INTERVIEW WITH BLUES
GUITAR LEGEND ROBERT CRAY
Originally appeared in the Centre County Gazette, March 2010
By Don Bedell
Blues guitarist and five-time Grammy Award winner Robert
Cray, currently on tour in support of his latest release, This Time, will make a stop in State College on Monday evening
(3/29) at the State Theatre. This Time is Cray’s first studio album
on his own label, Nozzle Records.
Cray was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1953 but admits that
he wasn’t there long. “My father was in
the Army, so I was born in Columbus, but only lived there for eleven months,”
Cray remembers. After that, it was on
to another Army base outside Tacoma, Washington followed by two to three year
stays at various other bases including Munich, Germany and Virginia, eventually
settling back in Washington state. The
continuous moving helped shape Cray’s early musical influences, “What we did
then, was we bought a lot of records at the Post Exchange (on base). Back in that day, my dad was listening to a
lot of different music … Gospel music on Sundays, in particular, but people
like Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughn and even B.B. King and John Lee Hooker
records were at our house. My mom was
into people like Sam Cooke and Bobby Bland and Jackie Wilson. So, as a young kid back in the early
sixties, I heard all that music growing up.”
Back in the states in the mid-60s, Cray got his first
guitar. It was at that same time that
“Beatlemania” began. “I got a guitar
and that’s what I wanted to do. I
wanted to be a Beatle.” (laughs) “I played everything that was on the radio
which included everything – everything was mixed up on the radio back in those
days so all the R&B and that stuff was on the radio as well.” During his teen years, with the family now
in Virginia, Cray started his first band playing everything from Sam & Dave
to Jimi Hendrix.
 |
| Cray onstage at The State Theatre. (Photo by Don Bedell) |
Once back in Washington state in his later teens, Cray had
attended some rock festivals and discovered electric blues guitar players like
Albert Collins and that’s what got him hooked.
What was it that eventually drew him in to electric guitar and the
blues? “It was just the emotion and I
hadn’t really picked up on that kind of soloing, that kind of emotion in the
guitar playing, the power in the guitar playing. You know, as you get older you start to hear it. Also, at the same time … it was the whole
fantasy. Here we were these teenage
guys … playing through a Super Reverb (amplifier) with the reverb turned up and
envisioning ourselves to be B.B. and Buddy and Albert Collins and Albert King
and Freddie King … everybody. But also
there were these guys who had all these cool nicknames like Muddy Waters and
Howlin’ Wolf. And there was also the
story about Robert Johnson and his, so-called, association with the devil. We were reading books and listening to these
songs and we were trying to figure out these people’s lives and their
worlds. These people became heroes to
me and my friends so we went at it with gusto!”
By 1969, Cray had met bassist Richard Cousins and the Robert
Cray Band began playing in Tacoma area bars and eventually moving to the
college town of Eugene, Oregon. The
band was asked to tour with one of Cray’s musical inspirations, Albert Collins,
during Collins’ Pacific Northwest Tour.
During this time, Cray also met comedian/actor John Belushi who gave
Cray a small part in Animal House. Cray
(uncredited) plays the bassist in the house band “Otis Day & The Nights” in
the film.
By the late 70’s, the Robert Cray Band had attracted the
attention of a record label leading to the 1980 debut release, Who’s Been Talkin’?
In 1983, Cray’s second album, Bad Influence, was released which lead to an eventual meeting with
Eric Clapton. Cray and Clapton remain
friends today. The band had been
offered the opportunity to do some shows with Clapton’s band in Europe. The first of those shows was at the Montreux
Jazz Festival in Switzerland. The man
who ran the festival came up to Cray during sound check telling him that he had
a copy of Clapton’s version of Cray’s song Bad
Influence. “I hadn’t met Eric yet
and then Eric showed up … and we sat on the lip of the stage and chatted about
the upcoming tour and we became friends.
