When Ray Stevens says he just thinks funny, his key word is
thinks. Like many revered American wits -- from Charlie Chaplin to Jackie
Gleason to Bill Cosby -- Stevens' humor is keenly observant and rich in nuance,
yet he puts it across with such an unpretentious, unaffected style that it can
be easy to overlook the fertile mind needed to create such guileless
entertainment.
For more than 40 years, Ray Stevens has been entertaining us. From his
novelty songs like "The Streak," to his socially aware pieces like " Mr.
Businessman," to his tender ballads he has touched us. Besides singing and
composing, Ray has produced and arranged for some of Nashville's most legendary
performers. As with all outstanding writers, Stevens has a way of creating
characters and situations that highlight the humor in everyday life as well as
larger issues and lifestyle trends.
Ray Stevens was born Harold Ray Ragsdale in Clarkdale, Georgia in January
1939. Clarkdale was a small cotton mill town 20 miles north of Atlanta. There
was no television in 1939 in Clarkdale so the radio was a major influence in
Ray's life. In the village was a swimming pool. Ray, along with most of the
kids, lived at the pool every summer. At the pool they had a jukebox, and there
were all kinds of records they would play. In those days, radio stations played
all styles of music, it was pretty eclectic.
Ray was an average seven-year-old kid taking piano lessons when one day he
looked at the keyboard and, in his words, "It all made sense." From that day
forward, music was his life. By the time he was a teenager in Albany, GA., he
had absorbed some of the great musical influences of the South, from country to
rhythm & blues, and felt at home with any style of music. He started his own
high school band at age 15. His band, The Barons, played all over the area for
the American Legion, the Elks, private parties, anywhere.
At age 17, he moved to Atlanta where he met radio personality and Georgia
Tech football broadcaster, Bill Lowery. "Bill played all kinds of shows. He was
on several different radio stations around town, and he had started a music
publishing company. He was looking for talent to write songs. I went out to his
house, and I said, 'My name is Ray Ragsdale, and I'm going to learn to write
songs for you.' He said, 'Okay lad, go to it.' I borrowed a little tape recorder
from a friend. I got the key to the lunch room, which also served as the
assembly hall, from the high school principal. The cafeteria had a very high
ceiling and a piano up on a little stage. I went there one Sunday by myself and
made a demo of a song that I had written called "Silver Bracelet." I took it to
Bill and he liked it. He called Ken Nelson at Capitol Records who was coming to
Nashville a lot during those days to produce records. Ken liked the song and
signed me to a contract with Prep Records."
In 1957, Ray went to Nashville and recorded his first record at the old RCA
"B" studio. He met Chet Atkins, who was in charge of A&R for RCA, on that
first trip and they have been friends ever since. "Silver Bracelet" was a hit in
Atlanta but nowhere else. Ray left Prep Records and went to Capitol Records, its
parent label, and recorded some tracks. Meanwhile, Bill Lowery formed the
National Recording Corporation (NRC) in 1959.
NRC had a little studio that was not state of the art, but it was something
to play with. Ray, Jerry Reed, Joe South and all the guys down there, would show
up every day and bug the engineer to let them record something.
In 1960 Stevens, released a song called "Sgt. Preston Of The Yukon" that
picked up some national air play - until someone at King Features Syndicate took
notice. The song was based on their character and Ray had neglected to get
permission to use the name. Due to a pending lawsuit they had to pull the record
off the market. It never occurred to Ray that he needed permission to use the
character in a song.
Ray was attending Georgia State University to study classical piano and music
theory, but his classical career was cut short in 1961 when he recorded a
novelty song called "Jeremiah Peabody's Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast
Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills," which went to #35 on the pop
charts. In the meantime, his wide range of talent landed him a job with Mercury
Records in Nashville. He arrived in Music City on January 2, 1962, and worked on
more than 300 sessions as a pianist, arranger and vocalist in his first year.
One of those sessions was his own "Ahab The Arab," which went to #5 on the pop
charts in 1962.
"I rely on my impressions of things that I read about or see. I keep up with
current events and check up on what's going on. If there's a topic everybody is
talking about, then there's usually a good comedy song in there somewhere.
Usually if it's something I think is funny then other people probably think it's
funny, too," says the nine time TNN-Music City News Comedian of the year.
