Hello once more!! I frequent social media sites a lot and within the last several days I've been seeing a lot of video sharing of a certain Ray Stevens music video from 2012 called "Grandpa Voted Democrat". This is one of numerous political comedy videos released by Ray Stevens during what I refer to as his 'political phase' for lack of a better description. It started out of the blue in the final months of 2009 when a video single titled "We The People" hit YouTube and from there it took off like a rocket, as the saying goes. Ray found himself performing in a number of high profile political rallies and events throughout 2010...even appearing on several cable news television programs and talk radio programs.
He found himself back in Branson, Missouri performing a series of concerts at The Welk Theater on the strength of the political music videos. The concerts were broken in two halves in which the first half was a traditional concert filled with Ray's numerous serious and novelty recordings while the second half was strictly a political show where he performed a number of songs that gained their popularity through YouTube.
This videography lists the politically themed music videos, their release date, and unique view count rounded to the nearest hundred thousand or million depending on the level of unique views. In case you were wondering the letter 'K' stands for thousand and the letter 'M' stands for million. As an example: 2010's "Caribou Barbie", a music video about Sarah Palin, has received an estimated 648,000 unique views. 2014's "If You Like Your Plan" has received an estimated 454,000. I'm not posting exact numbers. I've highlighted in bold the music videos that have gotten more than a million unique views and italicized those with more than two million.
1. We The People; 12/11/2009 5.6 M
2. Caribou Barbie; 3/11/2010 648 K
3. Throw the Bums Out; 3/22/2010 1.3 M
4. Come to the U.S.A.; 5/13/2010 10 M
5. The Global Warming Song; 6/29/2010 1.2 M
6. God Save Arizona; 8/4/2010 1.1 M
7. Obama Budget Plan; 4/25/2011 5.2 M
8. Mr. President - Mr. President; 9/27/2011 3.5 M
9. Obama Nation; 7/23/2012 1.4 M
10. Grandpa Voted Democrat; 11/3/2012 2.2 M
11. If You Like Your Plan; 9/22/2014 454 K
12. Nero Fiddled; 10/10/2014 62 K
13. You Didn't Build That; 5/19/2015 401 K
As you can see by looking at the list of Ray Stevens YouTube political comedy music videos almost all of them have well over 100,000 unique views and several more have over 1,000,000. The only politically themed music video to not reach 100,000 or more is 2014's "Nero Fiddled". It's a moving and powerful music video. I'm sure some may have thought it too dramatic or heavy handed and that may have played a role in it's on-line performance...but it's hard to really tell because Ray emerged with "Dear America" a couple of years later. That recording wasn't politically based but it was just as powerful as "Nero Fiddled" and "God Save Arizona". "Dear America", by the way, sits with a little over 363,000 unique views as of this writing. It hit YouTube on September 6, 2016...a couple of months before the Presidential election of Donald Trump. I didn't include it in the list of political music videos because it's a patriotic song. A lot of people want to blend patriotism with their political beliefs but in my opinion those are two separate things.
Anyway, as you can see, I decided to embed "Nero Fiddled" in this blog entry. Ray appears with his back to the camera...and that may have been another reason this particular video clip didn't break loose like the others did.
Now, then, in a much more lighter mood...here's the video clip that's found new life on social media...2012's "Grandpa Voted Democrat"...
Showing posts with label we the people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label we the people. Show all posts
April 29, 2020
Ray Stevens: We The People at 10...
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| First Pressing; April 2010 |
The video's rapid rise as an on-line viral video led to Ray being asked to appear on several high profile television shows on the Fox News Channel as well as receiving invitations to be a guest on local talk radio programs to talk about his video and his decision to jump into the political fray. A lot of critics throughout social media found amusement in the fact that usually it's liberal ideology that gets put into songs and yet there was Ray Stevens singing about the importance of conservative and Tea Party ideology. Some critics mistook Ray's music video as a 'joke' but once he began making appearances on Fox News and making the rounds on talk radio it was clear to the critics that this was no joke and that he was serious.
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| Second Pressing; June 2010 |
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| Third Pressing; 2010 |
In August of 2010 Ray released a music video addressing the illegal immigration problem along Arizona's border with Mexico. This song wasn't found on We The People and it received high profile mention on Fox News as well. It also broke the formula of comedy...this particular video was serious. "God Save Arizona" defends the actions of the State's Governor at the time, Jan Brewer, as well as Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Obama Administration is vilified over their decision to take the State of Arizona to court over their illegal immigration policies. Brewer served as Arizona Governor from 2009 until 2015. The Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, remained in office until his 2017 re-election defeat.
Ray followed up We The People the very next year with Spirit of '76...and that is the CD in which "God Save Arizona" would be found. Ray released several more songs from the 2011 CD in video format throughout 2011 and 2012 but then he returned to We The People in July 2012 with the music video release of "Obama Nation". That video's gotten more than a million unique views as of this writing. Ray ultimately released, in 2012, an essay book titled Let's Get Political. The book features the songwriter/publisher credits and the lyrics to all the songs found on We The People and Spirit of '76. In addition it includes Ray's personal commentary about every song. The back of the book's cover features CD images of his 2010 and 2011 releases as well as a photo of Ray and a photo of Buddy Kalb. This overview was just a tip of the iceberg...if you happened to have been following Ray's career from December 2009 through mid 2013 it was quite a whirlwind. You can search the archives here and read every moment of it in case you are new to his career. If you witnessed it first hand as I did go and re-visit that era of his career in the archives. Ray was at something of a crossroads in his career and "We The People" took him into a bold and different direction that's worth revisiting from time to time.
October 6, 2019
Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Twenty-Five...
Hello all...we're still in 2010 as I begin this installment of the mini-blog series. This was a year filled with so much activity it's near impossible to recount everything that was happening as Ray's political comedy videos were taking him all over the place. On tax day as it's called (April 15th) he appeared at a large Tea Party event organized by Freedomworks. The event lasted all day but Ray was part of the evening line-up and performed "If Ten Percent is Good Enough for Jesus". This particular song received new life, as the saying goes, during this political era of his music career. The song had previously been recorded by Ray nearly 20 years earlier in 1993...and it was a fan favorite then but in 2010 it took on whole new life thanks to it's exposure at Tea Party events such as the one Freedomworks organized in 2010. The song was part of the 22 track We The People album released that year. It reached the Billboard Country Album chart...his first album to appear on this chart since 2002's Osama Yo' Mama. The album also appeared on the Billboard Top Comedy Album chart...a secondary chart that, as you could imagine, ranks comical releases. It hit the Top-5 on this chart. The driving force behind the successful YouTube music videos were the public, in general, viewing them and sharing them on social media sites. A unique view is best described as the first viewing of a video from a computer, smart phone, or any other kind of on-line device. The tracking used to total the number of unique views for a YouTube video doesn't count additional views from the same device. The reason for that is obvious...multiple plays from the same on-line device would no doubt skew the numbers...and so the policy of counting one view per device keeps things on the level and doesn't allow for artificial view counts.
The music video that broke through and pushed Ray's visibility into the on-line stratosphere (if there's even such a place) is "Come to the U.S.A.". On the surface the song may cause a listener to think that Ray is inviting an onslaught of illegal immigrants to set their sights on the United States but in truth the song uses sarcasm and points out how illegal immigration is dealt with in other countries whereas the United States Federal Government more or less knows about the situation but often turns their collective eye away. A lot of the reason is for labor reasons. Cheap labor...performing jobs that the average U.S. citizen wouldn't do for minimum wage or less...can be given to desperate illegal immigrants. It's exploitation, of course, but there's so many other things tied into it that it would take more blog entries to explain it all. If you're wanting a more detailed look at this music video and the subject matter visit the archives of this blog...go to the year 2010 and look for blog entries focused on "Come to the U.S.A." and you'll get my commentary and information from that time period. The video itself has obtained more than 10,000,000 unique views since it debuted on YouTube back in May of 2010. Along the same lines of cheap labor...but this time around focusing on America's jobs being sent to Mexico...is "Sucking Sound". This song had previously appeared on the non-political Hurricane CD but it's an example of one of those songs from Ray that, from time to time, takes on a topical subject matter and placed on a collection of lighthearted comedy songs. Ray does his vocal impression of Ross Perot in this recording...a song that he co-wrote with Buddy Kalb...and it's a perfect fit on the 2010 We The People album. Some of the songs on that album originally appeared on the Thank You album from the early 2000s: "Let's Roll", "Stand Up", and of course "Thank You".
Since we're in a topical vein and Ray's career had taken a political/topical/patriotic turn do you all remember the lawsuit filed against the Arizona State Government by the Federal Government? This surreal event in U.S. History began brewing in the latter half of 2009 and it reached a boiling point in 2010. The Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, and several local police officers were stopping suspected illegals at the Arizona border. The Obama Administration stepped in and the Attorney General at the time, Eric Holder, filed lawsuits preventing the Arizona State Government from enforcing existing immigration laws. This entire controversy turned up in a very serious recording from Ray titled "God Save Arizona" which he co-wrote with Buddy Kalb. The music video, believe it or not, created some controversy with YouTube. It was uploaded in August of 2010 but was taken down without warning several days after it made it's debut...but it eventually returned to the video hosting site and has remained on-line ever since. If I recall correctly the video had fell victim to a lot of troll-induced flagging from those that didn't like the opinions expressed in the song and, as a precaution, YouTube took the video down for their own 'investigation' and they felt that it didn't violate any of their 'rules' and it returned to the video hosting site. The video, like all of Ray's previous politically themed videos, was an immediate social-media hit and in September the video was given exposure on an episode of Bill O'Reilly's television series on Fox News Channel.
In the winter of 2010 publicity eventually surfaced surrounding Ray's Christmas CD from 2009. The project had gotten overlooked due to the enormous launch of "We The People" on the internet and everything else that came along in 2010. The holiday album, as mentioned in my previous blog entry, features serious Christmas songs...most of them done with new arrangements...while some remain faithful to the traditional arrangements. In this collection you'll get Ray's versions of "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow", "Jingle Bells", "Winter Wonderland", an original titled "Deck The Halls with Teardrops", plus his take on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" plus more. In November 2010 onto YouTube arrived the music video of "Nightmare Before Christmas" from his comical Christmas album thirteen years earlier.
The political overtones in his career remained intact in 2011 as he was one of the guests at CPAC in February. The acronym stands for Conservative Political Action Conference. He performed a couple of songs during his CPAC segment: "Mr. President, Mr. President" and "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". The latter deals with the security measures in place from the TSA while the former features Ray as a reporter asking Obama a series of questions with predictably humorous answers. A couple of months later a brand new video emerged, "Obama Budget Plan", in April. This song/video was centered around the Federal Government's spending habits...debt and deficit were some of the topics headlining nationally and this song told the story of a married couple that decide to print their own money, spend more and more, but have no care or concern because they can simply print more money just like the Federal Government does. The video has a twist ending...visually...evoking sentiments that I'm sure are held by many when it comes to their wishes for many members of Congress.
