Cray and his ray of 'hope'

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Cray and his ray of 'hope'
Stephen Taylor /
Daily Yomiuri Online

The election of Barack Obama as U.S. president has affected the songwriting of Robert Cray's new album, slated for release in August.

"We don't have George [W.] Bush. We can still kick him around, but he's not the brunt of our anger right now," the blues musician told The Daily Yomiuri over the phone from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., last week, ahead of his appearance at the Japan Blues and Soul Festival in Nagoya, Sendai and Tokyo this weekend.

Cray recorded a number of songs relating to the Iraq War on his two previous studio albums (Time Will Tell and Twenty), but his new collection, This Time, is a reflection of the 55-year-old's more positive outlook these days.

"We've got a few new blues tunes on the record, there's some really cool stuff. I think the band, with the personnel, has got a different feel," Cray explained.

The son of a U.S. Army officer, Cray was exposed to a wide variety of music in his youth through his parents' record collections when they lived in Germany in the early 1960s.

"My dad was into Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughan and Miles Davis, and on Sundays he'd listen to gospel music, like the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Swan Silvertones.

"My mom was into the singers, she was into Jackie Wilson, Bobby Bland, Sam Cooke and all that," he recalled.

It was four lads from Liverpool who initially inspired the teenage Cray to pick up his first six-string.

"We came back to the States in the mid-'60s and then the Beatles hit--I wanted to be a Beatle--and I got a guitar, after playing piano for about a year or so in Germany," he said.

But it wasn't until his mid-teens that he discovered blues music, through stalwarts such as Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy, and found his true musical calling, with one particular guitarist having a profound effect on the young Cray.

"Albert Collins had been playing some of the festivals and gigs around the area and our high school graduating class voted for him to play our high school graduation party, and then we wanted to be just like him," he said, before adding that he didn't have to wait too long to share the same stage with his hero.

"I graduated high school in '71 and we started working together in '76...and it turned out that for the next year and a half we worked off and on with Albert whenever he came to the West Coast," he remembered.

Cray's appearance on stage with Collins at a festival in 1977 brought him to the attention of a couple men who would become very influential in his career.

"[Record producers] Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker, they saw us at the San Francisco Blues Festival, and we recorded our first record, called Who's Been Talkin' for the Tomato record label," he explained.

Bad Influence, released in 1983, was the first of a string of successful albums, such as False Accusations and Strong Persuader, for the Robert Cray Band in the '80s, with his mellow guitar style providing a seemingly authentic dose of the blues for a newly emerging affluent CD-buying market. Some purists balked at the band's crossover appeal, though Cray sees it as anything but forced.

"It occurred naturally because it was a result of all the music we had grown up with listening to and not just myself but the bandmates as well, you know. We loved Blues, loved R'n'B, we were versed in rock, we loved the Gospel music that I grew up listening to, and so all those things played a part," he said before explaining that he was never under any illusions about his most successful release during that time.

"It was coming from all different directions, so I think that's why the crossover and then sometimes people go, 'Yeah, Strong Persuader was a great Blues record,' and I go, 'What Blues was on that record?'" he recalled with a laugh.

These days, Cray has a loyal following who not only have grown up with his music, but also have turned their children on to it.

Meanwhile, Cray is looking forward to his first trip to Japan in several years.

"I've always had a good time and the audiences are great. People know about the music they come and see and it's always been that way," he said.

And as the United States enters a new era with a fresh face in the White House, Cray feels very optimistic about the future.

"Now we can have conversations with other people, and that's a start. I'm not going to hold his feet to the fire for anything, you know, but just for people to talk to one another is where you have to be, and to be a part of the whole world. We're a part, we're not an island unto ourselves--America--that's what I'm happy about."

The Japan Blues and Soul Festival will play tonight at the Bottom Line in Nagoya, 7 p.m. (052) 741-1620; Saturday at Zepp in Sendai, 6:30 p.m. (022) 257-7975; and Sunday at Hibiya Outdoor Theater in Hibiya, Tokyo, 3:30 p.m. (03) 5453-8899.