Ray used to sing, occasionally, with the Jordanaires when one of their guys
couldn't make it. One day, Ray even performed with Elvis Presley on a session
for the movie Fun In Acapulco.
That was the only Elvis session Ray played on, he played trumpet with Charlie
McCoy. "I'm a terrible trumpet player. I played keyboards, of course, and they
didn't need me to play on this particular song. It was a sort of Mexican song,
so they asked us to get our trumpets and play a little Mexican lick on it, and
we did. I'll never forget that! The only Elvis session I ever played on, I
played an instrument that I could barely hold. Later on, I published a song that
Elvis recorded, his last hit before he died, 'Way Down'."
With "Ahab The Arab" rising up the charts, it ended his career as the
assistant A&R person at Mercury. He recorded "Harry, The Hairy Ape," and
"Santa Claus Is Watching You." Then his records tapered off. "It's my fault,
because I didn't pay enough attention to being a star. I was still enamored with
life in the studio and producing."
Stevens then joined Monument Records as a producer overseeing new artists,
such as a young Dolly Parton. At Monument, Ray added songs like "Unwind" and
"Mr. Businessman" to his repertoire.
Ray says he did not understand the marketing strategy that dictated you had
to stick with one style of music or you would confuse the public, and radio
stations didn't know what to do. "I am first and foremost a musician. I love
music, but I do have a sense of humor and I love to do a funny song. But by the
same token, I want it to be good musically as well as funny. I not only want the
lyric but the production and the sound to tell the story."
In 1969, Stevens embarked on a phenomenal streak of recordings that drew from
all styles of music. The jungle band comedy of "Gitarzan" returned him to the
pop Top 10, while on the country front he recognized the talent of a young
Nashville writer and became the first artist to record Kris Kristofferson's
"Sunday Morning Coming Down." Ray actually passed on the chance to record
"Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" because he was working on the release of
"Sunday Morning Coming Down." Later in 1969 he hit the pop charts again with a
revival of the old Coasters pop/R&B hit "Along Came Jones."
In 1970, Ray joined Barnaby Records, which was owned by singer Andy Williams.
After Ray performed on Williams' television variety show, he became Barnaby's
first contemporary signee. During the summer of 1970 Ray hosted the summer
replacement show for the Andy Williams' show on NBC. Ray needed a hit song for
the show. He went down to his basement were his piano was and stayed there for
three days. He had crumpled paper all over the place when suddenly he hit on
"Everything Is Beautiful." He wrote the song in about 45 minutes and he knew it
was a hit.
"Everything Is Beautiful" became Rays' first #1 pop hit and won him a Grammy
Award as Male Vocalist of the Year. Unfortunately, Ray was on tour in Australia
at the time and was not able to personally accept the award.
For the next few years he continued to release music from gospel to comedy.
In 1974, while flying to Los Angeles, Ray read an article about a new fad among
college students called streaking. He made a few notes and decided he would
finish the song later. By the time Ray recorded "The Streak" 15 or 16 other
streaking records were already on the market. Ray took the song to the #1 pop
station in Nashville and they played it and the phones lit up like they've never
lit up before. The record was released five days after 33-year-old advertising
executive Robert Opel sneaked into the 1974 Academy Awards broadcast and
"streaked" across the Oscar stage past David Niven. This made front page news
and the release of "The Streak" was perfect timing. Ray's record beat out all
the others to be his second #1 pop hit.
In 1975, Ray received his second Grammy Award. This time is was in the
catagory of Best Arrangement for the remake of the Erroll Gardner/Johnny Burke
classic "Misty." He came upon the remake purely by accident one day, in his
recording studio, while rehearsing his band for a TV show they were to appear on
in a few days. During the break they started clowning around with "Misty" with a
banjo and a fiddle and a steel guitar. It sounded great so Ray called the
engineer to come down and they recorded the song.
"Misty" was one of the last hits Stevens had for Barnaby Records. Andy
Williams wanted to shut the label down so Ray signed with Warner Brothers
Records. It was during this time that Ray's publishing company was also enjoying
the success of the song "Way Down" that Elvis had recorded. Ray also recorded
"In The Mood" and "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow" while with Warner Brothers.