The music video for "Mr. President, Mr. President", the song he debuted at his CPAC appearance in February, hit YouTube in September 2011. The music video uses images of Obama during a press conference, making it appear as if he's listening to the questions being asked by Ray, whose dressed in traditional newspaper journalist attire...with pen in hand...it's a very funny song and video but the critics were plenty. Some criticized the old-fashioned look of how Ray portrayed the reporter...taking swipes at Ray for not being 'current' and having the reporter wireless or sporting some sort of technological device...rather than appearing as if he's from the 1940s or 1950s. The politically charged critics, of course, criticized the song simply on the grounds of it putting Obama in a humorous light. This run of political and topical music videos ultimately led to the release of Spirit of '76, an 11 track album, which features the audio recordings of several songs previously released in music video format on YouTube: "God Save Arizona", "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", "Obama Budget Plan", and a couple of songs that would eventually become music videos after the release of the CD: "Mr. President, Mr. President" and more than a year later, "Grandpa Voted Democrat". There are several other songs on the 2011 album that I thought would have been perfect for music video adaptation: "Cap'n Trade the Pirate" is hysterical and it could have easily played into the imagery depicted in the music video for "The Pirate Song" more than a decade earlier. I always envisioned "New Normal" as a music video presented on intentionally grainy film and given a classic country music 'look'...the way Ray sings the title phrase had me thinking of Hank Williams and in my mind I invented a possible direction of staging a music video and have it look as if it's from the 1950s. The We The People album from 2010 featured a couple of songs that I think could have been turned into funny music videos but weren't: "Solar Powered Song" and "We Are the Government".
Clyde Records, in November 2011, issued the DVD collection Internet Video Hits. This release was designed to provide a collection for the music videos that Ray had issued on the internet over the last year and a half. Ray, when speaking of the release, mentioned that it's been issued mainly for those that are older and perhaps do not have any interest of being on the internet but are fans of his nevertheless...and so this DVD would provide the non-internet fan base the chance of seeing the on-line music videos in one collection. The DVD seen a wider release in February of 2012. The DVD features 9 political music videos with a bonus music video dealing with political correctness, "The Nightmare Before Christmas", added to round out the total.
Throughout most of Ray's television appearances on cable news programs and on talk-radio in the aftermath of "We The People" he often mentioned a project he was working on in which he would pay tribute to novelty songs of all time periods and music formats. The project surfaced in February of 2012 as The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The project took two years, according to Ray's interviews as well as the on-line YouTube advertisements, and it's a massive collection of songs. It's a 9-CD box set complete with an extensive booklet with liner notes, commentary, and stories behind the songs Ray chose to record for the collection. When the project was still in production there were some fans that thought Ray would be presenting a collection of novelty songs recorded by other artists...they didn't realize that Ray himself would be performing the songs. So, in this 9-CD collection, we have Ray's versions of novelty classics such as "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose it's Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?", "Little Brown Jug", "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", "Three Little Fishes", "Open the Door, Richard", "Mairzy Doats", "Haunted House", "Poison Ivy", "Chug-a-Lug", and dozens of others. Ray actively promoted the 9-CD project and performed songs from the collection on several television programs. The collection featured songs from his own career, too, given that Ray is one of the legendary performers of novelty/comedy songs. Ray's cover of a Toby Keith single, "I Wanna Talk About Me", is on this 9-CD collection. Ray remarked that it comes across as a novelty song to him and so he decided to do his version of the song for this collection.
In the midst of the publicity for the 9-CD box set, though, came a book from Ray titled Let's Get Political. The book features lyrics for the songs found in We The People and Spirit of '76 as well as his remarks and opinions of all the songs and his thoughts surrounding topical issues of the day. It was sold through his website's store. It's a soft-cover book and in digest form...meaning that it's comparable in size to an issue of Farmer's Almanac, for example. In July 2012 a music video for "Obama Nation", a song from Ray's 2010 We The People album, hit YouTube.
In November 2012 "Grandpa Voted Democrat" from 2011's Spirit of '76 hit YouTube. The song deals with voter fraud...a very real concern in any election but it was one of the headlining concerns of the American voting process in a series of recent election cycles both local and national. Now, as history shows, Obama won re-election in November 2012 but the Republicans gained even more control in Congress and the Senate...it built on that party's momentum from 2010.
In my previous installment I made mention of the six week run of concerts Ray performed at The Welk Resort in Branson, Missouri during the fall months of 2010 at the peak of his involvement with political humor. The concerts were split in two segments: The first segment was his traditional concert performance featuring his classic hits like "The Streak", "It's Me Again, Margaret", "Gitarzan", and others while the second segment was political. Some of his performances at this run of concerts eventually found their way onto DVD. Ray issued Such a Night: 50 Years of Hits and Hilarity on Stage...LIVE! as well as a secondary DVD called Patriots and Politics. The DVDs were released on Clyde Records in 2012 but the concert footage was taped in October 2010. I had never seen Ray perform any of the politically themed songs in concert and so the secondary DVD was my chance of seeing him perform "We The People" and "Come to the U.S.A." in a concert setting. I had seen him perform "Safe at Home", though, and "Thank You", in concert. The former is actually nostalgia-laced without a trace of politics at all but it speaks to America's core values and therefore it's categorized as a patriotic song. It had actually originated in 2000 on a studio album Ray issued that year called Ear Candy...but it had long since become part of his concert set-list and ever since 2010 it's been something of a mainstay in his concert performances given the response from the audiences. Ray closed out 2012 in a festive mood...releasing several Christmas music videos on YouTube. "White Christmas" is performed much in the same manner as The Drifters, one of Ray's favorite Rhythm and Blues groups. "Redneck Christmas", at long last, is presented in music video form...even though it's lyrics paint a clear picture already it's fun to actually see a music video of that particular song brought to life. "Blue Christmas" is performed as Porky Pig...which is based on a novelty song from a number of years earlier from a fictional group called Seymour Swine and the Squealers. Ray performs most of the song in a stuttering, stammering fashion before concluding the song straight. The song was issued as a single in 2012 as it's not part of his 1997 or 2009 Christmas albums but it was also made into a music video. A social commentary release titled "Merry Christmas" hit YouTube in December 2012 as well. This, from the pen of Ray Stevens, takes on the politically correct advocates head on and their War on Christmas. Ray proudly voices his right to say 'Merry Christmas' rather than Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings. This was the fourth Christmas music video in the bonanza of music videos that Ray issued in December of 2012 and it was the most somber of the bunch...which goes without saying.
Now, let's see...2010, 2011, and 2012...my oh my how hectic and full of surprises those years provided for Ray Stevens on his road to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In a career laced with unpredictability those three years were about as unpredictable as you could get...his career was as eclectic as ever...being stretched in many different directions and having his hands in several more projects yet to see release as 2012 came to a close. In my next installment I'll take a look at 2013 and 2014...maybe also part of 2015. Ray's main focal point in this era, post-political humor, was a return to more conventional, traditional forms of music expression...but he didn't completely silence himself on matters of politics though...and he issued a much anticipated (from this fan's point of view) career look-back in print form...not necessarily an autobiography...more of a memoir...and more about that in my next installment in Ray Stevens road to the Country Music Hall of Fame!
The music video that broke through and pushed Ray's visibility into the on-line stratosphere (if there's even such a place) is "Come to the U.S.A.". On the surface the song may cause a listener to think that Ray is inviting an onslaught of illegal immigrants to set their sights on the United States but in truth the song uses sarcasm and points out how illegal immigration is dealt with in other countries whereas the United States Federal Government more or less knows about the situation but often turns their collective eye away. A lot of the reason is for labor reasons. Cheap labor...performing jobs that the average U.S. citizen wouldn't do for minimum wage or less...can be given to desperate illegal immigrants. It's exploitation, of course, but there's so many other things tied into it that it would take more blog entries to explain it all. If you're wanting a more detailed look at this music video and the subject matter visit the archives of this blog...go to the year 2010 and look for blog entries focused on "Come to the U.S.A." and you'll get my commentary and information from that time period. The video itself has obtained more than 10,000,000 unique views since it debuted on YouTube back in May of 2010. Along the same lines of cheap labor...but this time around focusing on America's jobs being sent to Mexico...is "Sucking Sound". This song had previously appeared on the non-political Hurricane CD but it's an example of one of those songs from Ray that, from time to time, takes on a topical subject matter and placed on a collection of lighthearted comedy songs. Ray does his vocal impression of Ross Perot in this recording...a song that he co-wrote with Buddy Kalb...and it's a perfect fit on the 2010 We The People album. Some of the songs on that album originally appeared on the Thank You album from the early 2000s: "Let's Roll", "Stand Up", and of course "Thank You".
Since we're in a topical vein and Ray's career had taken a political/topical/patriotic turn do you all remember the lawsuit filed against the Arizona State Government by the Federal Government? This surreal event in U.S. History began brewing in the latter half of 2009 and it reached a boiling point in 2010. The Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, and several local police officers were stopping suspected illegals at the Arizona border. The Obama Administration stepped in and the Attorney General at the time, Eric Holder, filed lawsuits preventing the Arizona State Government from enforcing existing immigration laws. This entire controversy turned up in a very serious recording from Ray titled "God Save Arizona" which he co-wrote with Buddy Kalb. The music video, believe it or not, created some controversy with YouTube. It was uploaded in August of 2010 but was taken down without warning several days after it made it's debut...but it eventually returned to the video hosting site and has remained on-line ever since. If I recall correctly the video had fell victim to a lot of troll-induced flagging from those that didn't like the opinions expressed in the song and, as a precaution, YouTube took the video down for their own 'investigation' and they felt that it didn't violate any of their 'rules' and it returned to the video hosting site. The video, like all of Ray's previous politically themed videos, was an immediate social-media hit and in September the video was given exposure on an episode of Bill O'Reilly's television series on Fox News Channel.
In the winter of 2010 publicity eventually surfaced surrounding Ray's Christmas CD from 2009. The project had gotten overlooked due to the enormous launch of "We The People" on the internet and everything else that came along in 2010. The holiday album, as mentioned in my previous blog entry, features serious Christmas songs...most of them done with new arrangements...while some remain faithful to the traditional arrangements. In this collection you'll get Ray's versions of "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow", "Jingle Bells", "Winter Wonderland", an original titled "Deck The Halls with Teardrops", plus his take on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" plus more. In November 2010 onto YouTube arrived the music video of "Nightmare Before Christmas" from his comical Christmas album thirteen years earlier.
The political overtones in his career remained intact in 2011 as he was one of the guests at CPAC in February. The acronym stands for Conservative Political Action Conference. He performed a couple of songs during his CPAC segment: "Mr. President, Mr. President" and "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". The latter deals with the security measures in place from the TSA while the former features Ray as a reporter asking Obama a series of questions with predictably humorous answers. A couple of months later a brand new video emerged, "Obama Budget Plan", in April. This song/video was centered around the Federal Government's spending habits...debt and deficit were some of the topics headlining nationally and this song told the story of a married couple that decide to print their own money, spend more and more, but have no care or concern because they can simply print more money just like the Federal Government does. The video has a twist ending...visually...evoking sentiments that I'm sure are held by many when it comes to their wishes for many members of Congress.
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| 2011 |
Clyde Records, in November 2011, issued the DVD collection Internet Video Hits. This release was designed to provide a collection for the music videos that Ray had issued on the internet over the last year and a half. Ray, when speaking of the release, mentioned that it's been issued mainly for those that are older and perhaps do not have any interest of being on the internet but are fans of his nevertheless...and so this DVD would provide the non-internet fan base the chance of seeing the on-line music videos in one collection. The DVD seen a wider release in February of 2012. The DVD features 9 political music videos with a bonus music video dealing with political correctness, "The Nightmare Before Christmas", added to round out the total.
