Ray Stevens: Festive Feast Fun

Hello all of you Ray Stevens fans!! We're getting closer to Thanksgiving 2023...as I write this blog entry we're a little more than a half an hour away from the 22nd and then it'll be one more day until one of my favorite holidays of the year. Ever since I began this fan created blog I've often posted holiday-themed blog posts whenever we get near a major holiday. This year it's no different. We're nearing Thanksgiving and as in time's past I'm here to spotlight several audio tracks from Ray Stevens which go a long way at explaining why we're so thankful for his brand of music. It's not all comedy songs yet that's what a general public knows him for. The menu for our Thanksgiving will be what we usually have: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stove top stuffing, homemade macaroni, chicken and noodles, pumpkin pies, dinner rolls, and some other items. 

One of the audio tracks I'm sharing in this blog entry is a 1975 recording by Ray of "Lady of Spain". If you have not heard his rendition of the pop standard then prepare to be entertained as Ray gives us a vocal impression of Fats Domino. When you listen you're going to hear Ray call out the name, Norman. The person he's referring to is the saxophone player, Norman Ray. 

Now, after listening to that great rendition, wasn't it festive and fun?? As you can see from the video embed, "Lady of Spain" is from Ray's 1975 'Misty' album. That entire album, well, most of it, contains Ray's rendition pop music standards. The two original songs on that album were "Sunshine" and a song from the pen of Layng Martine, Jr. called "Take Care of Business". The album has other festive, up-tempo tracks, too: "Deep Purple", the previously mentioned "Sunshine", "Cow-Cow Boogie", and the title track, "Misty". 

A year later, 1976, Ray found himself on the Warner Brothers label. He had been on the Barnaby Records label since 1970. Ray's first album release for Warner Brothers, 'Just for the Record', emerged months into 1976 and the lead-off single from that album was his up-tempo rendition of "You Are So Beautiful". Elsewhere on the album is another up-tempo, festive and fun track titled "Can't Stop Dancin'". That particular song would get covered by the pop music duo, Captain and Tennille. The duo gave the song a different arrangement and it sounds a bit different than how Ray recorded it. 

One of the up-tempo romps from a series of comedy albums Ray recorded for MCA Records in the mid to late 1980s came along in 1988 in the form of "Language, Nudity, Violence, and Sex". As you may be able to guess from the song's title it's about the warnings that accompany movies that get shown on cable television. In this particular time period consumers were growing their entertainment options...cable television, once referred to as pay-TV, was becoming more and more accessible as part of a person's basic cable service. Satellite television was also a big thing...how many people remember driving around in their cars and seeing certain houses, usually in the wealthier side of town, with a huge dish antenna sitting in the front or back yard? The song on Ray's 1988 album satirizes cable/satellite television and delivers a comical point of view from a newly subscribed customer. The album from 1988 is titled I Never Made a Record I Didn't Like. Listen for a veiled reference to Dr. Ruth within the recording. 

Ray Stevens: Thanksgiving and More...

Here we are...the day before Thanksgiving. Have you noticed that there hasn't been any sort of heavy publicity for Thanksgiving Day events? In times past, during the week of and leading up to Thanksgiving Day we'd usually see commercials for the football games, the parades, movies of the week centered around the family, and just an overall feelgood atmosphere. The holidays, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas, were always a time when differences were set aside and the spirit of goodwill and friendship filled the air. 

A few weeks ago I noticed after Halloween came and went the local stores began putting up their Christmas items. The various cable TV movie channels began airing their Christmas movies. We've seen television commercials with Christmas overtones already featuring Santa Claus and in some commercials Ebenezer Scrooge. Thanksgiving, by comparison, hasn't gotten much attention and I find that strange. I guess I took notice because it's so blatantly obvious now. Thanksgiving is a day that the politically correct has long since wanted to abolish...and given who's running the country now the advocates are getting their wish, somewhat, considering the lack of media coverage of various Thanksgiving Day events. Tomorrow may be different. When I click on the television around noon to start my day of football watching there might be a lot of Thanksgiving tradition and atmosphere on the actual day...but leading up to Thanksgiving you wouldn't know it's tomorrow without having to look on a calendar since the media has all but ignored it.  

