I couldn't think of any other blog title...this being Friday and the fact that I'm going to embed a television commercial for Flav-O-Rich by Ray Stevens. This commercial emerged on Ray's social media sites a couple of days ago but I'm just now getting it into a blog entry. Every so often Ray's social media sites spotlight his career selling Flav-O-Rich products...typically milk. The company was previously known as Farm Best. Ray's image appeared in print ads for the company and in regional television commercials. I don't think these commercials ever aired north of Kentucky or west of Tennessee but I'm sure they saturated the south/southeast market. In this commercial, from 1980, Ray and several others are promoting the company's new low fat brand of milk.
When you look upon Ray in the screen cap above or down below it's worth pointing out that he's wearing the Clyde the camel pinky ring. The commercial, being from the year 1980, also means that it was airing during the year of his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and based on the time of year this commercial aired it was either before or after "Shriner's Convention" made it's debut. I think the commercial premiered in the middle or latter half of 1980...and if so it was definitely several months after "Shriner's Convention" which hit very early in 1980.
Ray Stevens for Flav-O-Rich; 1980
Ray remained a spokesman for Flav-O-Rich for much of the 1980s. This was a part of his career that I had no idea about until the early 2000s when I got on-line. When I did a Google newspaper archive search for Ray Stevens one of the results was a newspaper ad showing an image of Ray holding a carton of Flav-O-Rich milk. From that point forward I'd always been on the lookout for images of Ray promoting the company. It wasn't until fairly recently did his television commercials begin resurfacing through his YouTube channel. He's uploaded a number of those commercials but there's still a lot more that have yet to surface.
It's me once again! Earlier today Ray Stevens uploaded one of his mid 1980s television commercials for a local Toyota dealer in Nashville, TN. I don't know if the commercial is from 1985 or 1986...could be 1984 or 1987. One thing is certain: it's the mid 1980s. He uploaded another mid 1980s commercial he did for Nashville's Toyota not too long ago...but this one is officially referred to on YouTube as Toyota Commercial 2. Note the special guests that appear in the commercial playing the bouncers. They look like Wrestlers but I can't think of their names.
The one he uploaded back on May 1st is below...
The two commercials had originally appeared on YouTube 6 years ago in a single upload. As you can tell the previously uploaded commercials were re-uploaded, but this time, separately. Ray also uploaded a Flav-O-Rich television commercial from the early 1980s. It features another boy, this one with dark hair, acting as his son. In a previous upload a boy with lighter hair was acting as his son. The message in both of those commercials are largely the same...there's an abundance of saccharine in the presentation of the commercial as is typically the case when children take center stage in commercials. In a previous commercial Ray and the kid spoke of frozen cows...this time they discuss a busy cow...
In the world of social media Ray Stevens has recently been a bit more active. There is almost always a new post on his Facebook page everyday or every other day but here recently there have been a couple of video clips that have been added to the social media contributions. On December 3rd Ray and Ralph Emery attended a 2 hour event in Dickson, Tennessee at Clement County's railroad museum. WSMV, a local television station in Nashville, aired brief footage of the two at the museum but unfortunately there wasn't any audio clips of either Ray Stevens or Ralph Emery but they appear several times in the camera footage. The anchor of the news not only referred to both of them as musicians but also said the two were "from Tennessee's past" but in reality only Ray is a musician...Ralph happened to be a radio broadcaster and television host...but I'd like to clarify that Ray is very active and performs concerts at his CabaRay showroom in West Nashville...and he's very modern and contemporary with his music productions. So, in my opinion, Ray is very much a part of Tennessee's present. Here is the video clip...
A couple of photos emerged on-line of Ray Stevens attending a cake cutting party backstage at the Grand Ole Opry celebrating the 5th anniversary membership of the group, Little Big Town. I'm not posting the photos but you can find the photos by searching Ray Stevens + Little Big Town + Instagram. Ray made a guest appearance at the Opry during the same night that the group was also appearing.
A new upload of a vintage television commercial for Flav-O-Rich that Ray Stevens did in the late 1970s appeared on-line several days ago. I don't know the year of this commercial but someone that replied to the video on YouTube guessed it had to have been taped at some point in 1977. I'd have to look up the specifics of when the Flav-O-Rich name came into existence. The company used to go by the name of Farm Best but the name was changed to Flav-O-Rich at some point in the late 1970s. Anyway, in this commercial Ray, clean-shaven, is shown exiting through a front door and onto a porch and then down to the yard where a dairy case filled with Flav-O-Rich products are on display. It's Christmas themed.
Speaking of Christmas...a video clip from 1989 surfaced on YouTube of Ray Stevens performing "Santa Claus is Watching You" and aided by a simian puppet. The performance comes from an episode of Nashville Now and at various moments within the performance it looks as if the simian comes alive and tugging at Ray's neck ferociously...it's a cute performance...