Throughout most of Ray's television appearances on cable news programs and on talk-radio in the aftermath of "We The People" he often mentioned a project he was working on in which he would pay tribute to novelty songs of all time periods and music formats. The project surfaced in February of 2012 as The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The project took two years, according to Ray's interviews as well as the on-line YouTube advertisements, and it's a massive collection of songs. It's a 9-CD box set complete with an extensive booklet with liner notes, commentary, and stories behind the songs Ray chose to record for the collection. When the project was still in production there were some fans that thought Ray would be presenting a collection of novelty songs recorded by other artists...they didn't realize that Ray himself would be performing the songs. So, in this 9-CD collection, we have Ray's versions of novelty classics such as "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose it's Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?", "Little Brown Jug", "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", "Three Little Fishes", "Open the Door, Richard", "Mairzy Doats", "Haunted House", "Poison Ivy", "Chug-a-Lug", and dozens of others. Ray actively promoted the 9-CD project and performed songs from the collection on several television programs. The collection featured songs from his own career, too, given that Ray is one of the legendary performers of novelty/comedy songs. Ray's cover of a Toby Keith single, "I Wanna Talk About Me", is on this 9-CD collection. Ray remarked that it comes across as a novelty song to him and so he decided to do his version of the song for this collection.
In the midst of the publicity for the 9-CD box set, though, came a book from Ray titled Let's Get Political. The book features lyrics for the songs found in We The People and Spirit of '76 as well as his remarks and opinions of all the songs and his thoughts surrounding topical issues of the day. It was sold through his website's store. It's a soft-cover book and in digest form...meaning that it's comparable in size to an issue of Farmer's Almanac, for example. In July 2012 a music video for "Obama Nation", a song from Ray's 2010 We The People album, hit YouTube.
In November 2012 "Grandpa Voted Democrat" from 2011's Spirit of '76 hit YouTube. The song deals with voter fraud...a very real concern in any election but it was one of the headlining concerns of the American voting process in a series of recent election cycles both local and national. Now, as history shows, Obama won re-election in November 2012 but the Republicans gained even more control in Congress and the Senate...it built on that party's momentum from 2010.
Now, let's see...2010, 2011, and 2012...my oh my how hectic and full of surprises those years provided for Ray Stevens on his road to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In a career laced with unpredictability those three years were about as unpredictable as you could get...his career was as eclectic as ever...being stretched in many different directions and having his hands in several more projects yet to see release as 2012 came to a close. In my next installment I'll take a look at 2013 and 2014...maybe also part of 2015. Ray's main focal point in this era, post-political humor, was a return to more conventional, traditional forms of music expression...but he didn't completely silence himself on matters of politics though...and he issued a much anticipated (from this fan's point of view) career look-back in print form...not necessarily an autobiography...more of a memoir...and more about that in my next installment in Ray Stevens road to the Country Music Hall of Fame!
October 5, 2019
Ray Stevens: The Road to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Part Twenty-Four...
How exciting is it?? We're now in October...and we're just weeks away from Ray Stevens officially being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame!! I came across an on-line article the other day and within the story being reported happened to be the date of the Medallion Ceremony this year. It's going to take place October 20th according to a website called The Music Universe. So, then, we've got 15 days left until induction day!!
In this mini-blog series we're up to the year 2009. In January of that year Ray reached 70 years of age...and personally speaking I attended just my second Ray Stevens concert in the early part of 2009. I attended a concert of Ray's in Nashville, Indiana at a venue called The Little Nashville Opry. While there the concert seats were lined with small advertisement cards for an upcoming Ray Stevens CD titled One for the Road. The trucker CD was sold at Pilot Truck Stop for several months before it become widely available. I purchased a couple of photo's of Ray from photo sessions for the One for the Road project. It's not your conventional truck driver's album...meaning that you're not going to find Ray performing his versions of truck driver classics but he does fill the CD with trucker-aimed songs as well as recordings designed to entertain drivers of any kind of vehicle as they make their way from one place to another.
One of Ray's long time friends, Jerry Reed, had passed away less than a year before this CD was released. Although there wasn't any reference in the liner notes about Jerry Reed's then-recent passing one can't help but think the CD's opening track, "Concrete Sailor", was a tribute to him. Why? Well, even though Ray's longtime associate Buddy Kalb wrote the song and Ray himself published it, it was Jerry that recorded it originally in 1980. It's the B-side of "Texas Bound and Flying" on RCA from the album of the same name.
Tracks two and three on One for the Road continue the trucker theme: "Convoy" and "The Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw". The CD features 15 songs altogether...a mix of all-new songs, newly re-recorded songs, and previously released songs. The all-new happened to be: "Concrete Sailor", "Convoy" (new to Ray's career, but a cover of a hit by C.W. McCall), "The Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw", "Cooter Brown", "Hangin' Around", "Never Too Late", and a solo version of "Retired" (a song he previously recorded as a duet with it's writer, Brent Burns). Clyde Records later issued the compilation, A Funny Thing Happened in Church Today. It features songs that tie in with religion, the church, and Sunday in general. Some of the songs are "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Sunday Morning", "Sittin' Up with the Dead", and the recent "Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw". In the latter half of 2009 things began to get incredibly busy for Ray...in ways perhaps not imagined! It began with the release of Ray Stevens Christmas...a collection of serious Christmas songs to go along with his comical Christmas CD from 1997, Christmas Through a Different Window. However, simultaneously it seemed, he released a song called "We The People" in late November 2009. Little did I know how much this song would impact the direction of his career for the next three to four years...and I'm sure even he didn't realize how the song would take off and have a life of it's own as he embarked down this newly created road filled with all kinds of uncertainty.
The music video hit YouTube on December 11, 2009 and it took off like a rocket. It received millions of unique views in less than a month. The massive popularity of the video was tied into the song's subject matter: Obamacare. The healthcare bill that was being pushed through Congress by a Democrat-held House and Senate was sure to see certain signage into law by the Democrat President, Obama. The healthcare bill was nicknamed Obamacare and this song told all about Obamacare and warned Congress that if they vote for it then elections have consequences. The video begins with Ray making visual reference to Joe the Plumber...playing the plunger as if it's a guitar. I also should point out that "We The People" and the imagery and some of the phrases used in the song aligned Ray with the Tea Party political movement. The viral success of the video didn't escape national news outlets like Fox News Channel...several programs on the cable channel played snippets of Ray's video...one such play on an episode of Bill O'Reilly's program in early 2010 caused so many people to visit Ray's website it crashed. The high profile attention combined with the internet video receiving hundreds of thousands of first time plays each and every day eventually led to the video obtain more than 3,000,000 unique views. In fact it had obtained more than 2,000,000 in 30 days time! Ray's music video was turning up on political blogs and being the focal point of a second mention from Bill O'Reilly...this time it came complete with an interview of Ray himself...where Ray 'thanked' Bill for causing the crash of the website a couple of days earlier.
Ray ultimately issued a phenomenal collection in the spring of 2010 titled We The People. The project features 22 songs...almost all of them politically themed...some patriotic. Clyde Records also issued a version with a bonus DVD of five music videos. Ray's music video success on YouTube continued throughout the remainder of 2010. In the aftermath of "We The People" came music videos from We The People of : "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", and the enormously popular "Come to the U.S.A."...the latter which tackles illegal immigration. "Obama Nation" and "The Global Warming Song" would also become music videos.
The music videos became immediate sensations on social media...in the beginning a lot of the curiosity stemmed from people wondering if the person in the video was the same Ray Stevens that once recorded "The Streak". There were a lot of interesting commentary from people from all walks of life and from all over the world. A lot of people that stopped following Ray's career at some point in the 1970s, for example, were stunned to know he was still alive...some were stunned that he was still recording...and then there were a lot of people that had never heard of Ray before but they liked what they seen and he gained a lot of new fans thanks to the political music videos. Ray had never 'gone political' throughout his entire career...except for a couple of topical songs here and there...but here was Ray during late 2009 and into 2010 going political in a really big way.
There was such high demand to see concert performances of these kind of songs that it ultimately led to a six week run of concerts from Ray in Branson, Missouri at The Welk Resort Theater from September 15th to October 23rd. This run of concerts, in addition to all of the high profile media reports and the Tea Party association, enabled Ray to have some impact on the 2010 midterm election cycle if only with those that closely followed his career or saw his music videos just by chance. His run of concerts concluded at the Welk ahead of Election Day 2010. The Republicans took over both chambers of Congress during the 2010 midterm elections which many speculated was a result of the Tea Party rallies and fundraising. Even so there was still the issue of Obama being in the White House and the fact that Obamacare had become law but was not set to go into effect until a number of years down the road.
Ray continued to issue politically themed music videos onto YouTube, however. I will delve into the happenings of his career in the middle part of the 2010's as we get ever so close to present year 2019 in my next blog entry! I plan to have it on-line at some point this weekend.
In this mini-blog series we're up to the year 2009. In January of that year Ray reached 70 years of age...and personally speaking I attended just my second Ray Stevens concert in the early part of 2009. I attended a concert of Ray's in Nashville, Indiana at a venue called The Little Nashville Opry. While there the concert seats were lined with small advertisement cards for an upcoming Ray Stevens CD titled One for the Road. The trucker CD was sold at Pilot Truck Stop for several months before it become widely available. I purchased a couple of photo's of Ray from photo sessions for the One for the Road project. It's not your conventional truck driver's album...meaning that you're not going to find Ray performing his versions of truck driver classics but he does fill the CD with trucker-aimed songs as well as recordings designed to entertain drivers of any kind of vehicle as they make their way from one place to another.
One of Ray's long time friends, Jerry Reed, had passed away less than a year before this CD was released. Although there wasn't any reference in the liner notes about Jerry Reed's then-recent passing one can't help but think the CD's opening track, "Concrete Sailor", was a tribute to him. Why? Well, even though Ray's longtime associate Buddy Kalb wrote the song and Ray himself published it, it was Jerry that recorded it originally in 1980. It's the B-side of "Texas Bound and Flying" on RCA from the album of the same name.
Tracks two and three on One for the Road continue the trucker theme: "Convoy" and "The Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw". The CD features 15 songs altogether...a mix of all-new songs, newly re-recorded songs, and previously released songs. The all-new happened to be: "Concrete Sailor", "Convoy" (new to Ray's career, but a cover of a hit by C.W. McCall), "The Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw", "Cooter Brown", "Hangin' Around", "Never Too Late", and a solo version of "Retired" (a song he previously recorded as a duet with it's writer, Brent Burns). Clyde Records later issued the compilation, A Funny Thing Happened in Church Today. It features songs that tie in with religion, the church, and Sunday in general. Some of the songs are "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", "Sunday Morning", "Sittin' Up with the Dead", and the recent "Right Reverend Roadhog McGraw". In the latter half of 2009 things began to get incredibly busy for Ray...in ways perhaps not imagined! It began with the release of Ray Stevens Christmas...a collection of serious Christmas songs to go along with his comical Christmas CD from 1997, Christmas Through a Different Window. However, simultaneously it seemed, he released a song called "We The People" in late November 2009. Little did I know how much this song would impact the direction of his career for the next three to four years...and I'm sure even he didn't realize how the song would take off and have a life of it's own as he embarked down this newly created road filled with all kinds of uncertainty.