Here's a LINK to my previous Thanksgiving post...written a couple of days ago. In that blog entry I made mention of some of the things to be thankful for as a fan of Ray Stevens. When I looked into my blogger stats I seen that an older blog entry I'd written about Thanksgiving had gotten a slight resurgence in discovery. The name of that blog entry is 'Thanksgiving Feast'. The name of the blog entry I wrote a few days ago is 'Thanksgiving 2021'. I'm running out of titles. I thought about naming this blog entry 'Turkey Drumsticks and Stones' but I couldn't think of any Thanksgiving food that ties in with stone unless an eccentric Aunt brings over fruitcake or undercooked dumplings. I love chicken and dumplings but I don't like fruitcake...which is mainly associated with a Christmas dinner. I love mashed potatoes and noodles and turkey and practically everything else. I don't like sweet potatoes...some people like them. I'm not a fan of cranberry sauce, either. We never have alcohol at any dinner. I drink pop and my parent's drink coffee. We have leftover food at Thanksgiving! I usually heat up food fixed on Thanksgiving for several days. The thing that gives the most leftovers is the turkey, obviously, and second are the chicken and noodles. The noodles fixed resemble thick homemade noodles. Do you re-heat the turkey leftovers or eat it cold?

I usually re-heat the slices/pieces of the leftover turkey. My parent's aren't as picky...they'll eat it re-heated or cold. When I mentioned alcohol and leftover turkey I thought of the phrase, cold turkey. I then began to think of the few alcohol related songs that Ray Stevens has recorded over the years. Ray hasn't recorded many of them...but those that he's recorded are entertaining. The first one that leaps to mind is "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down". Ray recorded the song in 1969 and it was fabulous. It's historically documented as being a non-hit for Ray but he charted with the single here in America and overseas. I don't have the stats in front of me at the moment but in some locations overseas, I'm thinking Australia and perhaps New Zealand, or perhaps up in Canada, his rendition of "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" appeared on the weekly sales charts in those countries in 1969. The song, from the pen of Kris Kristofferson, is about a guy with a hangover on a Sunday morning. Johnny Cash, in 1970, recorded the song and it became a number one country hit and a pop hit. Ray was the first recording artist to put the song out. The B-side of this particular pressing of the song is "The Minority", a marvelous social commentary song Ray recorded in 1968. Off the top of my head I don't think Ray recorded another song dealing with alcohol until the comical "Happy Hour is the Saddest Time of the Day" in 1984. That song deals with a couple that's since split-up, we assume over excessive drinking, with the woman deciding to leave and seek sobriety while the guy mourns over her leaving him. Throughout the song the man pouts when thinking back on all of their good times, how many drinks they took in while a couple, etc. Listen for the references to drunk behavior, name-dropping of alcohol brands, and the music accompaniment. It'll sound crazy my saying this but the music itself sounds tipsy, woozy, drunk. 

In 1987 Ray recorded the comedy song "The Day That Clancy Drowned". In this humorous tale we're told of a man named Clancy who worked at a brewery in Milwaukee. One day while examining a 60,000 gallon vat of beer he slipped and fell. Ray tells of how Clancy, for a few minutes, actually fought being rescued from the vat...almost happy to be swimming in and eventually drowning in a vat of beer. A few years later, in 1990, Ray recorded the bouncy "Jack Daniels, You Lied To Me Again". That song is a conventional bar room love song where a guy blames his choice of alcohol on the frequent mistakes he's made with his relationships. In 1997 Ray recorded "Too Drunk To Fish" and he turned it into a hit music video. 

In 2008 Ray recorded "Bubba, The Wine Connoisseur". In that song Ray tells us about a southern guy with a unique way of wine tasting. He becomes so famous that he eventually changes his name, slightly, when he begins tasting French wine. He informs us he wants to be called Boo-Bah instead of Bubba since he feels French wine has made him way more cultured. 

A year later Ray recorded "Cooter Brown", a funky up-tempo comedy song about a wild man born on New Year's Eve who spends his time making all of the beer joints, night clubs, and water holes in town. We're told he's a flashy dresser with lots of gold rings and jewelry. The guy loves to drink so much he had a tattoo on his arm that stated "don't let me drive". 

There are several songs that Ray recorded which take place inside a bar and there are some songs that feature a bar room setting at some point. "The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone", from 1985, takes place mostly inside a wrestling arena and later, a bar room. Ray's captivating 1988 recording, "Blood and Suede", recounts a fictional car wreck of a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz in an affluent area of Los Angeles. In the song Ray mentions Mullholland Drive and the crash involved a rock and roll singer in his Porsche listening to his own greatest hits album too loud while a drunk driver in a Mercedes speeding away from Gucci's slammed into the Porsche. The subject matter of the song is dark, as you can tell, but I found the song incredible. It features a whistle similar to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. A 1980 love ballad, "Night Games", is about singles bars.  