After that, Eric started showing up at a lot of our gigs when we’d show
up in London, he’d just pop in. Over
the years, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to tour with Eric. We recorded together on the Journeyman record that he did. We co-wrote the song Old Love together, which was great. It’s been a good relationship over the years. He’s a great guy.”
Cray saw his biggest mainstream success with the 1986 release
of Strong Persuader. The album spawned a #22 Billboard Hot
100 hit with “Smokin’ Gun.” That album was back in the headlines
recently over the current Health Care Reform debate. Representative
John Larson, a Democratic Congressman from Connecticut, referred to Cray’s
album when hailing President Obama’s re-invigorated attitude in persuading
Americans to help pass the Health Care Bill.
Appearing on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC show ‘Hardball,’ Congressman Larson,
when asked about the effectiveness of the President’s speech at recent Town
Hall meetings discussing prospects of the complicated bill responded ”I’m glad
to see he (the President) has got it back…he’s into his Robert Cray mode...
he’s a Strong Persuader.” Cray was
watching as it happened, “My wife and I were sitting having a late lunch
watching the Chris Matthews show and we both looked at each other and did a
double take and said ‘Did he say what we thought he said?’ And we started
laughing. That was kinda funny. It was cool.”
Robert Cray plays Fender Stratocaster guitars. A relationship that lead to his designing his own Fender
Signature Series guitar. Cray explains,
“I got contacted by a guy at Fender named John Grunder. He approached me and he said that ‘We’d like
to work on a Custom Shop Model of yours – your own signature.” That was around 1989. At that time, Cray was playing a 1964 Strat
and a 1958 Strat Sunburst. The ’58 is
the model featured on the cover of Cray’s Strong
Persuader album. “What we did is we
got those two guitars together and we tried to work out a medium between the
necks of the two some pick-ups for the guitar.
We probably got the guitar out about ’91. More recently, we’ve added a less expensive model. Fender’s been a joy to work with.”
Cray’s new release This Time
is a bit of returning to his roots, of sorts.
The new album brought a reunion with one of Cray’s oldest friends,
bassist Richard Cousins. “At the end of
2008, it was time for a change and so I had been talking to Richard about
coming back to the band. When the tour
(with his previous band) ended, I contacted Richard … and said ‘We’ve got to
get a drummer,’ and he (Cousins) just said, ‘Tony!’” Cousins was referring to Tony Braunagel, who Cray and Cousins had
played with at a benefit show. The new
lineup, which includes Jim Pugh, Cray’s keyboardist since 1989, started
rehearsals in December of 2008 to start a tour, but also to prepare to enter
the studio in January of 2009. “So, we
rented this farm house and did like the old hippie days and just made music …
and brought in songs and rehearsed. It
was great, we had a really good time.
(There was) a lot of good energy in the band having Richard back. He and I work really well together. It was fun.
It was almost like starting a new band.
There was really good energy in the studio and I think it comes out on
the record.”
The new album was a real collaborative effort with all members of the
band contributing new songs. It even
includes a song co-written by Cray and his wife, Sue Turner-Cray. The song, Forever Goodbye, deals with recent losses that they have
experienced. “My wife, Sue and myself
have written (together) in the past, but we shared the lyric (on Forever Goodbye) because of loss that
both of us had over the years in her mom and one of my brothers. So, we put that song together.”
Cray says that needs “space” when writing new material. “I need to have my head cleared from being
out on the road. When I’m on the road,
my concern is the road. It’s different
than other people. I know people that
get up in the morning, have their coffee and they’re writing. I can’t do that. I have to clear my head from the road for a little bit and then I
can have my coffee and write. (laughs)
And then it’s for an immediate purpose.
It’s for a deadline to go into the studio. I work best under pressure.
I got a nickname from my old producer, Dennis Walker. It’s ‘Last Minute Bob.’ (laughs)
It’s an on-going process anyway.
Once you’re in the studio and you’re signing your lyric, you’ve got a
pencil there and you can change them.
That’s always the case.”
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