The music video hit YouTube on December 11, 2009 and it took off like a rocket. It received millions of unique views in less than a month. The massive popularity of the video was tied into the song's subject matter: Obamacare. The healthcare bill that was being pushed through Congress by a Democrat-held House and Senate was sure to see certain signage into law by the Democrat President, Obama. The healthcare bill was nicknamed Obamacare and this song told all about Obamacare and warned Congress that if they vote for it then elections have consequences. The video begins with Ray making visual reference to Joe the Plumber...playing the plunger as if it's a guitar. I also should point out that "We The People" and the imagery and some of the phrases used in the song aligned Ray with the Tea Party political movement. The viral success of the video didn't escape national news outlets like Fox News Channel...several programs on the cable channel played snippets of Ray's video...one such play on an episode of Bill O'Reilly's program in early 2010 caused so many people to visit Ray's website it crashed. The high profile attention combined with the internet video receiving hundreds of thousands of first time plays each and every day eventually led to the video obtain more than 3,000,000 unique views. In fact it had obtained more than 2,000,000 in 30 days time! Ray's music video was turning up on political blogs and being the focal point of a second mention from Bill O'Reilly...this time it came complete with an interview of Ray himself...where Ray 'thanked' Bill for causing the crash of the website a couple of days earlier.
Ray ultimately issued a phenomenal collection in the spring of 2010 titled We The People. The project features 22 songs...almost all of them politically themed...some patriotic. Clyde Records also issued a version with a bonus DVD of five music videos. Ray's music video success on YouTube continued throughout the remainder of 2010. In the aftermath of "We The People" came music videos from We The People of : "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", and the enormously popular "Come to the U.S.A."...the latter which tackles illegal immigration. "Obama Nation" and "The Global Warming Song" would also become music videos.
 |
| 2010 |
There was such high demand to see concert performances of these kind of songs that it ultimately led to a six week run of concerts from Ray in Branson, Missouri at The Welk Resort Theater from September 15th to October 23rd. This run of concerts, in addition to all of the high profile media reports and the Tea Party association, enabled Ray to have some impact on the 2010 midterm election cycle if only with those that closely followed his career or saw his music videos just by chance. His run of concerts concluded at the Welk ahead of Election Day 2010. The Republicans took over both chambers of Congress during the 2010 midterm elections which many speculated was a result of the Tea Party rallies and fundraising. Even so there was still the issue of Obama being in the White House and the fact that Obamacare had become law but was not set to go into effect until a number of years down the road.
Ray continued to issue politically themed music videos onto YouTube, however. I will delve into the happenings of his career in the middle part of the 2010's as we get ever so close to present year 2019 in my next blog entry! I plan to have it on-line at some point this weekend.
November 18, 2013
Ray Stevens and the Politics of the Situation...
Yes, I'm still around...and so is Ray Stevens...but it's been a lengthy drought as far as anything brand new to discuss and create awareness for. A couple of months ago I had been creating blog entries all about the clips of Ray Stevens taped during his 1970 summer TV program that were popping up on You Tube with frequency. It was during that point in time that a recent appearance from Ray Stevens on a Fox News Channel program hit You Tube. August 15th...a little more than 3 months ago...an upload titled The World According to Ray Stevens appeared on You Tube. I watched it several times and posted a link on my Facebook page back then. I didn't post the link on my blog page at that time because I felt that the subject matter (hard hitting political commentary) would clash rather heavily with the lighthearted 1970 clips I was posting.
Obamacare is front and center in political discussion once more and the canceled health care policies of millions upon millions of Americans has become a harsh reality. Those that studied Obamacare and stated all that's bad about it consistently remarked that there is language in it in the form of Federal mandates that private insurance companies have to meet, or else, those companies have no choice but to drop customers. The idea that Obamacare would have no effect on people's health care coverage had long been pointed out as a lie ("if you like your current heath care coverage, you can keep it").
After all of the cancellations had been sent out and therefore had taken effect, Obama once again shown his penchant for ignoring existing laws while creating new laws out of thin air (Congress/the Legislative Branch is the only branch of Government that can make laws or amend previous laws, a President doesn't have this authority! Obama should have learned this, as we all did, in grade school Social Studies or even a junior high Government/Civics class).
Anyway, in his usual dictatorial style, Obama demanded that private insurance companies "reinstate the policies they canceled as a result of the health care mandates and simply ignore what the law states"; given all of this it's a perfect opportunity to spotlight the Ray Stevens interview from a couple of months ago where he speaks about politics and his humorous approach at dealing with all the madness.
Ray's heavy involvement in political humor and commentary began late in 2009, around this point in time, during the first year of Obama's time in the White House while the looming Obamacare was making it's way through Congress. A video, "We the People", became an on-line video hit and throughout 2010 and on into 2012 Ray supplied the on-line video community with a series of politically charged music videos. His videos have reached more than 25,000,000 people during the last 4 years and there's no telling how many times the videos have been watched by those millions of people. You Tube only counts 1 view per computer, commonly referred to as a unique view or a unique visitor. Multiple visits to the same video aren't counted in the visitor/view totals.
This means, you could watch one of his videos, "Mr. President - Mr. President", 3 times in a row, every day for a year straight, but only that first initial view is ever counted toward the view total that appears just below the video screen on it's main page. This system is in place to deliver accuracy for advertisers and to display accurate totals based on visitor total, rather than play totals, for the artists and or record companies. Play totals skew things too much. If You Tube used play totals, for example, a Ray Stevens video that has more than 4 million visitors could realistically have 20 million plays if you factor in multiple plays from the same visitor. See how skewed and misleading "play totals" can be? That is why "unique visitor" totals are used on You Tube instead of play totals.
The "Obama Budget Plan" has more than 2 million visits so far. The specific total is 2,729,860. This video, debuting on April 25, 2011, had it's biggest impact during the budget debates and all of the fiasco surrounding the debt limit and debt ceiling and the constant back and fourth among Obama, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the officials that make up the Congressional Budget Office. Given that the reputation of Obama and mostly all Democratic Presidents through history is to spend enormous amounts of money that the nation doesn't have and then raise taxes "on the rich" in an attempt to make up the loss is at the heart of this particular song/video. The humor, or painful truth, is displayed in the plot of an average American family that decides to emulate the Federal Government and print as much money as possible using a printing press. However, reality sets in for this family and the outcome is played out in video form...but yet members of the Federal Government that participate in the same thing aren't treated as criminal, unethical or immoral.
The video for "Obama Nation"...at the moment it's gotten 949,434 unique views. It hit You Tube on July 23, 2012...
Voter fraud's become an underlying theme in a lot of elections in recent history. Accusations of it or factual proof of it no doubt inspired "Grandpa Voted Democrat". The video hit You Tube on November 3, 2012 prior to the 2012 Election cycle and it's been seen by 335,103 people. To date, this is the last political song that Ray Stevens has issued in video format...
There have been a couple of politically themed commentaries from Ray that have appeared since November 2012, titled 'Politically Speaking', plus several interviews of Ray discussing political issues such as the one at the start of this blog entry, but as far as a conventional music video is concerned, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" is the last political one as of November 18, 2013. This was an off year, too, as far as major national elections, but I look for this video to bounce back again during the 2014 Election cycle.
One of his videos is close to entering the million visitor realm, "Mr. President - Mr. President". This video hit You Tube on September 27, 2011 and it current has 998,494 unique views...
As more and more of Obamacare is unleashed on people the mood is certainly favorable for a new video/song directed toward the situation.
Obamacare is front and center in political discussion once more and the canceled health care policies of millions upon millions of Americans has become a harsh reality. Those that studied Obamacare and stated all that's bad about it consistently remarked that there is language in it in the form of Federal mandates that private insurance companies have to meet, or else, those companies have no choice but to drop customers. The idea that Obamacare would have no effect on people's health care coverage had long been pointed out as a lie ("if you like your current heath care coverage, you can keep it").
After all of the cancellations had been sent out and therefore had taken effect, Obama once again shown his penchant for ignoring existing laws while creating new laws out of thin air (Congress/the Legislative Branch is the only branch of Government that can make laws or amend previous laws, a President doesn't have this authority! Obama should have learned this, as we all did, in grade school Social Studies or even a junior high Government/Civics class).
Anyway, in his usual dictatorial style, Obama demanded that private insurance companies "reinstate the policies they canceled as a result of the health care mandates and simply ignore what the law states"; given all of this it's a perfect opportunity to spotlight the Ray Stevens interview from a couple of months ago where he speaks about politics and his humorous approach at dealing with all the madness.
Ray's heavy involvement in political humor and commentary began late in 2009, around this point in time, during the first year of Obama's time in the White House while the looming Obamacare was making it's way through Congress. A video, "We the People", became an on-line video hit and throughout 2010 and on into 2012 Ray supplied the on-line video community with a series of politically charged music videos. His videos have reached more than 25,000,000 people during the last 4 years and there's no telling how many times the videos have been watched by those millions of people. You Tube only counts 1 view per computer, commonly referred to as a unique view or a unique visitor. Multiple visits to the same video aren't counted in the visitor/view totals.
This means, you could watch one of his videos, "Mr. President - Mr. President", 3 times in a row, every day for a year straight, but only that first initial view is ever counted toward the view total that appears just below the video screen on it's main page. This system is in place to deliver accuracy for advertisers and to display accurate totals based on visitor total, rather than play totals, for the artists and or record companies. Play totals skew things too much. If You Tube used play totals, for example, a Ray Stevens video that has more than 4 million visitors could realistically have 20 million plays if you factor in multiple plays from the same visitor. See how skewed and misleading "play totals" can be? That is why "unique visitor" totals are used on You Tube instead of play totals.
The "Obama Budget Plan" has more than 2 million visits so far. The specific total is 2,729,860. This video, debuting on April 25, 2011, had it's biggest impact during the budget debates and all of the fiasco surrounding the debt limit and debt ceiling and the constant back and fourth among Obama, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the officials that make up the Congressional Budget Office. Given that the reputation of Obama and mostly all Democratic Presidents through history is to spend enormous amounts of money that the nation doesn't have and then raise taxes "on the rich" in an attempt to make up the loss is at the heart of this particular song/video. The humor, or painful truth, is displayed in the plot of an average American family that decides to emulate the Federal Government and print as much money as possible using a printing press. However, reality sets in for this family and the outcome is played out in video form...but yet members of the Federal Government that participate in the same thing aren't treated as criminal, unethical or immoral.
The video for "Obama Nation"...at the moment it's gotten 949,434 unique views. It hit You Tube on July 23, 2012...
Voter fraud's become an underlying theme in a lot of elections in recent history. Accusations of it or factual proof of it no doubt inspired "Grandpa Voted Democrat". The video hit You Tube on November 3, 2012 prior to the 2012 Election cycle and it's been seen by 335,103 people. To date, this is the last political song that Ray Stevens has issued in video format...
There have been a couple of politically themed commentaries from Ray that have appeared since November 2012, titled 'Politically Speaking', plus several interviews of Ray discussing political issues such as the one at the start of this blog entry, but as far as a conventional music video is concerned, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" is the last political one as of November 18, 2013. This was an off year, too, as far as major national elections, but I look for this video to bounce back again during the 2014 Election cycle.
One of his videos is close to entering the million visitor realm, "Mr. President - Mr. President". This video hit You Tube on September 27, 2011 and it current has 998,494 unique views...
As more and more of Obamacare is unleashed on people the mood is certainly favorable for a new video/song directed toward the situation.
December 10, 2012
Ray Stevens: Golden LP Series, Part 39...
Welcome again to the Golden LP Series. Studio album 39 in the career of Ray Stevens is on the agenda this time around. All of these installments of the Golden LP Series have been wonderful to put together and this one is no different. In January 2010 the Ray Stevens music video, "We the People", and the single of the same name were riding a wave of popularity which shown the single consistently place among the Top-5 on Amazon's various best-seller lists. The music video was nearing 2,000,000 unique views by the middle of the month and just prior to that a clip of the video was shown on the Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor. This spotlight, which featured a clip of the video and alerted viewers to check out Ray's web-site for more information, caused Ray's web-site as well as his You Tube channel to crash momentarily.
