{"id":23522,"date":"2019-07-10T14:03:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T19:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/?p=23522"},"modified":"2019-07-10T14:03:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T19:03:11","slug":"robert-cray-7-9-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/robert-cray-7-9-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Cray 7\/9\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\nAbout Robert Cray:<br \/>\n<iframe width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lKDnzbQgt-g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nGrowing up in the Northwest, Robert Cray listened to the gospel of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, Bobby Bland\u2019s soul, Jimi Hendrix\u2019s rock guitar and the Beatles pop sounds. He would bring all of the influences into play throughout his career, but his teenage band was captivated by Southern Soul and the blues. \u201cIn the early days of the band we were getting back into O.V. Wright and paying attention to my favorite blues players; Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Albert King and especially Albert Collins,\u201d Cray says.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas-born blues guitarist known as Master of the Telecaster, Albert Collins, sealed the deal on the Cray Band\u2019s early direction. The musical highlight of Cray\u2019s senior year was his class voting to bring Collins in to play a graduation party.<\/p>\n<p>The glow of a career in music began when Cray was a teen, and in 1974 it burst into flames as the Robert Cray Band came together in Eugene, Oregon. How strong was the fire? \u201cRichard and I didn\u2019t own a vehicle, and we were staying with his girlfriend in Eugene. We hitched a ride to Salem, where our drummer Tom Murphy was going to school, to rehearse,\u201d Cray recalls.<\/p>\n<p>With the group\u2019s 1980 debut release, Who\u2019s Been Talkin\u2019, word about the Cray Band began to spread across the Northwest and down in to California. Playing packed bars and roadhouses the Cray Band was thrilling. Yes, fans could hear an Albert Collins guitar riff and a Howlin\u2019 Wolf song but the sound was present. Blues and soul fans showed up religiously, but those steamy raucous sets also drew crowds whose tastes in music ranged from rock to funk and jazz.<\/p>\n<p>Also among the Cray Band admirers were other musicians. John Lee Hooker put his appreciation into action. \u201cThe first time we played with Hooker was in Montana. We were opening the set and he was playing solo,\u201d Cray recalls. \u201cWe\u2019d never met him before but he just walked on stage and started playing with us. We dug the hell out of the guy, and after that we were friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Cray Band\u2019s next two releases \u2013 Bad Influence and False Accusations \u2013 charted, taking the four-piece\u2019s sound across the airways and abroad. The group was on a roll, but the players slept on couches. \u201cWe were just road rats,\u201d Cray says with a chuckle. \u201cWe\u2019d take a break for two weeks to record, then go back out. We didn\u2019t have a house, a home, any of those responsibilities.\u201d On one of those breaks Cray went into the studio with Collins and another great Texas guitarist and singer, Johnny Clyde Copeland, to record Showdown!, a CD that has become essential to any 80s electric blues collection.<\/p>\n<p>It was the sounds of the blues and soul that first drew attention from artists in the rock arena. In an interview Eric Clapton gives his initial response to Robert Cray saying, \u201cAs a blues fan, we\u2019re saved.\u201d The Cray Band\u2019s beginnings did bring the sounds of its mentors into the mainstream, even taking the music of John Lee Hooker, Etta James and Albert Collins to a larger, younger audience. But no one knew how broad the band\u2019s audience would be until the Cray Band opened the ears of rock radio programmers. With the 1986 release of Strong Persuader the Cray Band\u2019s tunes were put in heavy rotation on mega rock stations across the nation. The first hit, \u201cSmoking Gun,\u201d was followed by \u201cI Guess I Showed Her\u201d and \u201cRight Next Door (Because of Me).\u201d The Cray Band\u2019s next two releases, Don\u2019t Be Afraid of the Dark and Midnight Stroll, brought more radio listeners to record stores, increasing sales of the group\u2019s CDs.