Staying in the Christmas vein...it's Christmas at the Ray Stevens CabaRay showroom all this month. A video clip promoting this came along on YouTube not too long ago. The number to call for tickets, of course, can be seen in the video clip as well as the website if you prefer to purchase tickets on the internet...
Hello once again...it's been awhile since I've posted a blog entry. I had decided to ease up on the blogging because I'd posted quite a few during the first half of the month but yet that's only due to how active Ray's been and how earlier this month practically everything was centered around CMA Fest 2019 of which he participated by giving an interview on the Close-Up Stage. In this blog entry I'll be embedding a second vintage Flav-O-Rich television commercial that Ray Stevens uploaded onto the social media sites. Last month (May 1st) an ice cream commercial was uploaded in which Ray appeared as a little boy...an effect accomplished, of course, with oversized props enabling him to look tiny. In this latest vintage commercial upload he's advertising milk...but he has to put up with a scene stealing co-star as you can see in the screen cap below. I'd say this commercial is very early '80s...the Flav-O-Rich name debuted in 1979 after having been known as Farm Best...and Ray was the spokesman in commercials before and after the change in company name. This means the commercial may have originally aired at some point between the years 1979 and 1985. I use that as a cut-off year because I think that's the final year he did local/regional commercials for the company...but I definitely think the commercial embedded below is from 1980/1981...
Hello all...yes, it's me posting a blog entry about Ray Stevens in the middle of the day!! This usually doesn't happen unless I find myself awake for some reason during daylight hours (being a night owl, third shift, overnight worker I'm not usually awake at 2:40pm). Anyway...I find myself awake and I decided to check the computer. I didn't have the computer on at all Wednesday due to severe storms that passed through here. I get onto the computer about 20 minutes ago and discover that Ray Stevens, yesterday, uploaded a vintage television commercial advertising Flav-O-Rich ice cream.
In blogs past I've written about Ray's former involvement with the dairy company and I've posted print advertisements from early 1980s newspapers that I'd come across on-line showing Ray endorsing the products but this is the first time the television commercials have been posted on-line. Well, just one commercial's been uploaded for now, but he did more...and hopefully some of the others will be posted at some point. I don't know the year that the commercial aired...I'm saying mid 1980s...perhaps as late as 1985? Also, I've never found out whether those commercials that aired on television were regional or national...I'm guessing the television commercials were regional/local while the print advertisements were national.
Q: How many songs are on The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music by Ray Stevens?
A: 108
When you watch the commercial for the encyclopedia it harkens back to a time when Heartland Music used to air album commercials on television at various times of the day. Those born after 1995 perhaps have no concept of what I'm referring to since those kind of commercials hadn't aired on TV since around that point in time. It used to be that singers who still had a fan-base and were still popular, but weren't able to get onto the radio for various reasons took to the television airwaves via 30 or 40 second commercials, often for Heartland Music. The singer, or group, would be shown on-screen singing as the album's track list rolled up the screen. Frequently there'd be a voice-over delivering the information about the album and how a person can buy it. The commercials always ended with the purchase information: Name of the album, mailing address, cost, and which styles of payment were accepted.
Ray Stevens did one of those kind of commercials in the late '80s for his 1987 2-LP set, Get The Best of Ray Stevens. The commercial hadn't aired since that point in time but I'd love to see it again!! Ray's album was for his label at the time, MCA. In the early to mid '90s Ray explored the concept of home video sales...selling hundreds of thousands of home videos in a genre not known for those kinds of sales figures at that point in time. Television commercials for three of his home video projects were aired frequently during the years of 1992, 1993, and 1995: Comedy Video Classics, Ray Stevens Live!, and Get Serious!
Once the internet became more and more dominant and the buying habits of music consumers changed, right around the mid '90s, it was no longer really necessary for record labels to purchase air-time on television to sell the music of non-radio artists. The internet enabled those artists to take advantage of the relatively free exposure the internet provided to hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of potential consumers. Now then, since there's been an entirely different generation brought up with on-line advertising and music downloading being the chosen way of purchasing, specifically for those born during the mid-late '90s and later, it's become something of a rarity for that younger audience to see a newly made-yet-traditional commercial like the one you see below show up on-line...
Being a person of traditional leanings I happen to like the video commercial. There may be some that don't get the point of the commercial considering that they probably rely on web-sharing and Amazon's popularity lists or current radio playlists to influence their buying decisions but for a lot of others the commercial is entertaining/informative and it successfully does it's job of keeping the product front and center, which is the goal of any commercial. The video is more than 3 minutes long...so there will perhaps need to be some extensive editing done if Ray, at some point, wants to air this on television as a typical commercial but it may just remain an on-line exclusive. I really can't see where you can edit it anyway...the commercial runs so smoothly that it doesn't feel like it's as lengthy as it is.