Earlier in 1980, "The Watch Song" tells of a guy who's sitting inside a bar room minding his own business when in walks another guy. The guy minding his own business is accused of seeing another man's wife. The husband challenges the guy to step outside the bar and fight. The accused obliges and is beaten up by the jealous husband. The enraged husband not only beats the guy up but he stomps on the guy's watch. Ray plays the role of the unlucky guy beaten up...and throughout the song continually asks help and advice from John Cameron Swayze. When Ray recorded the song in 1980 the television commercials for Timex were everywhere and their spokesman was newsman John Cameron Swayze. On Ray's current comedy album, Ain't Nothin' Funny Anymore, a comedy song titled "The Gambler and the Octopus" takes place inside a bar. 

When you visit the CabaRay showroom for upcoming Ray Stevens concerts you're going to notice the Piano Bar. It's the place most people are at prior to and after a concert. 

Ray Stevens: Thanksgiving 2021...

Hello all of you fans of Ray Stevens!! It's fast approaching Thanksgiving...this coming Thursday! I call it Thanksgiving week. I'm sure most of you do. I'll be engaged in what I'm typically engaged in every Thanksgiving and that's a lot of food and whole lot of football. Turkey, dressing, perhaps dumplings, but definitely chicken and noodles and a whole lot of mashed potatoes and homemade macaroni and cheese...in front of the television watching whatever games are on. 

In years past I'd post a blog entry centering around things to be thankful for as a Ray Stevens fan. This year is no different. One of the things to be thankful for is what seems to be his desire to always seek different ways in which to entertain his fans. To the outsider you'd probably never think that Ray puts in a lot of effort and work into his recordings...some may think it doesn't take much to walk into a recording studio and sing "comedy stuff". Oh how wrong that mindset happens to be. There isn't an album of Ray's that hasn't included his input...from the obvious such as Ray singing the songs to being the music arranger on just about everything he records. Also, some of you know that he's a musician and plays a wide variety of instruments while in the studio. When Ray is on stage he simplifies things by playing the piano...but he'll usually have a guitar when singing "Gitarzan". If you've seen video of him in the late 1970's he'd have a guitar on his back, literally, while seated at the piano. 

Speaking of the guitar...this photo of Ray Stevens is from that very same late 1970's time period I was referencing in the above paragraph. I'd seen Ray use a guitar when singing "Honky Tonk Waltz", one of his single releases in 1976, on a couple of television shows. In each performance he incorporated the acoustic guitar. I don't know if he wasn't using an acoustic guitar player in his road band or if he simply wanted to play the guitar at various moments in the song. The musicians aren't credited on his 1976 album, Just for the Record, and yet whenever he sang "Honky Tonk Waltz" he'd play a guitar at the beginning and during the music break...alternating between it and the piano. So, perhaps he played the guitar on the studio recording and wanted to play the guitar during the concert performances, too? I don't know if we'd ever find out given the lack of musician credits on the 1976 album. In getting back to the topic of this blog entry...another thing to be thankful for is having Ray Stevens enthusiastic and upbeat...and very prolific. He released five albums this year...and he said in a recent interview that 2022 will more or less mirror 2021 as far as number of albums go! This means there will be five albums released in 2022!! It goes without saying but another thing I'm thankful for when it comes to the music of Ray Stevens is I like how he sings whatever he wants to. As far as I know he doesn't do market testing or research or anything like that...he doesn't make his decisions based on what others have to say...when he goes to put out a song or an album it'll be something that he enjoyed recording. 

I've been a fan of Ray Stevens ever since I was a teenager and probably before that...and I'm thankful for being in the right place at the right time one Saturday afternoon with my grandparent's. We were inside a pizza place...inside was a jukebox and on this jukebox was "Mississippi Squirrel Revival". I picked the song out because of it's title...and that one play made me a Ray Stevens fan for life!!    

Ray Stevens: Music to be Thankful for...