From 1979 to 1984, Ray recorded for RCA Records. His major novelty hit during
this time was "Shriner's Convention." This song came from a real experience in a
hotel that was booked full of Shriners.
In 1984, Ray signed with MCA Records and had hits with "Mississippi Squirrel
Revival," and "It's Me Again Margaret." Ray says, to this day, he can't go on
stage without several people yelling, "It's Me Again Margaret!"
When visiting record stores you can find many Ray Stevens Greatest Hits
collections. Most of these releases are not under Ray's control. Former labels
like Monument, Barnaby, Warner Brothers, etc. have licensed and relicensed and
re-relicensed his hits. It used to concern Ray but he has since realized that he
has no control over these releases.
Ray built his own theater in Branson, MO and performed there from 1991
through 1993. It was a 2,000 seat theater with shows six days a week, twice
daily, for six months at a time. In the span of 17 months he performed to over
1,600,000 fans. Ray sold the theatre in 1994.
During his time in Branson, Ray made some music videos of some of his
greatest hits to spice up his stage show. They worked so well that he decided to
sell them through a mail order/television advertising campaign that proved to be
successful beyond imagination. The video was released on Ray's own Clyde
Records, Inc. label, named after Clyde the camel from the song "Ahab The Arab."
(Clyde Records, Inc. is a direct marketing label and does not have any in-store
availability).
Ray's video Comedy Video Classics,which was released in 1992, ended up
selling over two million copies. He then released his "Live" video from the
Branson show in 1993 and it has sold over one million copies. In 1995, Ray made
a full-length movie titled Get Serious. It earned platinum status from TV
advertising and was released to retail outlets by MCA Records in late 1996.
Also in 1996, Ray returned to the studio to record a new comedy album titled
Hum It, on MCA Records. This album contains songs like "Virgil And The
Moonshot", "Too Drunk To Fish" and "R.V." That same year he also released a
video titled "Ray Stevens-Latest & Greatest." This music video collection
contains four of the songs from the original "Comedy Video Classics" and six
songs from his movie "Get Serious."
In 1997, Ray released his very first Christmas album called Ray Stevens -
Christmas Through A Different Window, on MCA Records, which is a skewed view
of real life with songs like "Bad Little Boy", "Guilt For Christmas" and "Little
Drummer Boy-Next Door."
In 2000 Ray released a new video album containing eight new comedy music
videos titled Ray Stevens Funniest Video Characters. This collection
includes such greats as "The Pirate Song", "The Haircut Song" and "The Ballad of
the Blue Cyclone".
As we enter a new millennium Ray Stevens has returned to Curb Records with
his creative juices in full flow. He has recorded yet another Video Album and
this time he appears on screen with cartoon characters from some of his
favorites like "Erik the Awful" and "Bridget the Midget the Queen of the Blues".
Also, he has a new CD of what the world might call "straight" songs like "It
Won't Be Easy", "Come On Home to Baseball", and "Blue Angel" plus seven more all
with a Ray Stevenseque twist. He has a new CD of comedy tunes that manages to
find the humor in everything from dogs and cats to funerals and having a baby
"the natural way". But probably the most exciting Ray Stevens project in years
is a CD titled "Ray Stevens Sings Frank Sinatra...Say What???". In this, Stevens
presents his non-comedic interpretation of 10 Old Blues Classics but not with
big orchestral arrangements. Stevens delivers a unique performance with a rock n
roll combo that shows why he so richly deserves that Male Vocalist Grammy that
hangs in a treasured place in his home.
Ray brought us the pop classic "Everything is Beautiful", the insightful "Mr.
Businessman" and a grammy winning arrangement of "Misty." He has memorably
spoofed everything from Tarzan movies ("Gitarzan") to trendy crazes ("The
Streak") to taxes ("If 10% is Good Enough for Jesus - It Oughta be Enough for
Uncle Sam") to tel evangelists ("Would Jesus Wear a Rolex"). He's even concocted
cheerfully absurd classics based on a bumbling prank phone caller ("It's Me
Again Margaret") and a squirrel that receives credit for causing miracles
("Mississippi Squirrel Revival").
Ray Stevens is at home with his genre of music, that's for sure. A genre of
his own creating. A Pop, Country, rock and Novelty niche that can only be
described as...Ray Stevens Music.
Source:
Ray Stevens.Com
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