi Chemical Corporation. He had been born in 1926 and served in the Navy during World War Two. After his military duties he went to Mississippi State University and played college football while getting a degree in Agriculture.
He worked with the 4-H and eventually found himself selling fertilizer. It was during one of his speaking engagements selling fertilizer to potential customers that his speech was recorded...for you see, during his speaking engagements, he would tell wild stories about his youth, his military experiences, his years playing football, and the misadventures of a family with the last name of Ledbetter. One thing led to another and his monologue found it's way to music executives. When MCA Records came calling in 1971 he was 44 years old and having no previous desires of being a comedian or even a celebrity of any kind he found himself on a major record label, receiving his first of several Gold albums, and within several years he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry (1973) and the rest is history. He passed away in August 1998...a month shy of turning 72.
Ray and Jerry's paths crossed multiple times on various country music awards shows and talk shows. In fact, in 1986, the two of them and Minnie Pearl got together and recorded "Southern Air", a comedy song dealing with a run down airplane where Jerry plays the part of the Captain and Minnie plays the role of the stewardess...with Ray playing the role of the meek passenger fighting off Minnie's flirtatious behavior as well as commenting on all of the in flight chaos going on around him. Ray was a labelmate of Jerry Clower at MCA for five years (1984-1989).
In 1995 Ray issued a Direct-to-VHS movie titled Get Serious!. In this movie Jerry Clower appears several times in the role of the Colonel.. the boisterous manager of Ray's career who spends more time relaxing and taking it easy instead of overseeing Ray's career and professional reputation which, in the storyline, is being trashed and tarnished by a new, yet, humorless music executive (played by Michael Airington). Here's Jerry Clower as Ray's manager early in the movie as Ray is wearing his Gitarzan costume.
In 2015 Ray released the comedy album, Here We Go Again!. It was his first album of comedy in four years. The album featured the audio tracks of the hit YouTube music videos "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me" and "You Didn't Build That"...it also features the song "There Must Be a Pill For This" which became a YouTube hit video a number of years later after Ray performed it on his CabaRay Nashville television series and uploaded the performance onto YouTube. The 2015 comedy album also includes the song, "Knock Him Out, John". The title of the song is a phrase heard in the first comical story released on Jerry Clower in 1971. The story about the raccoon hunt and how the hunters were led to believe that the dog chased a raccoon up into a tree...only to discover it was a lynx...the one that discovered that it was a lynx was a man that Jerry identified as John Eubanks. In the story Jerry says the phrases 'knock him out, John!!!' and 'shoot this thing!!' many times as the story reaches it's climax. Ray recorded "Knock Him Out, John" as a tribute to Jerry and I'm sharing the audio track below.
In the song, Ray puts Jerry's story about the raccoon hunt to music and uses phrases from the story to give added highlight. One of the best things is Ray's impression of Jerry Clower's famous holler. In the song the holler is timed with the music and you'll hear it at various moments throughout the song. Don't be surprised if after hearing the song you don't find yourself trying to do the holler.
Well, hello, fans of Ray Stevens!! Ray kicked off the month of October concerts at the CabaRay showroom last night. You will have 6 more concert dates this month to catch the legendary Country Music Hall of Fame member in action. This is also the month that Ray expands to additional Thursday night concerts. The Saturday evening concerts are: October 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. He'll be in concert twice on a Thursday evening.. the first Thursday concert is October 13th and the second Thursday concert is October 27th.
I'm sure you're all familiar by now with this publicity photo. It's Ray Stevens standing in the parking lot of the CabaRay. This photo originated in the weeks leading up to it's grand opening in 2018. It's in it's third full season of concerts (2018, 2019, 2022) after having had to close it's doors in 2020 and most of the first half of 2021 due to Tennessee laws regarding the pandemic. This season of concerts will wrap up on New Year's Eve and as of this writing it looks as if the annual show will return. New Year's Eve, last year, the concert was canceled due to Ray's wife battling an illness that she passed away from just hours before 2022 arrived at Midnight. When you visit the CabaRay website, located HERE, you can jump ahead to the month of November...there's several more Thursday evening concerts on the schedule. If any of you live in the area that receives the PBS affiliate, KET2, one of the sub-channels of KET (Kentucky Educational Television), you may have noticed that Ray Stevens CabaRay Nashville is no longer on their schedule. It had been airing every Saturday night on KET2 since the latter half of 2018 (if my memory serves me correctly) but a couple of weeks ago it was removed from the line-up. The last day KET2 aired the show was September 12th. It was the episode guest starring Lari White.
