Name: All-Time Greatest Hits Ray Stevens
Brand: Varese Records
SKU: 164565
Availability: OutOfStock

All-Time Greatest Hits Ray Stevens

Rating

Album: All-Time Greatest Hits Ray Stevens
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
2)	Ahab the Arab
3)	Harry the Hairy Ape
4)	Funny Man
5)	Freddie Feelgood (And His Funky Little Five Piece Band) - (single version)
6)	Unwind
7)	Mr. Businessman - (single version)
8)	Isn't It Lonely Together
9)	Gitarzan
10)	Along Came Jones
11)	Sunday Morning Coming Down
12)	Have a Little Talk With Myself
13)	Everything Is Beautiful
14)	America, Communicate With Me
15)	Bridget the Midget (The Queen of the Blues)
16)	All My Trials
17)	Turn Your Radio On
18)	Nashville
19)	Streak, The
20)	Everybody Needs a Rainbow
21)	Misty
22)	Indian Love Call
23)	Young Love

Album: All-Time Greatest Hits Ray Stevens
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
2)	Ahab the Arab
3)	Harry the Hairy Ape
4)	Funny Man
5)	Freddie Feelgood (And His Funky Little Five Piece Band) - (single version)
6)	Unwind
7)	Mr. Businessman - (single version)
8)	Isn't It Lonely Together
9)	Gitarzan
10)	Along Came Jones
11)	Sunday Morning Coming Down
12)	Have a Little Talk With Myself
13)	Everything Is Beautiful
14)	America, Communicate With Me
15)	Bridget the Midget (The Queen of the Blues)
16)	All My Trials
17)	Turn Your Radio On
18)	Nashville
19)	Streak, The
20)	Everybody Needs a Rainbow
21)	Misty
22)	Indian Love Call
23)	Young Love

Performer Notes

Producers: Ray Stevens, Fred Foster, Jim Malloy.
Compilation producer: Cary E. Mansfield.
Recorded between 1960 & 1976. Includes liner notes by Brian Mansfield.
Digitally remastered by Evren Goknar & Marty Wekser (Capitol Mastering, Hollywood, California).
Liner Note Author: Brian Mansfield.
Arranger: Ray Stevens.
This suffers from a major drawback that prevents it from being a definitive Ray Stevens greatest-hits compilation: It doesn't have his early-'60s Mercury hits. (The versions of "Ahab the Arab" and "Harry the Hairy Ape," his two biggest singles for the label, are not the Mercury originals, but re-recordings from the 1969 Gitarzan album.) Other than that, this covers the major bases of his recording career, including his Monument hits from the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s, such as "Mr. Businessman," "Gitarzan," "The Streak," "Misty," and "Everything Is Beautiful." The appearance of his 1960 single "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" -- which bubbled under the Top 100 before the company that owned the rights to the Sgt. Preston television character had it taken off the market -- is a bonus. That song is rare and, like "Ahab the Arab," it's a Coasters-like novelty with more of a mainstream novelty approach than the Coasters used. Otherwise, this dwells on Stevens' commercial prime, when he alternated between novelty/comedy songs and sentimental, middle-of-the-road pop tunes with a country flavor. It's an odd and not wholly integrated mixture, and plenty of his low-charting singles in both idioms are represented, from "Freddie Feelgood (And His Funny Little Five Piece Band)" to "Unwind" and his covers of the Coasters' "Along Came Jones" and Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." ~ Richie Unterberger