The entire catalog of music recorded by Ray Stevens is something to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day 2015. A career that goes back to the late 1950s and is still thriving to this day is a testament to durability and the ardent fans of which have remained fiercely loyal and devoted over the decades...a fan-base made up of all kinds of music listeners of all age groups...those that have been an appreciator of Ray's style of entertaining since the early years up through those that have discovered him fairly recently through video-sharing on social media outlets. No matter the manner in which Ray's music is discovered by the people the fact remains that, typically, once one discovers his brand of entertainment they remain fans for life. It's been my belief that should the unthinkable happen and one lose interest in Ray's music it's due to a listener being intolerable toward Ray's deliberately slow planning of music releases (whether it be in audio or video form). Oh yes...I've read many a commentary on-line over the last 10+ years from those that don't have the patience to wait for something to be released and their attention drifts elsewhere. A carefully thought out time-line has nearly zero acceptance to a lot of consumers whom, for the most part, want things instantly...and therefore recording artists have to push themselves onto their fans daily in order to retain attention. Ray Stevens, as far as I can tell, has never subscribed to that brand of marketing/advertising. Media overkill/saturation is wonderful for the fan (as they get to see their favorite appear on TV and see images of their favorite in magazines) and it's something that's necessary at some stage of an artist's career for the simple purpose of becoming established but prolonged saturation results in over-exposure. Those 3 cassettes that I'm holding in that photo are from 1995...it's been 20 years (!) since Warner Brothers loosened their tight grip on the Ray Stevens catalog of music in their vault.

His studio albums for the label (Just for the Record, Feel the Music, There is Something On Your Mind, and Be Your Own Best Friend) have never been properly re-issued on CD or Mp3 format. They only exist on vinyl, 8-track, and in cassette; but finding cassette copies of those studio albums is a task...but they do exist in that format because I've seen copies become available at outrageous prices on eBay and I've posted images of the cassettes on this blog before. The picture over on the right is me and my LP copy of There is Something On Your Mind. I'm thankful having the LP because of it's under-appreciated and under-rated quality. It's an LP that I can introduce to other fans that more than likely are not aware that Ray's career goes farther back than the 1980s and "It's Me Again, Margaret" or that it existed prior to 2009 and "We The People" (yes, some people that discovered Ray's music video in 2009 thought that he happened to be some guy making a music video...totally oblivious to his lengthy career). Although vinyl copies of this 1978 album are abundant on eBay and other on-line sites it's an LP that just doesn't get much attention...even among fans of Ray Stevens...but it's a gem of an album. I post images of this LP anytime the subject of his late '70s period comes up.

I'm really thankful for the Losin' Streak LP...it's one of my priceless LP's in my Ray Stevens collection of vinyl. An interesting bit of personal information regarding this obscure LP is in order. Once upon a time I wasn't on-line...I didn't become an internet visitor until 2002. My first exposure to the internet came via a Web-TV...and I visited eBay and other places in those earlier years. I didn't get an actual computer until sometime in the mid 2000s...and I became more familiar with the internet as time marched on. On the primitive Web-TV that I had I couldn't visit (or didn't want to visit) too many places because of the dial-up nature and the long time it took to load pages and so for the first couple of years of my on-line experience I didn't get to explore the internet much until the purchase of the desktop. I remained on that computer until it eventually stopped performing...and I've been on this laptop for almost 2 years. The point of that story is the moment I got onto a high-speed, non-dial up computer I visited eBay and wouldn't you just know it...I couldn't find a copy of Losin' Streak!! I never made on-line purchases via the Web-TV and at that time the 1973 Ray Stevens LP had a lot of presence on eBay. Slowly but surely copies of the LP began surfacing on eBay once more and the moment I seen a Buy-It-Now option for the LP at a reasonable price I immediately purchased it. My elation caused me to take a photo of it...as you can see it's on full display underneath the lid of my portable turntable. The 1973 LP has never been properly re-released on CD or Mp3. He recorded the album for Barnaby Records...his other studio albums for the label have since been issued in CD and Mp3 format but Losin' Streak remains a non-reissue.