National talk radio programs as well as local talk radio programs featured interviews with Ray Stevens throughout the first half of 2010 as "We the People" continued to garner hundreds of thousands of on-line views weekly. Bloggers, from both sides of the political fence, all featured Ray's music video. The theme in a lot of the blogs of that time period all seemed to follow the same line of thinking that Ray had come out of retirement to musically challenge the Obama Administration. There were other bloggers who had assumed that Ray had died years ago and so to see him all over the news programs certainly startled quite a few people. Oh yes, believe it or not, there were some out there who thought this video was from a Ray Stevens impostor because the sudden political overtone was something "the real Ray Stevens" wasn't known for.
Ray gave a boatload of radio and print interviews, as mentioned, during the first half of 2010 and one of those interviews can be found HERE. If you Google Ray's name and the song's title chances are you'll still find a lot of the various interviews and commentaries from 2010 that featured Ray's song as a centerpiece. You'll also find a lot of my earlier blog entries from that time period where I chronicle all the interviews and appearances Ray was a part of if you look in the archives.
Ray's birthday is January 24th and he had several interviews and articles that popped up all over the internet focusing on political issues that very day. The thrilling events had culminated in a mid January 2010 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, the very program that caused his web-site to crash. Ray appeared via satellite and thanked O'Reilly for helping the site crash and for all the attention the song and video were getting as a result. It was in this interview where the two of them spoke of the bygone days where people weren't so easily offended as they seem to be today. A clip of "Ahab the Arab" was played during this point of the interview. In April an Mp3 digital album, We the People, was released. This was studio album 39 in the career of Ray Stevens. The collection featured a mixture of brand new political songs and a few patriotic recordings with a small dose of some previously recorded songs that fit the overall theme of the project. Two additional music videos emerged in the aftermath of "We the People" and those were "Caribou Barbie", a song about Sarah Palin in which the video employs a professional Palin impersonator to play the part of the former Governor and it also visually spoofs cable news personalities on liberal leaning newscasts. The follow-up music video, "Throw the Bums Out!", is a protest of Congress in general and it served as one of the rallying cries of the 2010 midterm elections that coming November.
Max T. Barnes wrote "Throw the Bums Out!" in addition to "We the People" and "Solar Powered Song"; he co-wrote "Caribou Barbie" with Matt Cline.
In June the CD copy of We the People became available. It came with a DVD extra featuring four music video releases that had been big hits on You Tube: "We the People", "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", and the military salute entitled "Thank You". It was around the time of the CD's June release that a new music video from Ray was creating quite the stir on-line. "Come to the U.S.A.", from the pen of Buddy Kalb and Matt Cline, hit right around the time the Arizona illegal immigration topic was all over the news, both locally and nationally, in the summer of 2010. The news centered around a bill that was ultimately signed into law by the state's Governor, Jan Brewer. The song had been recorded months before the Arizona illegal immigration issue had dominated national newscasts but the timing couldn't have been more wonderful. Illegal immigration isn't anything new and it isn't confined only to Arizona but that's the state reportedly having the highest crime rates and drug trafficking as a result of illegal immigration from Mexico and so Arizona gets more media focus than other border states. In this particular song Ray addresses the illegal immigration issue in his own special kind of way...and in the music video he has some fun while addressing the serious issue. The underlying theme of this project, as I took it, was having the seriousness of the topics handled with a hefty dose of humor in an attempt to get over certain points of view without being heavy handed about it. The music video repeated the same pattern as "We the People". It became a million view success story, too. Today "We the People" has more than 4.5 million views while "Come to the U.S.A." has more than 6,000,000.
Given the fact that this project contains 22 songs there was some considerable longevity and future music video releases mined from it. I call this a political music gold mine. Basically, each Ray Stevens album is a pot of gold but it's up to the consumer to dig around for all the hidden gems that do not become commercially released or widely known. Following the illegal immigration video Ray moved on to the topic of global warming. "The Global Warming Song", from the pen of Matt Cline, tells the whimsical tale of two brothers who buy a frozen wasteland cheap in the hopes that global warming will turn it into a tropical paradise. Cline plays one of the brothers in the video. In the previously recorded offerings list we have "Let's Roll" and "Stand Up", both from the 2004 limited release Thank You project and there is "Sucking Sound" from 2008. "Thank You" is a re-recording. The nostalgic "Safe at Home" is featured on here as is the brand new, "Dear Andy Griffith". Each of those songs, written by Nick Sibley, paint memories of rural America and the idealistic simpler days. Ray often performs "Safe at Home" at his concerts and he performed it during an appearance on Larry's Country Diner, which airs on the RFD-TV channel. Ray gives us some updated recordings of "Kings and Queens" and "If 10% Is Good Enough for Jesus".
There are two songs on here that I'm surprised were never made into music videos and those are "We Are the Government" and "Solar Powered Song". The former is a song about an ever-growing Government that takes over people's daily lives, a hardcore fact that a lot of voters seemed to overlook or not care about in the recent elections. It's also a comment on Congressional hypocrisy where bills become drafted and ultimately signed into law by the President and yet those very people who create and enforce laws are immune from having to follow the very laws they create. The latter is a whimsical song about solar power and it's usage in a recording studio.
As of this writing the last song to be lifted from this project and turned into a music video was "Obama Nation" in July of this year...two years after the 22 song We the People project was released. In the meantime, Ray had released studio album 40 in 2011, and for awhile he was going back and fourth between We the People and the 2011 project when it came to publicity and marketing.
Return to this blog next time as we take a look at studio album 40 in the career of Ray Stevens...it'll lift your spirits most definitely!!
National talk radio programs as well as local talk radio programs featured interviews with Ray Stevens throughout the first half of 2010 as "We the People" continued to garner hundreds of thousands of on-line views weekly. Bloggers, from both sides of the political fence, all featured Ray's music video. The theme in a lot of the blogs of that time period all seemed to follow the same line of thinking that Ray had come out of retirement to musically challenge the Obama Administration. There were other bloggers who had assumed that Ray had died years ago and so to see him all over the news programs certainly startled quite a few people. Oh yes, believe it or not, there were some out there who thought this video was from a Ray Stevens impostor because the sudden political overtone was something "the real Ray Stevens" wasn't known for.
Ray gave a boatload of radio and print interviews, as mentioned, during the first half of 2010 and one of those interviews can be found HERE. If you Google Ray's name and the song's title chances are you'll still find a lot of the various interviews and commentaries from 2010 that featured Ray's song as a centerpiece. You'll also find a lot of my earlier blog entries from that time period where I chronicle all the interviews and appearances Ray was a part of if you look in the archives.
Ray's birthday is January 24th and he had several interviews and articles that popped up all over the internet focusing on political issues that very day. The thrilling events had culminated in a mid January 2010 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, the very program that caused his web-site to crash. Ray appeared via satellite and thanked O'Reilly for helping the site crash and for all the attention the song and video were getting as a result. It was in this interview where the two of them spoke of the bygone days where people weren't so easily offended as they seem to be today. A clip of "Ahab the Arab" was played during this point of the interview. In April an Mp3 digital album, We the People, was released. This was studio album 39 in the career of Ray Stevens. The collection featured a mixture of brand new political songs and a few patriotic recordings with a small dose of some previously recorded songs that fit the overall theme of the project. Two additional music videos emerged in the aftermath of "We the People" and those were "Caribou Barbie", a song about Sarah Palin in which the video employs a professional Palin impersonator to play the part of the former Governor and it also visually spoofs cable news personalities on liberal leaning newscasts. The follow-up music video, "Throw the Bums Out!", is a protest of Congress in general and it served as one of the rallying cries of the 2010 midterm elections that coming November.
Max T. Barnes wrote "Throw the Bums Out!" in addition to "We the People" and "Solar Powered Song"; he co-wrote "Caribou Barbie" with Matt Cline.
Given the fact that this project contains 22 songs there was some considerable longevity and future music video releases mined from it. I call this a political music gold mine. Basically, each Ray Stevens album is a pot of gold but it's up to the consumer to dig around for all the hidden gems that do not become commercially released or widely known. Following the illegal immigration video Ray moved on to the topic of global warming. "The Global Warming Song", from the pen of Matt Cline, tells the whimsical tale of two brothers who buy a frozen wasteland cheap in the hopes that global warming will turn it into a tropical paradise. Cline plays one of the brothers in the video. In the previously recorded offerings list we have "Let's Roll" and "Stand Up", both from the 2004 limited release Thank You project and there is "Sucking Sound" from 2008. "Thank You" is a re-recording. The nostalgic "Safe at Home" is featured on here as is the brand new, "Dear Andy Griffith". Each of those songs, written by Nick Sibley, paint memories of rural America and the idealistic simpler days. Ray often performs "Safe at Home" at his concerts and he performed it during an appearance on Larry's Country Diner, which airs on the RFD-TV channel. Ray gives us some updated recordings of "Kings and Queens" and "If 10% Is Good Enough for Jesus".
There are two songs on here that I'm surprised were never made into music videos and those are "We Are the Government" and "Solar Powered Song". The former is a song about an ever-growing Government that takes over people's daily lives, a hardcore fact that a lot of voters seemed to overlook or not care about in the recent elections. It's also a comment on Congressional hypocrisy where bills become drafted and ultimately signed into law by the President and yet those very people who create and enforce laws are immune from having to follow the very laws they create. The latter is a whimsical song about solar power and it's usage in a recording studio.
As of this writing the last song to be lifted from this project and turned into a music video was "Obama Nation" in July of this year...two years after the 22 song We the People project was released. In the meantime, Ray had released studio album 40 in 2011, and for awhile he was going back and fourth between We the People and the 2011 project when it came to publicity and marketing.
Return to this blog next time as we take a look at studio album 40 in the career of Ray Stevens...it'll lift your spirits most definitely!!
August 24, 2012
Ray Stevens: Obama Nation, Part 11...
By now you've probably long figured out that Obama's approach to his re-election is to demonize the wealthy, demonize those who don't need a Government handout and admonish them for not "giving back", and lastly he'll demonize those who have plans for saving Medicare and Social Security. If you notice, many of the TV commercials that run in support of Obama make no mention of his actual record. Instead what we see are divisive attack ads made against Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan based on lies and distortions of the truth. Obama and company would rather have people thinking about Romney's wealth and so-called "connections" instead of Obama's destructive domestic and foreign policies. Early commercials were fixated on Romney's personal finances...demonizing him on the grounds of simply being successful. Other commercials from the DNC as well as the Obama sponsored ads added more to the murky puddle.
Once the debates air and the public at large realizes that neither Obama nor Biden have any solutions but instead have a trunk full of personal insults they can throw Romney and Ryan's way the quicker the public will realize how petty, low down, and full of themselves that Obama and Biden truly are. The debates, from the Democrat's side of things, will be nothing more than a blame game and incoherency wrapped up in a Utopian fantasy narrative. Once Romney and Obama debate one another the Independent voters of 2008 will see what I'm talking about...for me there's no way that Obama can "win" the debate as long as the topics are rooted in facts. You see, based upon previous debates, Obama likes to change the facts and use a lot of what if's and maybe's in his reasoning...he often likes to belittle whoever he's debating with and ramble on and on until a person's ears fall asleep. That's just my experience during the few times I've attempted to stomach Obama's condescending style. I bet ear plug sales spike whenever word gets out that he's going to make a speech but that's just a guess.
