From Beatles to Blues

From Beatles to Blues
February 26, 2011
by Brad Patton
The Times Leader

Robert Cray is well-known for playing the blues, but that’s not the type of music that originally inspired him to pick up a guitar.

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Nate Harbaugh (drums and vocals; in front), Derek Jolley (guitar and lead vocals), Danny Washington (bass) and Frazee Sutphen (guitar) make up Larksville’s Ticket to Ride band.

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If you go

Who: The Robert Cray Band with Shemekia Copeland

When: 8 tonight

Where: F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts, Public Square , Wilkes-Barre

Tickets: $34.50 to $44.50

Call: 826-1100 or visit www.ticketmaster.com

“I got a guitar because The Beatles came out,” Cray said in a recent telephone interview from a tour stop in Verona, N.Y. “I wanted to be a Beatle, and my parents thought I was nuts.”

Cray, a five-time Grammy Award winner best known for his 1986 album “Strong Persuader ” and its hit single, “Smoking Gun,” will play Wilkes-Barre’s F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts tonight. The show gets under way at 8 p.m. with a set by fellow blues performer Shemekia Copeland.

A few years after his Beatles-inspired beginnings, Cray saw Jimi Hendrix perform, and his whole life changed.

“After that, I started listening to all these guys with cool names like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. I got really into blues and R&B right before getting out of high school.”

After stints in bands with names like Steakface and Foghorn Leghorn in high school, the first incarnation of the Robert Cray Band was put together in 1974. After building a following in the Pacific Northwest and making a successful move to San Francisco in 1976, Cray soon found his signature sound with the acquisition of his first Fender Stratocaster (there is now a “Robert Cray Signature Model”). His debut album (“Who’s Been Talkin’”) appeared in 1980.

With a move to a major label, everything came together for Cray and his band in 1986.

“In the ’80s, there were not as many outlets for music as there are now,” he said. “We were getting radio play, the record company was out there pushing the record, and we were making videos for a thing called MTV. Plus there were other artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan , the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Los Lobos out at the same time with the same sort of rootsy style of music. Everything just sort of worked in our favor.”

Released in November 1986, “Strong Persuader” was a crossover smash for Cray, reaching No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and spawning his signature tune, “Smoking Gun,” which made it to No. 22 on the Hot 100 and No. 2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The album was later ranked No. 42 on “Rolling Stone” magazine’s “100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s” and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010.

The follow-up album, 1988’s “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” was just as good but couldn’t duplicate its predecessor’s success. Subsequent records, including “This Time,” his latest studio collection from 2009, and “Cookin’ in Mobile,” a 2010 combo live CD/DVD, have continued to be well-received in blues circles, garnering a total of 15 Grammy nominations and five awards.

“I love blues music, but I listen to and play all different styles as well,” Cray said. “When I write and play, it is a reflection of everything I have heard, not just the blues. I don’t sit down to write a specific style or have a certain flavor in mind; I just let it go where it wants to go.”

Since reconnecting with bassist Richard Cousins in 2008 (Cousins played with Cray from 1974 through 1991) and re-establishing the Robert Cray Band with him, keyboardist Jim Pugh and drummer Tony Braunagel, Cray has become even more adventurous on stage.

“We don’t use a set list,” he said. “Richard will ask as we’re going out on stage, ‘What do you want to do first?’ And that’s when we decide.

“We’ll probably do ‘Smoking Gun’ and ‘Right Next Door,’ but outside of that, who knows? I like the challenge of that. And I like that every show ends up different than the night before.”