Ray Stevens is better known for novelty hits like "Ahab the Arab" & "Guitarzan" in the 60's, and "The Streak" in the 70's, and even headlined his own NBC variety show in the early 70's, as memory serves.
But, there was a more serious side to Stevens, steeped in gospel music, and, mixed in with those comedy classics were a couple of tracks that crossed between the gospel and country or pop charts. One was a cover of the traditional hymnal, "Turn Your Radio On", and the other was 1970's "Everything is Beautiful". I remember the youth pastor of a church I attended in the 70's teaching kids the opening lines to "Beautiful", but never making the connection until I acquired a used 45 of the song at a second hand shop after moving to my current abode.
The following clip, culled from Stevens' YouTube channel, was shot in more recent times for a DVD release, and thus you have a different chorus than the original track, which was comprised mostly of Sunday School children, I think.
2 comments:
Hello! I'm a gigantic fan of Ray Stevens. Other than this being a re-recording by Ray from 1992 the song, to the best of my knowledge, is exactly as it was originally recorded in 1970. I didn't notice any difference in the song's chorus!?
The opening intro of "Jesus Loves the Little Children" is intact and it's the only time it appeared on the song. The chorus didn't feature the singing children...it did feature a choir from a local church singing harmony at different points during the chorus but this is duplicated in the 1992 re-recording, too.
I don't own the actual 45 single from 1970 but I have the 1970 recording on cassette and I have the Everything Is Beautiful album as well. Unless the 45 had a slightly different presentation that I'm unaware of, this music video is in step with all the performances of the song that I've heard.
Thanks for clarifying. I couldn't remember when the re-record was done, and I had the Comedy Classics video on VHS at one time, before I began buying DVD's.
My memory is a bit hazy about the original, and the 45 would be taken from the original album, so thanks for your kind assistance. God bless you.
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