Paul Ryan will do circles around Joe Biden, but that's just my theory...but I'm sure millions of other people agree. On the left there's Biden, on the right there's Ryan...we all know that Biden, based on history, is going to try and get cute and say some God awful things and attempt to make a point where there's no point to be made. The smirk filled Biden, I hope, is rendered speechless during the Vice Presidential debate.
August 23, 2012
Ray Stevens: Obama Nation, Part 10...
Hello all...I just looked at the "Obama Nation" numbers since my last blog post and there's been an increase of 44,382 views. This brings the total number of on-line views to 489,752...a little more than 10,000 shy of half a million. It was uploaded on July 23, 2012 and so today marks the 1 month anniversary of it's You Tube debut. Considering that the video's been getting anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 views on a daily basis it should vault past the half a million mark real soon. Will it top 1,000,000 on-line views? I have no idea...it would be great if it would...
One of the things that I do know is the United States can't take four more years of the Obama Administration. This coming Election Day 2012 will be an important turning point...will even more voters wake up and see the destruction that the Obama policies have ushered in during the last three and a half years? I hope so!
The "Obama Nation" Mp3 sells for 99 cents and can be purchased by clicking the following Obama Nation Mp3 Amazon link.
Whenever Ray puts out a new music video the comment sections are ultimately invaded by the opposing point of view and once that happens the comment section on the song's main video page becomes a haven for left-wing hate speech and progressive propaganda and so I rarely watch his videos from their main page after awhile and instead I watch them elsewhere (places free of vile user comments).
It took a bit longer than usual but the left-wingers and the freeloaders of America have since discovered the "Obama Nation" video and in typical fashion they've polluted the comment section at You Tube with their name-calling, their insidious race baiting language, and their vile attempts at humor. Here's the embedded video once more...the marvelous "Obama Nation" song from Ray Stevens...ENJOY!!!
One of the things that I do know is the United States can't take four more years of the Obama Administration. This coming Election Day 2012 will be an important turning point...will even more voters wake up and see the destruction that the Obama policies have ushered in during the last three and a half years? I hope so!
The "Obama Nation" Mp3 sells for 99 cents and can be purchased by clicking the following Obama Nation Mp3 Amazon link.
Whenever Ray puts out a new music video the comment sections are ultimately invaded by the opposing point of view and once that happens the comment section on the song's main video page becomes a haven for left-wing hate speech and progressive propaganda and so I rarely watch his videos from their main page after awhile and instead I watch them elsewhere (places free of vile user comments).
It took a bit longer than usual but the left-wingers and the freeloaders of America have since discovered the "Obama Nation" video and in typical fashion they've polluted the comment section at You Tube with their name-calling, their insidious race baiting language, and their vile attempts at humor. Here's the embedded video once more...the marvelous "Obama Nation" song from Ray Stevens...ENJOY!!!
May 25, 2012
Ray Stevens and the Huckabee Radio interview...
Good Friday afternoon...I just finished making notes concerning the Ray Stevens interview that took place about 10 minutes ago on Mike Huckabee's radio program. The interview was great as I had hoped it would be. Even more great is that Ray was live...so it wasn't a phone connection. I'm assuming Ray was in the studio with Huckabee...it certainly sounded like he was. Mike began the segment promoting the Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music and he praised Ray's career and pointed out the various aspects of his career that the public at large may be unaware of. Ray spoke about the novelty song in general and how he's on a mission to save it from the endangered species list.
Mike plays a snippet of "The Streak" and this leads into a discussion about streaking and the story on how the song came into existence. Afterward, political incorrectness is brought up and this leads into a conversation about "Ahab the Arab" and the way it's perceived by those with a politically-correct mindset. Ray told the history of the song and mentioned that a certain political party twists things around when it comes to the song. Moving away from the perceptions of "Ahab the Arab" by a segment of the population, the two discuss politics...and Mike plays a snippet of "We the People".
Mike refers to Ray as being bold and unapologetic when it comes to the political messages featured in his recent recordings.
It was in this portion of the interview where Ray spoke about the double-standard that exists in the media when it comes to their reporting on liberal and conservative entertainers. Mike mentions how unique it is that Ray's able to convey such strong political messages using a comical overtone. Ray mentions Dick Morris, who was on the segment prior to Ray's interview, and how the news that Morris had spoke about concerning the Law of the Sea Treaty is one of his biggest worries.
Mike thanked Ray for being on the show and closed it with more words of praise for Ray's many talents in the recording studio and he closed the segment with a snippet of "Everything Is Beautiful".
For those who want to read up on the Law of the Sea Treaty, Google the following: Law of the Sea Treaty. You'll find all that you need to know.
Check out Ray's We The People and Spirit of '76 collections and the Let's Get Political book at Ray's web-site. All three items are offered in the Tea Party Special but you can get each separately, too. When you visit his site wait for the banners to load up to see the advertisements for the Tea Party Special as well as the 9-CD Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music.
Mike plays a snippet of "The Streak" and this leads into a discussion about streaking and the story on how the song came into existence. Afterward, political incorrectness is brought up and this leads into a conversation about "Ahab the Arab" and the way it's perceived by those with a politically-correct mindset. Ray told the history of the song and mentioned that a certain political party twists things around when it comes to the song. Moving away from the perceptions of "Ahab the Arab" by a segment of the population, the two discuss politics...and Mike plays a snippet of "We the People".
Mike refers to Ray as being bold and unapologetic when it comes to the political messages featured in his recent recordings.
It was in this portion of the interview where Ray spoke about the double-standard that exists in the media when it comes to their reporting on liberal and conservative entertainers. Mike mentions how unique it is that Ray's able to convey such strong political messages using a comical overtone. Ray mentions Dick Morris, who was on the segment prior to Ray's interview, and how the news that Morris had spoke about concerning the Law of the Sea Treaty is one of his biggest worries.
Mike thanked Ray for being on the show and closed it with more words of praise for Ray's many talents in the recording studio and he closed the segment with a snippet of "Everything Is Beautiful".
For those who want to read up on the Law of the Sea Treaty, Google the following: Law of the Sea Treaty. You'll find all that you need to know.
Check out Ray's We The People and Spirit of '76 collections and the Let's Get Political book at Ray's web-site. All three items are offered in the Tea Party Special but you can get each separately, too. When you visit his site wait for the banners to load up to see the advertisements for the Tea Party Special as well as the 9-CD Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music.
May 13, 2012
Ray Stevens and Political Music...
I wrote about this a few blogs ago but I never wrote any follow-up blog entries due to the fact that The Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music was brand new and that took up a lot of my blog entries the last several months. The 9-CD box set will reach 3 months old this coming May 28th. It has yet to appear for sale on Amazon but I have a feeling that it won't become available for purchase there anytime soon but then again it may show up for sale there sooner rather than later.
Anyway, the Ray Stevens Book that I wrote about a few blogs ago is titled Let's Get Political. The link will take you to the product page at Ray's web-site. He's advertising what he's calling a Tea Party Special which includes We The People, The Spirit of '76, and the Let's Get Political book. However, you can still purchase the items separately...and since I already have the CD's that are being offered I obviously purchased the book by itself. I highly recommend the book for those who already have the CD's. I also highly recommend the book for those who discovered Ray Stevens on You Tube and had no idea of who he was beforehand. The book will introduce you to the essays of Ray Stevens and Buddy Kalb as they offer commentary on the songs found on We The People and The Spirit of '76.
The CD's feature an abundance of political and patriotic songs. Before anyone can ask...Ray does realize that there are people who have not been too happy or supportive of his decision to incorporate political feelings into his music but those are the opinions of a minority. In fact, since December 2009, the response has actually been 90% positive. There's a small amount of criticism and flack that comes from a vocal 10% but the fact remains that a majority of Ray's fan-base either share similar feelings or have the exact same feelings about the issues of the day as he does. If anyone thought that Ray was a far-left liberal progressive at any point in time then you were mistaken and it's easy to see why.
You can be a conservative and still want peace, love, and prosperity...but the means in which to achieve it are vastly different based upon political ideology.
A song like "Everything Is Beautiful", released by Ray in 1970, has long been described as a song championing a liberal cause while a more recent song, such as "Thank You", honors the soldiers in the military who voluntarily join the Armed Forces without knowing if they will be sent overseas or not. Extremists on the left side of the political spectrum can say that the 1970 song fits their agenda while extremists on the right can latch onto the sentiments in "Thank You".
However, a general audience should be able to enjoy both songs for what they are...without having to apply a political undertone or overtone in their decisions to like or not like either song. I love a lot of the well-done protest songs of the late '60s but that doesn't make me some sort of anti-war zealot...I like a lot of military songs, too, but that doesn't make me some sort of military zealot. I like several styles of music but Ray Stevens is the one I'm the biggest fan of. Music critics and radio programmers, especially, love to pigeonhole radio listeners into only being tolerable of specific sounds or certain artists, which is why critics labeled Ray's "Everything Is Beautiful" as a sentiment for the liberal point of view...never realizing that anyone, of all political points of view, may enjoy the song as well.
Anyway, that sort of assumption by critics, for example, paved the way for the splintering of the Top-40 format in the 1980's as every musical style under the sun seemingly got it's own special popularity chart and radio frequency but that's an entirely different discussion!
Are you one of the more than half a million or so that have watched Ray's hilarious "Mr. President - Mr. President" music video? A recently updated total shows that 563,459 people have viewed the video. Multiple views aren't counted and so it's safe to say that the video's been watched over a million times because it's only natural that a music video that people like will be watched multiple times. Even if people only watch a video twice you can multiply the video's current unique view total by 2 and get an estimated total of real-time views. If all 563,459 people were to watch the video just 1 additional time the total would technically be 1.1 million real-time views. If all those people watch the video 6 times throughout the course of a week the total of real-time views would be 3.3 million, etc. etc.
So, yes, while You Tube prevents the tallying of multiple views when they report on a video's view count, in an effort to stop skewed numbers ratcheted up by rabid fan bases, the fact remains that a lot of times, especially for music-related video content, people watch a video more than once so the real-time numbers will never come to light since multiple views aren't counted. Enjoy this clever song and video...it speaks volumes...
Anyway, the Ray Stevens Book that I wrote about a few blogs ago is titled Let's Get Political. The link will take you to the product page at Ray's web-site. He's advertising what he's calling a Tea Party Special which includes We The People, The Spirit of '76, and the Let's Get Political book. However, you can still purchase the items separately...and since I already have the CD's that are being offered I obviously purchased the book by itself. I highly recommend the book for those who already have the CD's. I also highly recommend the book for those who discovered Ray Stevens on You Tube and had no idea of who he was beforehand. The book will introduce you to the essays of Ray Stevens and Buddy Kalb as they offer commentary on the songs found on We The People and The Spirit of '76.
The CD's feature an abundance of political and patriotic songs. Before anyone can ask...Ray does realize that there are people who have not been too happy or supportive of his decision to incorporate political feelings into his music but those are the opinions of a minority. In fact, since December 2009, the response has actually been 90% positive. There's a small amount of criticism and flack that comes from a vocal 10% but the fact remains that a majority of Ray's fan-base either share similar feelings or have the exact same feelings about the issues of the day as he does. If anyone thought that Ray was a far-left liberal progressive at any point in time then you were mistaken and it's easy to see why.
You can be a conservative and still want peace, love, and prosperity...but the means in which to achieve it are vastly different based upon political ideology.
A song like "Everything Is Beautiful", released by Ray in 1970, has long been described as a song championing a liberal cause while a more recent song, such as "Thank You", honors the soldiers in the military who voluntarily join the Armed Forces without knowing if they will be sent overseas or not. Extremists on the left side of the political spectrum can say that the 1970 song fits their agenda while extremists on the right can latch onto the sentiments in "Thank You".
