Once, while still in radio, I got the chance to speak to him on the phone. (He lent his voice in support for a charity I was involved in: The Cystic Fibrosis Telethon. At THAT time we called it “The 65 Roses Telethon” - which was a misunderstood version of the charity by a child with the disease - and MANY florists in Carrollton made sure we had THAT many roses in the studio!).
Anyway… Ray spoke with me on the phone and let me record his voice, and he made a mistake, which he apologized PROFUSELY for:
He said: “Cystis Fibrokik”.
Bless you, Ray Stevens!
You were a friend to “The German Boy” ever since Ahab The Arab!
Guitarzan is one of those songs that, when you’re ten years old, makes you do cartwheels all over the living room till you break something and your mom forces you to go outside. “Shut up, baby, I’m trying to sing.” Comic genius!
"He’d blow up flat tires to keep his lungs in shape
And his face would turn purple like a big fat grape
Ev’ry time he cut out on the chorus of “Clare de Lou”
Loved his stuff - was there ever an episode of ‘Doctor Demento’ that didn’t feature at least one of Ray Stevens’ compositions? A happy memory from a simpler time…
Thanks, Quasi, for this thread. Ray has done so many hilarious tunes, from The Streak to Moonlight Special. One of my favorites is this one: I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow.
A dead on parody, it has all the overblown melodrama of a genuine Manilow song and name-drops so many of his song titles. Carrying on the parody, it’s from the album The Feeling’s Gone Again, which came out about the same time as Manilow’s album Trying to Get the Feeling Again.
His songs always made the best titles for Charades. Especially Ned Nostril (and His South Seas Paradise, Put Your Blues on Ice Cheap at Twice the Price Band–Icky Icky Ucky Ucky.)
I think the reason I like Southern Culture on the Skids so much is early exposure to Ray Stevens. Gotta love “The Streak”, “Shriner’s Convention”, “Mississippi Squirrel Revival”–all the classics!
My husband’s a huge fan. It’s funny though - I bought him some Stevens CDs and one of Dr. Demento’s compendiums for his birthday a couple of years ago, and I think he’s only listened to them once. But maybe we just need a long roadtrip to pull them out again.
A friend of mine was a studio musician in Nashville who played guitar on “The Streak.” He tells an interesting story about the song.
Ray Stevens was in Los Angeles at some event that got streaked. He called the studio in Nashville and said he was going to do a song on the subject.
Stevens wrote part of the song in L.A. and phoned in what he had. Then he wrote and revised the rest of the song on the airplane back to Nashville and radioed in the updates.
When the plane landed Stevens went right to the studio to record the song. The musicians were there waiting for him.