Ray's PBS series, roughly 20 weeks ago, began appearing on his YouTube channel. Each Friday evening an episode from the series makes it's debut on YouTube. These are full length episodes...they're not clips. This past Friday episode 6, season 2 was uploaded. That episode guest stars The Gatlin Brothers. I'll be writing a blog entry about that episode soon. Don't forget to click the link that I posted to check out the upcoming concerts at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom!
Has it been a week since Induction Day at the Country Music Hall of Fame? Well, yes, we're a week removed from the day that Ray Stevens, Brooks and Dunn, and Jerry Bradley officially became members of the Country Music Hall of Fame on October 20, 2019. I'm not going to literally recap every single moment of the past week but let me point out that it was a very busy week for each of the inductee's...a very busy lead-up to the inductions, as well. Ray, a busy artist himself regardless of the time of year, had to split his two-day charity golf tournament, which in time's past is scheduled on back-to-back days, by a week. The first round of the charity event took place on October 13th while the second round took place on October 21st. It was the fourth annual charity golf event. The golf game itself was at the Temple Hills Country Club. Video footage surfaced on his Facebook page of the charitable events taking place at Ray's CabaRay showroom on October 13th. In the video clip Ray mentions that the activities were scheduled on back-to-back days as in the past (October 20th and 21st) but this year, due to his formal induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame taking place on October 20th, they had to postpone day one of the event by a week and so those that shown up on the 13th expecting to play golf the next day, Ray remarked, were going to have to wait a week for the actual golf game on the 21st. In keeping with tradition the first day of the charity event takes place on a Sunday with the golf game itself taking place the next day but this time around, as mentioned, the auction and performance from Ray at his CabaRay took place a week ahead of the golf game. It's my guess that the golf course wasn't available on October 14th nor October 28th and so that's why the event this year was split in half by a week. In my last couple of blog entries I provided links and images of Ray from the Country Music Hall of Fame induction. In addition to the formal induction by Ralph Emery there were performances. I touched on this in those blog entries as well but a quick recap: Ricky Skaggs performed "Misty", The McCrary Sisters performed "Everything is Beautiful", while radio/television broadcaster Keith Bilbrey and country comedian, James Gregory, did a version of "The Streak".
Ray Stevens, Jerry Bradley, Ronnie Dunn, and Kix Brooks: 2019
In addition to all of the coverage of the Country Music Hall of Fame inductions Ray also balanced his time performing scheduled concerts at his CabaRay showroom as well as appearing as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry (October 23rd). I provided a recap of his performance in my previous blog entry...the one with the title making reference to his interview with the L.A. Times. On October 25th Ray uploaded the audio track of his 1986 recording, "Southern Air", due to it being the birth date of Minnie Pearl (October 25, 1912 - March 4, 1996). The recording featured a third country comic, Jerry Clower, in the role of the pilot...referred to in the song as Captain Clower. The video clip featured art work from the time period promoting "Southern Air"...the song reached the country chart in the final couple of month of 1986. It placed among the Top 100 songs based on Airplay but the sales enabled it to make an appearance on the Single Sales chart, a concurrent survey of country singles based entirely on sales. When it appeared on the Top-30 country Sales chart it was the only single on that list that wasn't simultaneously in the radio dominated country Top-40...with most of the songs on the Sales list already in the Top-20 or Top-10 portion of the Airplay chart. I point that out just because I think it's a perfect example of the subjective nature of airplay and how the sales popularity of a single, or an album, doesn't necessarily mean airplay will automatically follow. The art work looks as if it was illustrated by those that did the art work for Jerry Clower's 1983 album, Live at Cleburne, Texas but that's only my guess based on visual similarities of Clower's likeness on the 1983 album and the art work surrounding Ray's 1986 single.
Jerry Clower, Minnie Pearl, Ray Stevens: 1986
An autographed publicity photo from 1986 shows the three legends, in character, for "Southern Air". Ray's character speaks like the by-stander heard in "The Streak". I'll be embedding the audio clip for those that have never heard "Southern Air" before. I'm always amazed whenever I read social media reaction about previous Ray Stevens recordings that I, personally, consider classics of his career but yet have never been heard by a good percentage of people posting on social media sites. It's at that moment when I have to realize not everyone's a Ray Stevens nut/fanatic like myself and that not all of his fans choose to get nearly everything he's recorded. That fact is one of the foundations of this fan-created blog page...covering every aspect of Ray's career from the obscure to the well-known. There's a treasure chest full of Ray Stevens recordings out there yet to be discovered. "Southern Air" originally appeared on Ray's 1986 Top-20 album, Surely You Joust. That particular comedy album was heavy on the rural, southern humor style not only with "Southern Air" but also the tale of a rural couple appearing on "The People's Court", a southern man "Makin' the Best of a Bad Situation", a rural couple visiting a "Smoky Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat", a rural family on a "Camping Trip", and an overly anxious and viscous southern policeman, "Dudley Dorite of the Highway Patrol". Here is the "Southern Air" audio clip with art work...