However, a general audience should be able to enjoy both songs for what they are...without having to apply a political undertone or overtone in their decisions to like or not like either song. I love a lot of the well-done protest songs of the late '60s but that doesn't make me some sort of anti-war zealot...I like a lot of military songs, too, but that doesn't make me some sort of military zealot. I like several styles of music but Ray Stevens is the one I'm the biggest fan of. Music critics and radio programmers, especially, love to pigeonhole radio listeners into only being tolerable of specific sounds or certain artists, which is why critics labeled Ray's "Everything Is Beautiful" as a sentiment for the liberal point of view...never realizing that anyone, of all political points of view, may enjoy the song as well.
Anyway, that sort of assumption by critics, for example, paved the way for the splintering of the Top-40 format in the 1980's as every musical style under the sun seemingly got it's own special popularity chart and radio frequency but that's an entirely different discussion!
Are you one of the more than half a million or so that have watched Ray's hilarious "Mr. President - Mr. President" music video? A recently updated total shows that 563,459 people have viewed the video. Multiple views aren't counted and so it's safe to say that the video's been watched over a million times because it's only natural that a music video that people like will be watched multiple times. Even if people only watch a video twice you can multiply the video's current unique view total by 2 and get an estimated total of real-time views. If all 563,459 people were to watch the video just 1 additional time the total would technically be 1.1 million real-time views. If all those people watch the video 6 times throughout the course of a week the total of real-time views would be 3.3 million, etc. etc.
So, yes, while You Tube prevents the tallying of multiple views when they report on a video's view count, in an effort to stop skewed numbers ratcheted up by rabid fan bases, the fact remains that a lot of times, especially for music-related video content, people watch a video more than once so the real-time numbers will never come to light since multiple views aren't counted. Enjoy this clever song and video...it speaks volumes...
April 7, 2012
In the Ray Stevens Mood, Part 2...
Good Saturday morning all the Ray Stevens fans!! Well, on short notice I come with information that I found out late last night before leaving for work so I had no time to write about it sooner. Ray Stevens will appear on the Fox and Friends program Tuesday April 10th at 8am Eastern time.
I have no idea what will be discussed considering there are several things going on at the same time in his career...you see, sometimes his activities can appear like a pair of high-speed trains racing side by side on two separate sets of tracks...that's just how busy he can sometimes get! He's not only promoting the 108-song Encyclopedia box set but there's the Branson, Missouri performance of "We The People" by Ray which hit You Tube the other day and a Tea Party gift package containing 2010's We The People CD, 2011's Spirit of '76 CD, a flag pin, and a booklet titled Let's Get Political...so he'll either be talking about the Encyclopedia or the Tea Party package...or perhaps both...
Besides the Fox and Friends appearance, Ray will give an interview on Fox News Radio's Spencer Hughes program at 7:30pm. I'll be listening to their web-site's audio stream and report back what I hear.
Next weekend RFD-TV should be airing Ray's interview with Crook and Chase...their show comes on at 6pm Eastern time on Sunday evening.
But wait...I'm not through yet...Ray uploaded a commercial/infomercial promoting his Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The video upload features Ray, of course, with Buddy Kalb discussing the collection and showing it off for the camera. That upload is embedded below...
By the way, the concert performance of "We The People" has 3,175 views at the moment.
I have no idea what will be discussed considering there are several things going on at the same time in his career...you see, sometimes his activities can appear like a pair of high-speed trains racing side by side on two separate sets of tracks...that's just how busy he can sometimes get! He's not only promoting the 108-song Encyclopedia box set but there's the Branson, Missouri performance of "We The People" by Ray which hit You Tube the other day and a Tea Party gift package containing 2010's We The People CD, 2011's Spirit of '76 CD, a flag pin, and a booklet titled Let's Get Political...so he'll either be talking about the Encyclopedia or the Tea Party package...or perhaps both...
Besides the Fox and Friends appearance, Ray will give an interview on Fox News Radio's Spencer Hughes program at 7:30pm. I'll be listening to their web-site's audio stream and report back what I hear.
Next weekend RFD-TV should be airing Ray's interview with Crook and Chase...their show comes on at 6pm Eastern time on Sunday evening.
But wait...I'm not through yet...Ray uploaded a commercial/infomercial promoting his Encyclopedia of Recorded Comedy Music. The video upload features Ray, of course, with Buddy Kalb discussing the collection and showing it off for the camera. That upload is embedded below...
By the way, the concert performance of "We The People" has 3,175 views at the moment.
April 5, 2012
Ray Stevens: We The People in Concert...
A quick blog entry tonight...here's a brand new video of Ray performing "We The People" at a Branson, Missouri concert. My guess is this was taped during his previous slate of shows at the Welk Theater. It's gotten over 300 views at the moment.
November 2, 2011
Ray Stevens: Internet Video Hits...
Good Wednesday morning...also, welcome to November! Yes, I know it's November 2, but it's my first blog entry of the month. A couple of days ago I wrote about an upcoming DVD from Ray Stevens titled Internet Video Hits. The DVD is now available for purchase at Ray's web-store. Click the above link for more information. I'll be purchasing mine this coming Friday.
The collection features 10 music videos taped during the years of 2009 through the current 2011 video, "Mr. President - Mr. President". The current music video vaulted past the 300,000 mark and has 301,328 on-line views at the moment. It's an increase of nearly 10,000 on-line views in a few days time.
1. God Save Arizona; 2010
2. Come to the U.S.A.; 2010
3. We The People; 2009
4. Caribou Barbie; 2010
5. Mr. President - Mr. President; 2011
6. The Global Warming Song; 2010
7. Throw the Bums Out!; 2010
8. The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore; 2011
9. Obama Budget Plan; 2011
10. Nightmare Before Christmas; 2010
Currently the music videos of "Throw the Bums Out!" and "God Save Arizona" are neck and neck in on-line view totals. "Throw the Bums Out!" has 822,825 on-line views while "God Save Arizona" has gotten 822,720 on-line views! The "Obama Budget Plan" has 848,469 views.
The collection features 10 music videos taped during the years of 2009 through the current 2011 video, "Mr. President - Mr. President". The current music video vaulted past the 300,000 mark and has 301,328 on-line views at the moment. It's an increase of nearly 10,000 on-line views in a few days time.
1. God Save Arizona; 2010
2. Come to the U.S.A.; 2010
3. We The People; 2009
4. Caribou Barbie; 2010
5. Mr. President - Mr. President; 2011
6. The Global Warming Song; 2010
7. Throw the Bums Out!; 2010
8. The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore; 2011
9. Obama Budget Plan; 2011
10. Nightmare Before Christmas; 2010
Currently the music videos of "Throw the Bums Out!" and "God Save Arizona" are neck and neck in on-line view totals. "Throw the Bums Out!" has 822,825 on-line views while "God Save Arizona" has gotten 822,720 on-line views! The "Obama Budget Plan" has 848,469 views.
July 11, 2011
Ray Stevens gets My Vote...
If Ray Stevens ever ran for public office he'd get my vote!! Since late 2009 Ray, in my opinion, has become a legitimate political entertainer. Things got started with a music video entitled "We The People" and it's continued on since then. The music video has gotten 4.4 million views on You Tube...it's a song all about Obama Care. I feel that some people still don't really know what Obama Care really is and what the underlying agenda behind it is. I could explain it all but it would probably result in a long discussion about social justice, socialism, and the blending of the two to create the single-payer health care dream that Obama Care opens the door to. The defeat of the President in 2012 will set in motion a change in direction, for the better, and the nation will drop all of these socialistic kinds of programs that have been put in place since 2009...most notably Obama Care will be stopped in it's tracks. If the President gets another 4 years he'll sow the seeds of single-payer healthcare doom to the point where it'll be nearly impossible to dismantle.
April 18, 2011
Another million success for Ray Stevens...
Good Monday morning all Ray Stevens fans!! Over the weekend Ray Stevens was treated to another million...the music video, "Mississippi Squirrel Revival", passed the million view mark on You Tube. The video, originally released in 1992 as part of Comedy Video Classics, was uploaded onto You Tube in July 2009. The unique views of the Mississippi Squirrel music video are 1,012,858 which of course enables it to become the third music video of Ray's to achieve at least 1,000,000 unique views. The first video to surpass a million views for Ray was "We The People"...and the second video to do so was "Come to the USA"...ironically, the third to achieve this accomplishment is one of the classics in his career...
"The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" came along in Ray's career in 1984 and was part of his debut MCA album that year, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens.
"Come to the USA" continues to be enormous on-line. Several weeks ago I commented on the video surpassing 5,000,000 views and now it's close to 5.1 million. The specific total of unique views to date is 5,089,164. By comparison, "We The People" has 4,311,711 unique views to date. Doing the math that's a difference of 777,453. That means over 700,000 more people have seen the illegal immigration music video, "Come to the USA". There's also an underlying belief that the video's tapped into an audience that up until 2010 had never knew of Ray Stevens before...and for a lot of people this video was their introduction to him. "We The People" can be applied with the same scenario...a lot of people who either never knew of Ray Stevens or weren't aware that he was still making music took notice when the "We The People" music video hit late in 2009.
Since then Ray's been a fixture at political fundraisers and other political events; appearing on politically-driven talk radio programs and television programs as well. When Ray returned to Branson, Missouri for a series of concerts in 2010 at the Welk Theater he did so with a political and patriotic theme. He still performs his signature hits and other notable songs while in concert but he often remarked in interviews that he felt the big reason why there seemed to be an increase of demand for personal appearances was because of the political music videos and he pointed out "We The People" and the other on-line music videos he released as evidence. In other words, with the videos getting such a strong positive reaction it was obvious that he'd have to perform them in concert for the people.
2011 appears to be shaping up to be another whirlwind year...already this year Ray took part in a radio call-in tour, appeared at C-PAC, and appeared on several programs to promote his TSA music video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". A lot of this activity took place during much of late January through early March. A music video of the song became another on-line hit. As soon as Ray releases a new music video I'll embed it here on my blog page of course!
"The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" came along in Ray's career in 1984 and was part of his debut MCA album that year, He Thinks He's Ray Stevens.
"Come to the USA" continues to be enormous on-line. Several weeks ago I commented on the video surpassing 5,000,000 views and now it's close to 5.1 million. The specific total of unique views to date is 5,089,164. By comparison, "We The People" has 4,311,711 unique views to date. Doing the math that's a difference of 777,453. That means over 700,000 more people have seen the illegal immigration music video, "Come to the USA". There's also an underlying belief that the video's tapped into an audience that up until 2010 had never knew of Ray Stevens before...and for a lot of people this video was their introduction to him. "We The People" can be applied with the same scenario...a lot of people who either never knew of Ray Stevens or weren't aware that he was still making music took notice when the "We The People" music video hit late in 2009.
Since then Ray's been a fixture at political fundraisers and other political events; appearing on politically-driven talk radio programs and television programs as well. When Ray returned to Branson, Missouri for a series of concerts in 2010 at the Welk Theater he did so with a political and patriotic theme. He still performs his signature hits and other notable songs while in concert but he often remarked in interviews that he felt the big reason why there seemed to be an increase of demand for personal appearances was because of the political music videos and he pointed out "We The People" and the other on-line music videos he released as evidence. In other words, with the videos getting such a strong positive reaction it was obvious that he'd have to perform them in concert for the people.
