One of our fellowship, Elder Mike, thought I could use a laugh; so he recommended this–Leroy Troy singing Ghost Chickens in the Sky.
Mike was right. This thing is totally preposterous, and it made me laugh.
And I’m convinced a good laugh is a gift from God.
I also like the humor of Ray Stevens. With such interesting beauties as; “Would Jesus Wear A Rolex,” “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival,” and one of my favorites “Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens.” A parodying look at the teenage mutant turtle craze. If you haven’t heard these three songs before, might I suggest a listen.
I also enjoy his gospel songs, such as “Turn Your Radio On,” which would be a good request.
Somehow I never heard of him till yesterday.
Ray Stevens is the novelty king of Nashville. To the best of my knowledge, his first claim to fame was with Ahab the Arab, a novelty song back in the early ‘60s. Over the years, he’s popped up with any number of songs. Before I go further, I must state that he is a competent musician. He’s produced other artist’s work and is respected in the industry.
He’s a natural comic and seems to have a sense for social trends, and took advantage of opportunities caused by social phenomenon, such as The Streak, which poked fun at the Streaking fad which streaked its way through our society in 1974. He had to have been quick on his feet in order to get that written, produced and released while it was still relevant, but he pulled it off.
He also has a serious side and won a Grammy for Everything Is Beautiful, which starts with the words: “Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world. Red or yellow, black of white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world”, sung by a children’s choir, and then proceeds into a lovely song about the positive things in life. Not a novelty song in the sense of being humorous, but novel sentiments in 1970, when angst seemed to be the most marketable of all commodities.
He also did a countrified version of Misty, allegedly as part of a bet. Stevens bet that he could make a hit from any song, and was then challenged to get the sentimental, extremely romantic ‘50s ballad Misty back on the charts. Against all odds, he arranged a version of Misty including 5 string banjo and Country phrasing, which reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, in the US and was number 2 in the UK. As a person who’s played this song for over 50 years, I like Stevens’ version much more than most. He won another Grammy for this one.
Chet Atkins, a witty man of there ever was one, was inspired to write a song about the incongruity of televangelists soliciting donations while wearing a Rolex, which he co-wrote with Margaret Archer Bailey. Stevens sense of timing was, once again spot on, and he released it in 1987, during a period of scandal involving televangelists. It was nominated for a Grammy, unfortunately not winning. The song has taken on a life of its own being used as a touchstone when exposing hypocrisy among people whom seek to sell promises of blessings to the desperate and unwary.
He’s done any number of songs and video productions over the years, and kept his hand in play for a long time now. He has released Gospel recordings and comes across as a sincere believer. I’ve always respected him.
Wow! Ahab the Arab, The Streak–I remember those! It seems so long ago since I heard those songs–teenagers carried portable radios, back then.
I had no idea Ray Stevens has been around this long.
His first recording was in 1957. From what I understand, he was a fairly major player in the Nashville recording scene, and smart enough to know that serving as producer keeps the money coming in. An artist will get a piece of their recording royalties, and even more if they wrote the song. But an artist will have a relative handful of albums released, unless they are at the very top of their field. OTOH, a good producer probably gets a smaller cut, but a skilled producer can be on many more recordings than any single artist is ever likely to come out with, and the long term residuals can be staggering.
This is what is known as “mailbox money”, which is to say that once you have a piece of a recording project, the money just keeps coming to your mailbox, from then on. Is used to envy artists whom had a successful recording, and they indeed get mailbox money, and sometimes a lot of it, but their producers usually do better in the long run. That model of compensation has pretty much broken, in our day, with streaming services dictating the terms and residuals having become barely worth the effort it takes to open your mailbox, and that a major reason why there’s so little truly good music being produced, in comparison of what it was in the pre digital era.
Would you agree that there’s still some pretty decent movie music?
Movie themes are one of the few places where there is still money to be made in the music biz’. Get a composition in a hit movie, and it can launch a career in soundtracks. Beyond that, every “new use” pays more. When Johnny Mandel’s Suicide is Painless was used in the movie MASH, he was paid for use of the composition. Then, when that same them was used on TV, he got paid for new use. If there had been a MASH video game which used the theme, he would have gotten paid for that new use, not to mention any soundtrack albums, etc. I suspect that Johnny Mandel’s mailbox wore out, and had to be replaced. 🙂
I always like reading the posts from unknowable2. While I don’t agree with everything, they are always well written. His information about Ray Stevens was informative, a few things I did not know.
It would have taken me over a week of research and time to write his posts about Stevens, and probably not have been as good. Well done brother.
Thank you.
I worked in music for a time, then aviation, ending up in the tech world. In the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time studying how music was produced, and who was actually behind some of the songs we heard on the radio. If it came out of LA in the ‘60s and on into the ‘70s, the musicians were likely from a small pool of players informally known as the Wrecking Crew. The Beach Boys in the morning, some TV theme in the afternoon and Sinatra in the evening. Almost totally anonymous, and some of them lived in mansions.
Nashville was the same, with the A-Team of session musicians, and my favorite guitar player, Chet Atkins, was the production genius behind a lot of what came out of RCA Nashville, back in the day.
As much as I admire the musicians, the producers did much of the heavy lifting, tending the herd so to speak, and gaining the favor of a name producer could mean the difference between a life slinging burgers at McDonald’s and a life of eating steak.
It’s a world that gave us some wonderful music, including Ray Stevens’ gems.
All right–who was responsible for “Guitar-zan”?
Definitely Ray Stevens. That was the inspiration for much of my life. Ok, maybe not. 🙂
There is a very hard Rocker by the name of Ted Nugent. I am neither endorsing or criticizing his music. He always came across as super macho and, at least in the ‘70s, seemed to cater to an audience of pubescent males, who wanted a larger than life Rock n’ Roll role model. (Say that one fast ten times in a row.)
Part of his shtick was to swing out on stage from a prop vine, wearing a loincloth. I’m not into his music, nor do I like the way be treated beautiful Gibson Byrdland guitars, but I have to admit that it was great vaudeville, much like Kiss, or Alice Cooper.
BTW, Alice Cooper gave up both booze and drugs, returned to Christ, and runs a youth ministry, these days. He comes across as a very nice fellow. Many of those shock acts were just theater. Old vaudevillians, such as Jack Benny or George Burns would take in Cooper’s shows.
Not my cup of tea.
I’m no fan of Nugent’s music, by any means. When I taught guitar students, there were plenty of kids that wanted to learn that stuff, but I hated it.
One thing to keep in mind is that all of these people are actors and the music is part of the act. I expended a lot of emotional energy hating some of these acts, only to later realize that it was all part of the act.
The 1987 “The Ballad of the Blue Cyclone” by Stevens is one of his best; what a story it is. Just make sure you listen to parts one and two. Brother Lee, I think that one will leave a smile on your lips.
I just now got around to watching the video. Marty Stuart was sure bustin’ up over it, and so was I. Very funny, very clever, and I love the down home accent on the vocals.
BTW, Marty Stuart is said to be a very devout and decent man. He’s also an excellent guitarist and, of course, a great singer. Hard working too, he puts a lot into his show.