Hello once more...yes, a second blog entry on the same day. I usually don't post 2 blog entries on the same day anymore...back in the early years of this blog I'd do something like that but during the last couple of years I keep the entries a little more under control. The current music video from Ray Stevens, "Taylor Swift is Stalking Me", is sitting at 39,900 unique views. It should briskly reach the 40,000 plateau soon...
***Numbers Update***
I have Ray's video comment page at YouTube opened up in another tab and every so often I click the refresh button to see the updated totals. As of this writing the music video has indeed reached the 40,000 level...the ever changing tally is now at 40,209 unique views...
In case you missed one my recent blog posts, I provided the complete list of songs that are to be on the upcoming Here We Go Again! CD.
1. Taylor Swift is Stalking Me
2. What'd I Say
3. There Must Be a Pill For This
4. Walkin' the Dog
5. Hearts Made of Stone
6. Pickin' on the Chicken
7. The Baptism of Stumpy Brown
8. Little By Little
9. You Didn't Build That
10. Come to the U.S.A.
11. A Handshake Will Do
12. Knock Him Out, John
Tracks Five, Eight, and Nine may be serious recordings. I'm basing my opinion on the title's of those songs but it's difficult to guess, exactly, if a song is going to be comical or non-comical. Track 12 is going to be about the late Jerry Clower. I'm surprised it's taken this long to put out a recording saluting the southern comic (Clower passed away in August 1998) but as Ray often says of himself, and I'm paraphrasing: "I'm a procrastinator...I keep putting things off, and putting things off".
Don't procrastinate, though, when it comes to this CD...it's due out March 24th...you can pre-order the CD at all of the major music stores. If you desire a digital version you can pre-order the Mp3 version, too, by clicking this LINK. The music, of course, isn't going to be delivered to your computer until official release day. Once you visit Amazon's Mp3 page, notice the slight difference in artwork. The image being used to promote the digital copy of the CD presents much more sharper looking graphics...his name has more red highlights and the plane is positioned at a different angle. Also, the title of the CD is in a different font and the sign that the gorilla is holding is different. Instead of my descriptions...it's easier just to compare/contrast the images side by side...
I don't know the significance with having alternate cover art/graphics...aesthetically I prefer the image that appears on the right. The image on the left has everything in reverse. Maybe the image on the left appears on the back of the CD and the image on the right appears on the front of the CD? The limo is pointed in different directions, too, and the airport imagery is visibly different in each photo. I wonder which photo/cover art is to appear on the CD I pre-ordered on Amazon the other day!?!
Hello all...I just got back from Friday errands and found out that Ray Stevens uploaded the first webisode of his brand new You Tube series. The installments are apparently going to run a little more than 6 minutes each and a different installment will appear on his You Tube and Facebook pages each Friday.
The Judge is played by Louise Mandrell. The sheriff (Dudley Dorite a/k/a Bubba) is portrayed by Buddy Kalb...a long time friend of Ray's and since the early-to-mid '80s he's been a songwriter for Ray, too. Look for a cameo appearance by Darrell Waltrip.
On this Saturday morning we take a look at the publicity that emerged the other day centering around the new Ray Stevens reality show, Ray-ality TV. The program, as mentioned in a previous blog, airs on the newly re-launched TNN. There was a media release informing the public and his fans that the channel will air 26 episodes of the series. This adds up to 26 reruns during a 52 week calendar year. It appears as if the new TNN has become available on some select cable outlets but the majority of it's availability continues to be through local affiliate sub-channels.
I hope TNN will one day become a channel on my cable provider, Time-Warner Cable. I live in the Midwestern part of the United States and there's a lot of rural consumers and country music fans in this part of the country and it seems as if it would be a natural that the new TNN would seek out the cable providers and channels in the region but as of now it's nowhere on my channel line-up.
Here's a link to a picture featuring Ray Stevens. It's a recent picture of his visit to the new TNN headquarters. The link will provide the names of the other people in the picture with Ray. Share the link with your friends. The same goes for the media release from the company that promotes Ray's music and appearances, Absolute Publicity. Music Row magazine's on-line site published this News article detailing the 26 episode commitment to Ray-ality TV. The link also features the video clip of Ray promoting the TV show. This is Ray's first ever television show since the 1970 summer series he hosted for Andy Williams. There have been pilots taped by Ray for possible television shows down through the years but none of those were picked up by any local or national network. I want to much to see the program as I'm sure every Ray Stevens fan does. Those fans of Ray who have access to the new TNN, I envy you.