<\/p>\n<p>Following the path of fame taken by blues-based rockers like Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cray became a sensation, leading his band in concerts at large arena and rock festival. He was the first African American artist since Jimi Hendrix to rise to such fame in rock music. Was there a change in the band\u2019s direction or had the blues arrived again into the mainstream after more than three decades of being forgotten by radio? \u201cWe were doing blues and Rand B from the first,\u201d Crays says. \u201cThat\u2019s just part of what we do. If you\u2019re writing a tune it\u2019s only natural to grab something from someplace else. You\u2019re gonna put in some soul changes and some jazz, something you\u2019ve been listening to. With what we do there\u2019s a whole lot of room to move.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clapton\u2019s admiration for Cray led to a writing collaboration on the hit \u201cOld Love,\u201d which featured Cray on guitar. A call came from Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards who asked him to be in the film he and Steve Jordan were producing about the rock guitarist Chuck Berry, \u201cHail! Hail! Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll.\u201d Concert footage in the film features Richards, Jordan, Clapton, Julian Lennon, Linda Ronstadt and Etta James. Cray performs \u201cBrown Eyed Handsome Man\u201d with Berry. Dressed in a baby blue tuxedo jacket, the young guitarist is the epitome of the tune\u2019s title. Cray also performed on the Tina Turner TV special \u201cBreak Every Rule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the 90s the Cray Band was featured in concert with artists like Clapton, the Stones, John Lee Hooker, BB King and Bonnie Raitt, who declared that the band leader is \u201can original; he\u2019s passionate, he\u2019s a bad ass and puts on one of the best shows you\u2019ll ever see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amidst these accolades, soaring record sales and a packed touring schedule the Cray Band recorded six CDs in the 90s. Cray produced Shame + A Sin, which referenced his blues roots, in 1993. It was followed by two more self-produced recordings, Some Rainy Morning and Sweet Potato Pie. Recorded in Memphis and featuring the famed Memphis Horns Sweet Potato Pie was the Cray Band\u2019s most soulful album to date. The next recording Take Off Your Shoes delved even deeper into Memphis sounds of the 60s. \u201cThat was definitely a soul record,\u201d Cray says. \u201cI\u2019d already been writing songs, Jim (Pugh, who was keyboards with the Cray Band from 1989 to 2014) was writing songs, leaning toward soul. Steve (Jordan, producer) heard them and put the icing on the cake.\u201d Jordan, who subsequently produced the Cray Band\u2019s In My Soul, Shoulda Been Home and the first CD in 4 Nights of 40 Years Live, also brought the personification of Memphis soul to the recording session, Willie Mitchell, to help with arrangements for the Memphis Horns. Mitchell discovered and first recorded Al Green along with other Southern Soul singers like Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright and Syl Johnson for the famed Memphis label Hi Records. When he arrived at the Cray recording session, he brought not only the Memphis presence but also a present. \u201cWillie came over \u2013 he was wearing a gold jacket \u2013 and gave me this song, \u2018Love Gone to Waste,\u2019\u201d Cray says. \u201cThen we put some final touches on the CD at his studio in Memphis. It was a great opportunity to see Willie in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both on Take Your Shoes Off and 4 Nights of 40 Years Live, \u201cLove Gone to Waste\u201d showcases Robert Cray\u2019s natural ease with soul ballads. He is intense but smooth in telling the story of love gone bad. Then in a falsetto voice he soars through the sadness into the inevitable pain. It is a song that Cray owns because no other singer has dared try to do it justice. Take Your Shoes Off won a Grammy in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>In the next decade the Cray Band recorded seven CDs, three of them live, and two \u2013 Twenty and This Time \u2013 were nominated for Grammys. The group\u2019s most recent recordings, Nothing But Love and In My Soul put the band back on the Billboard Charts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About Robert Cray: Growing up in the Northwest, Robert Cray listened to the gospel of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, Bobby Bland\u2019s soul, Jimi Hendrix\u2019s rock guitar and the Beatles pop sounds. He would bring all of the influences into play throughout his career, but his teenage band was captivated by Southern Soul and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-video","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-radio-guests","8":"post_format-post-format-video"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23525,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23522\/revisions\/23525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjagradio.com\/themic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}