2011 appears to be shaping up to be another whirlwind year...already this year Ray took part in a radio call-in tour, appeared at C-PAC, and appeared on several programs to promote his TSA music video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore". A lot of this activity took place during much of late January through early March. A music video of the song became another on-line hit. As soon as Ray releases a new music video I'll embed it here on my blog page of course!
March 17, 2011
Ray Stevens hits another Milestone...
Good afternoon all Ray Stevens fans. I've been waiting to make this kind of announcement for several days and now that it's happened it's an announcement I can make...Ray Stevens obtained another million today when his anti-illegal immigration music video, "Come to the USA", surpassed the five million unique view mark. As of now the total is 5,000,074!! The music video was uploaded on You Tube in May 2010 and late last year it had crossed the 4 million mark...making it the highest viewed music video from Ray Stevens...a close second being "We The People". Eventually "We The People" crossed the 4 million mark and currently sits with 4,258,625 unique views but, as you can see, "Come to the USA" had an even stronger impact and has now crossed the 5 million mark. When I checked the play count for "Come to the USA" earlier this morning it was sitting on the brink of 5 million with 4,999,070 views and so I knew it was only a matter of hours before it would reach the 5 million milestone. Doing the math we can see the video got 1,004 views in a little under 4 hours time. Meanwhile, his current TSA music video, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", has gotten 114,040 unique views.
Those wanting to hear some Irish-inspired songs from Ray Stevens on this St. Patrick's Day look no further than a couple of comedy songs from his past. First there's "The Day That Clancy Drowned" from 1987...a comical tale of a man who works at a brewery but meets his end in a most bizarre fashion. There's no reference to the words Irish or Ireland but Clancy, the name, is of Irish origin. Also, Ray does an Irish vocal impression while playing the part of the preacher at the funeral. The second Irish enhanced song from Ray is 1993's "The Bricklayer's Song", a comical performance which was also recorded by Noel Murphy as well as The Corries in addition to it's writer, Pat Cooksey. In this song Ray recounts the story of an Irishman who had bad luck while laying bricks on a multistory building. In previous recordings by other artists the song was always performed as if it were first-hand recollections of what went on but in Ray's version he plays the part of the storyteller instead of the victim (although in the descriptive lyrics it allows Ray to comically agonize the pain and suffering taking place between the bricklayer, the rope, and that barrel.)
Those wanting to hear some Irish-inspired songs from Ray Stevens on this St. Patrick's Day look no further than a couple of comedy songs from his past. First there's "The Day That Clancy Drowned" from 1987...a comical tale of a man who works at a brewery but meets his end in a most bizarre fashion. There's no reference to the words Irish or Ireland but Clancy, the name, is of Irish origin. Also, Ray does an Irish vocal impression while playing the part of the preacher at the funeral. The second Irish enhanced song from Ray is 1993's "The Bricklayer's Song", a comical performance which was also recorded by Noel Murphy as well as The Corries in addition to it's writer, Pat Cooksey. In this song Ray recounts the story of an Irishman who had bad luck while laying bricks on a multistory building. In previous recordings by other artists the song was always performed as if it were first-hand recollections of what went on but in Ray's version he plays the part of the storyteller instead of the victim (although in the descriptive lyrics it allows Ray to comically agonize the pain and suffering taking place between the bricklayer, the rope, and that barrel.)
February 16, 2011
Ray Stevens: From Mockingbird Hill to Capitol Hill...
35 years ago, in early 1976, Barnaby Records issued it's last single on Ray Stevens in the form of "Lady of Spain" backed with "Mockingbird Hill". The songs come from his final studio album for the label, 1975's Misty. That particular album featured Ray's versions of many pop-standards: "Over the Rainbow", "Deep Purple", "Cow Cow Boogie", "Indian Love Call", and the title track, "Misty". On that same album Ray also covered the country classic "Oh, Lonesome Me" and "Young Love". The only new songs on the collection were "Sunshine", written by Ray; and Layng Martine, Jr.'s "Take Care of Business". The song's title may have been inspired by a line in an earlier Ray Stevens song, "Mr. Businessman", although "Take Care of Business" is a slow love ballad having nothing to do with corporate America. "Mockingbird Hill", as mentioned, appeared as the B-side of Ray's take on "Lady of Spain". In Ray's arrangement, Mockingbird still comes complete with shrills, tweets, and tra-la-la's but the melody is much more R&B flavored. Patti Page recorded a pop version of the song as did Les Paul and Mary Ford. Two years after Ray recorded his version of the song it was recorded by Donna Fargo and has since been recorded by other artists. The song is basically a story about contentment as it deals with a person who's happy with their life and gets enjoyment taking in the tranquil scenery dubbed "Mockingbird Hill" for all the mockingbirds that inhabit the area. Ray's recording of it is catchy, in my opinion, and a listener is drawn more into his vocalization and the melody. If you take away Ray's inflections then what you end up with is a recording that offers nothing different from all the other recordings of the song.
From Mockingbird Hill we travel to Capitol Hill...
4,164,529 is the most recent hit count for the Ray Stevens music video, "We The People", on You Tube. The single/music video deals with the political consequences of voting in ObamaCare. Now, given that the song came along nearly a year before the 2010 midterm elections, the song has taken on a kind of prophetic symbolism. The November 2010 midterm elections saw the biggest addition of Republicans in state Governor races and local elections plus an increase in Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives...largely more in the House. Although there were some Democrats re-elected the majority of political races taking place this past November were won in mostly landslide fashion by Republicans. Ray appeared at C-PAC on February 10th and performed this song. He alerted those in the audience that he recorded it late in 2009 before the 2010 midterm elections. He described the song as kind of prophetic given how the November elections turned out. The We The People CD includes several other songs that went on to become viral music video hits on You Tube: "Caribou Barbie", "Throw the Bums Out!", "Come to the USA", and "The Global Warming Song". A song and music video from 2004, "Thank You", was included on this collection as well because it fit the overall theme of the project. To date the biggest music video success on You Tube for Ray Stevens is "Come to the USA"...this music video's gotten 4,871,555 hits. The song's about illegal immigration and it became an enormous video sensation as the Arizona-Mexico border problem became intensified nationally throughout the summer of 2010. The illegal immigration bill that was signed into law in Arizona was treated with protest from liberals and the Federal Government...inspiring Ray to make the music video, "God Save Arizona", which was not part of the We The People CD. The music video's gotten 636,762 hits at the moment. The song got some exposure in an episode of The O'Reilly Factor but the impact of the coverage, I think, was subdued because within the same segment that Ray's song was spotlighted there was exposure given to a liberal music video with sentiments directly opposite from those expressed in Ray's song. The video exposure for both songs back-to-back, each with different viewpoints, canceled each other out in my opinion.
Ray is currently expected to release a new project that'll feature his current TSA song that he's been promoting in a series of radio station interviews. Titled "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", Ray has yet to release a music video of the song. I'm continuing to watch any news that trickles out of Ray's office...but no new information's been released since my last blog entry on the 14th.
February 3, 2011
Ray Stevens latest Radio interview...
In my first blog entry of February I come with an additional radio station link. Ray Stevens gave an interview on a Texas radio station, KWEL, on February 2. A link to the interview can be found here. Once you open this page you will need to scroll down to where it shows Ray's name prior to the date 2-2-11. A little sideways triangle in a green shaded box is located off to the right...click that and the audio clip will start to play. There's also a download option in front of the audio clip. I downloaded the audio in addition to playing it. In the interview Ray discusses the political direction of his musical career and talks about his current recordings. The host of the show asks about the reception of his political affiliations and Ray offers some commentary about it. He comments about his various appearances on the Fox News Channel and an upcoming appearance at CPAC later this month.
"Ahab the Arab" is also brought up.
Something which has become commonplace in many interviews with Ray is the topic of political correctness and the radio host asked Ray if he felt that "Ahab the Arab" would get airplay in 2011 if released today and if the song's still being played somewhere. Ray commented that since the song was originally out in 1962 he didn't think it was still being played with any degree of regularity but he defended the song, as he should, when explaining how unfair it is that some people out there attach the politically incorrect label on practically everything they have an objection to...regardless of original intent by a singer, writer, author, etc. etc. This may have been his way of saying he doesn't think the song would have a chance of widespread radio success in 2011 as it did in 1962.
However, not everyone is thin-skinned and balks at anything remotely deemed politically incorrect...the music video of the song is still getting video play on You Tube...
The 1995 music video of the song, which Ray uploaded onto You Tube in 2009, has gotten over 100,000 hits. Another upload of the video by someone else has gotten over 650,000 hits. This upload was available nearly a year before Ray's people decided to upload it, too, which accounts for why the earlier upload by a You Tube member has way more hits than the official upload from Ray. The point is the music video's been seen by over 700,000 people when you combine both hit totals on You Tube and so even nearly 50 years after the song was released it's still getting attention from those who love the song and from those who can't stand it. The host asked him to do the camel impression and while I thought it was good Ray insisted that it was too early in the morning to sufficiently mimic a camel.
Toward the end of the interview Ray talks about his most recent release, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", about the TSA and airport security. He also commented about the encyclopedia of the greatest novelty songs he's been working on and offered a few examples of some of the songs that'll be on it.
In the meantime, this link provides information about a radio tour that Ray's currently embarking on. It started with KMOX, then it migrated to WICH, and yesterday he was heard on KWEL. He's scheduled to conduct interviews with a wide variety of other morning radio programs...two upcoming interviews according to the link above are The KTLF morning show and a syndicated Atlanta, Georgia program hosted by Martha Zoller. Each program will air/become available on February 7th. I'm sure Ray will be heard in interviews on other radio stations, too, as the year progresses.
"Ahab the Arab" is also brought up.
Something which has become commonplace in many interviews with Ray is the topic of political correctness and the radio host asked Ray if he felt that "Ahab the Arab" would get airplay in 2011 if released today and if the song's still being played somewhere. Ray commented that since the song was originally out in 1962 he didn't think it was still being played with any degree of regularity but he defended the song, as he should, when explaining how unfair it is that some people out there attach the politically incorrect label on practically everything they have an objection to...regardless of original intent by a singer, writer, author, etc. etc. This may have been his way of saying he doesn't think the song would have a chance of widespread radio success in 2011 as it did in 1962.
However, not everyone is thin-skinned and balks at anything remotely deemed politically incorrect...the music video of the song is still getting video play on You Tube...
The 1995 music video of the song, which Ray uploaded onto You Tube in 2009, has gotten over 100,000 hits. Another upload of the video by someone else has gotten over 650,000 hits. This upload was available nearly a year before Ray's people decided to upload it, too, which accounts for why the earlier upload by a You Tube member has way more hits than the official upload from Ray. The point is the music video's been seen by over 700,000 people when you combine both hit totals on You Tube and so even nearly 50 years after the song was released it's still getting attention from those who love the song and from those who can't stand it. The host asked him to do the camel impression and while I thought it was good Ray insisted that it was too early in the morning to sufficiently mimic a camel.
Toward the end of the interview Ray talks about his most recent release, "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", about the TSA and airport security. He also commented about the encyclopedia of the greatest novelty songs he's been working on and offered a few examples of some of the songs that'll be on it.
In the meantime, this link provides information about a radio tour that Ray's currently embarking on. It started with KMOX, then it migrated to WICH, and yesterday he was heard on KWEL. He's scheduled to conduct interviews with a wide variety of other morning radio programs...two upcoming interviews according to the link above are The KTLF morning show and a syndicated Atlanta, Georgia program hosted by Martha Zoller. Each program will air/become available on February 7th. I'm sure Ray will be heard in interviews on other radio stations, too, as the year progresses.
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