I wrote about this particular souvenir item several blogs ago. I can't really recall when...but I know I touched upon this item. This is one of those road books, some refer to them as tour books, where an artist is highlighted with pictures often taken of the singer in concert or in a concert setting. Although this is officially billed as a "programme", note the British-style of spelling, it serves the same function as a road book in that it hypes the artist. Actually, another artist, in addition to Ray Stevens, is hyped in this booklet. Del Shannon is the other artist written about...he was appearing with Ray at a venue in England in 1977. Their appearance obviously was the reason behind this souvenir booklet. There are several obscure pictures of Ray throughout the booklet and it even has reference to his aspirations of being a playwright with an adaptation of Johnny Appleseed.
The back of the booklet is a picture of Ray that was used for his 1976 album, Just For the Record. I came across this booklet on eBay several years ago and I bought it...and if any of you want a chance at owning this same booklet I suggest you go to eBay. There is an eBay member from Ireland currently selling a copy of the booklet...it'll be posted for just four more days...so anyone seriously wanting a copy of this 1977 booklet that you see me hilariously showing-off now would be your opportunity!! When I bought my copy I had to send an International money order to the seller as he lived in England somewhere. Unfortunately eBay doesn't offer a check/money order option and everything's PayPal whether you want to use your credit/debit card or not!!
What could I possibly be looking at?? Hmmm, is there an image of a female streaker in the booklet? Now, of course there isn't such a thing!! But what in the world could I possibly be looking at? Okay...I'll give a hint...it has something to do with Ray Stevens. Does that narrow it down for anybody? Okay, here's a better hint...1970. That's my last hint. It could be anything from 1970...lots of things were happening in Ray's career in 1970...but yes, 1970, is the best hint I can give without giving away what's hiding in the center of the booklet. All in all the booklet/program/programme is great although I did wince at the swipe at Hee-Haw, though. It wasn't a vicious remark or anything but it did carry a condescending tone, based upon the words being used, as if the writer was irritated that the show was still on the air. I'm not going to expect the impossible and hope that one day the show will get respect universally...no one person can be hopeful that long. Anyway...9 times out of 10 those who make fun of the show only do so because they feel it's a hip thing to do or worse yet all they've really known is to make fun of the show...whether they've actually seen a complete episode or not.
As you can tell from the title of this particular installment of the blog this is my 300th Ray Stevens Music Journey post. This blog started toward the end of 2008...and here we are toward the end of 2010...only a couple more months left. I could've written 100 blog entries a year to reach the 300th right now. 100 in 2008, 100 in 2009, and 100 in 2010...but that isn't exactly the way it happened. As you all can see from the archive totals: 43 in 2008, 79 in 2009, and a whopping 178 in 2010!! Ray wraps up his concert series in Branson, Missouri tonight...this is also the day he appears at a local Tea Party rally in Branson! His You Tube music videos continue to gain hits...with his latest, "God Save Arizona", sitting at 481,898 hits. "Caribou Barbie", the song about Sarah Palin, is at long last getting close to 300,000 hits! I refer to this and "The Global Warming Song" as the forgotten music videos! You would think a music video centering around Sarah Palin would've gotten half a million or more hits within a month or two but after 7 months on-line the total is 291,174. This is still a good, healthy response but for those who had higher expectations, given the subject matter, you can't help but wonder what happened??
"The Global Warming Song" I don't think was meant to be a major music video upload given the lack of publicity and attention it didn't get. The song is cute but perhaps it only gains appreciation from those who are into ecology and the climate? Maybe the topic isn't a hot button issue...that could always be the case. That particular music video has gotten 60,200 hits. It was uploaded 3 months ago. My guess is the video was simply over-shadowed by it's predecessor: "Come to the USA" which is currently sitting pretty with 4,220,021 hits! "Caribou Barbie", uploaded on March 11, was over-shadowed by the video that followed it less than a week later on March 22: "Throw the Bums Out!". That music video has gotten 561,910 hits so far. So, here you have a case where two music videos are over-shadowed by other releases...usually over the course of time a forgotten video will ignite and find it's audience and that may be what ends up happening with "The Global Warming Song". The global warming video is sandwiched between "Come to the USA" and "God Save Arizona" and in music industry jargon the video of "The Global Warming Song" simply got lost in the shuffle.