My list of Ray Stevens recordings all of us fans should be thankful for...in no particular order. Here goes... "Ahab the Arab", "The Streak", "Night Games", "Mary, My Secretary", "Gitarzan", "Party People", "Everything is Beautiful", "Make a Few Memories", "The Dooright Family", "Sir Thanks-a-Lot", "Ruby Falls", "Sunshine", "It's Me Again, Margaret", "Misty", "Nashville", "Gimme a Smile", "The Blue Cyclone", "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow", "Everybody Needs a Rainbow", "Have a Little Talk with Myself", "America, Communicate with Me", "Workin' for the Japanese", "The Moonlight Special", "Along Came Jones", "Isn't It Lonely Together", "Virgil and the Moonshot", "Melt", "Comeback", "Don't Laugh Now", "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Set the Children Free", "The Ballad of Jake McClusky", "One More Last Chance", "Can He Love You Half as Much as I", "Junkie for You", "Taylor Swift is Stalkin' Me", "Game Show Love", "Mama's in the Sky with Elvis", "Retired", "Marion Michael Morrison", "Shriner's Convention", "Osama Yo' Mama", "Mr. Businessman", "There Must Be a Pill For This", "Feel the Music", "My Dad", "Greatest Little Christmas Ever Wuz", "Blues Love Affair", "Caribou Barbie", "Your Bozo's Back Again", "Hair", "Southern Air", "Oh, Leo Lady", "Cap'n Trade the Pirate", "Sunset Strip", "You're Magic", "This Ain't Exactly What I Had in Mind", "The Deodorant Song", "There Is Something On Your Mind", "Sex Symbols", "Concrete Sailor", "Mama Sang Bass", "Just About Love", "Little By Little", "Tabloid News", "Just for the Hell of It", "This is Your Life", "It's Party Time", "Cooter Brown", "Bubble Gum the Bubble Dancer", "Glory Special", "Country Boy, Country Club Girl", "Never Ending Song of Love", "Lady of Spain", "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", "Would Jesus wear a Rolex?", "I'll Be In Atlanta", "Pretend", "Erik the Awful", "The Motel Song", "Mr. Baker the Undertaker", "Mr. President - Mr. President", "Speed Ball", "Sittin' Up with the Dead", "Talking", "Family Funeral Fight", "Come Around", "Pin the Tail on the Donkey", "Barbecue", "The Pirate Song", "If Ten Percent is Good Enough for Jesus", "Cool Down Willard", "Come to the U.S.A.", "Surfin' U.S.S.R.", "Idaho Wine", "Islands", "The Lady on the Radio", "Cornball", "The People's Court", "We The People", "Soap Opera", "Bridget the Midget", "The Last Laugh", "We Don't Take Nothin' Off Nobody", "Blood and Suede", "Obama Budget Plan", "You're Never Goin' To Tampa with Me", "Dream Girl", "Bionie and the Robotics", "God Save Arizona", "I Used to Be Crazy", "Santa Claus is watching You", "Bagpipes, That's My Bag", "The Global Warming Song", "Turn Your Radio On", "Bon Temps Roulette", "I Saw Elvis in a U.F.O.", "If Jesus is a Stranger", "Save Me From Myself", "A Handshake Will Do", "Kiss a Pig"...and so many more!!! 

As fans of Ray Stevens we should all be thankful that he continues to release music and appears in concerts. If you have a copy of his memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville, you'll learn some things about his frame of mind in the middle part of the 2000s after his "Osama Yo' Mama" single and it's accompanying album ran it's course on the charts in late summer of 2002. His current CD, Here We Go Again!, has yielded 2 on-line video hits: "Taylor Swift is Stalkin' Me" and "You Didn't Build That". The lead-off single received a fair amount of publicity upon it's release on February 24th in music video form, obtaining 436,963 unique views to date, and he performed it several times as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry earlier this year but the second release, a political song, hasn't gotten much publicity outside of it's presence on political-leaning blogs. The official upload on YouTube of "You Didn't Build That", posted at Ray's YouTube channel, has the video currently sitting at 65,277 unique views. It debuted on May 19th...half a year ago. The video totals don't reflect repeated plays by the same visitors. Some visitors to a music video may watch it multiple times on the same day or frequently re-visit the video clip throughout the month or year. All of the repeated plays by the same visitor is still counted as "1 visit". You can read about unique visitors and unique views by doing a Google search. A couple weeks ago Ray appeared as a guest on the Grand Ole Opry and he performed "There Must Be a Pill For This"...this could be the third single from his current CD but so far there hasn't been a music video issued. He may have performed it just to spotlight it but then again it may become a future video clip. If a music video becomes available I'll blog about it, of course! Ray is much more busier promoting his RFD-TV series, Ray Stevens' Nashville, a half hour series that airs Saturday nights at 8:30pm Eastern. The series is less than a month old but the first season's already taped.

The focus and concentration on this program no doubt caused the halt of additional music video releases on YouTube. The Taylor video arrived in February, 3 months later the political video arrived in May, and if the pattern had been kept intact a potential third YouTube video would've debuted in August...but the nature of his career is unpredictable. For you see, just as it appeared a YouTube video from him would surface every 3 months during the 2015 calendar year, it didn't happen exactly as it appeared it might.

From a 1973 LP to a fascinating 2014 memoir...this is Ray Stevens' Nashville...

And from a fascinating 2014 memoir to a ratings success on RFD-TV in 2015...this is Ray Stevens' Nashville...