Robert Cray Interview: A Life in Blues

By: Rick Landers

Master storyteller and guitarist extraordinaire Robert Cray smiles as he walks across the stage at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, steps up to the mic, and unleashes a song torrent that pulls the packed house into his orbit.

The cool darkened pitch of the opener “Poor Johnny,” his signature sound on “Does It Really Matter?” and the gravitas of the anti-war song “Twenty,” bolt everyone in place.

Cray’s songs have always been thoughtfully soulful, yet muscular. And they have sold in the millions.

Hitting the charts with the 1986 double platinum Strong Persuader album, the Robert Cray Band has since amassed honors that include two gold albums, five Grammy awards and eleven Grammy nominations.

Cray is also the recipient of numerous W.C. Handy awards and on April 4, 2004, was inducted into Hollywood’s RockWalk with Ike Turner, Etta James, and the late Muddy Waters.

His music serves as a backdrop to such films as When a Man Loves a Woman, Mother, and The Truth About Cats and Dogs. His music can be heard in Martin Scorcese Presents the Blues series and he has appeared in Tina Turner’s TV special Break Every Rule, the Chuck Berry tribute Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Rolling Stones’ pay-per-view video, Voodoo Lounge.

Whenever the titans of the blues gather, Robert stands among them.

He performed with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King and others to pay tribute to his friend Stevie Ray Vaughan, played at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival 2004 concert, and has shared stages with, among others, John Lee Hooker, Keb’ Mo’, Albert Collins, Tina Turner, Johnny Copeland, the Neville Brothers and the great Muddy Waters who called Robert his “adopted son.”

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Rick: Why did the teenage Robert Cray grab a guitar?

Robert: I got a guitar because of the Beatles. When they came out it seemed like everyone in my neighborhood got a guitar. All the carports and garages and bedrooms were screaming with all kinds of bad music!

I wanted to learn everything that was out. Everything was cool, like Johnny River’s “Secret Agent Man.” Everything. So, that’s what I listened to and it was great. It was a time of great innocence, no prejudice in music. That went on for a while and it was pretty cool.

Then Jimi Hendrix came out and turned my head backwards! And the whole psychedelic thing. I started playing in ’65 and I started with the blues around ’69. That’s when I saw Albert Collins in an outdoor concert and it was weird. He just blew us all away. He just walked out into the crowd and did his thing.

I saw him again when he played at our high school graduation in 1971. I took the opportunity to walk up to him and say thanks for the show and told him I was a big fan. He said, “Young man, you play guitar? Keep it up!”

Rick: Around that time the older traditional blues players were beginning to get noticed by a new generation.

Robert: Yeah, and at that point I had already started getting into the blues with my friends. Back then you could still find the albums in stores in the cut-out bins. Elmore James, Otis Rush, the whole blues thing. They were so cool with their suits, their cool names and huge pompadours. You know, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and the association Robert Johnson had with the devil.

So we started reading books and picking up on the double entendre in the lyrics. The feeling was there, especially with all the Stax records. In our late teens we played “Hip Hug – Her,” then we’d try something Little Walter did when we had a harmonica player in the band.

Rick: What were you plugging in back then?

Robert: I started out with a Harmony Sovereign acoustic. Since I started taking lessons I got a Harmony electric with, I think, a D’Armond pickup. Later, I bought a Kalamazoo amp with an 8″ speaker and then an Ampeg Gemini, a great amp. Then I bought a Gibson SG in 1970. I don’t have that anymore.

Like I mentioned, I met Albert Collins in ’76. We had the Cray Band that we started in ’74 in Eugene, Oregon. We played as Albert’s backup band. He was a great guy! My dad was in the Army and we spent a lot of time in the Tacoma-Seattle area, the home of some great groups like the Kingsmen, the Sonics, the Wailers, and Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Rick: Did your folks ever urge you to get a real job?

Robert: They like music. We had a lot of good music on records and tape at home. They were the ones who were buying me the gear when I wanted to play. And for them it was alright. When things started popping they really got into it.

Rick: Tell us how the Fender Artist Series Robert Cray Stratocastercame about.

Robert: I was approached by Fender in the late 1980s and I think my Signature model came out in 1990. When they asked, I said, “Sure!” I had just found a ’58 Strat with a maple neck and sunburst body. It’s the one I used on the Strong Persuader album. I had a ’64 Strat that was Inca Silver and I wanted the Signature model to be a combination of the two as far as the neck radius. I gave them both guitars to get the neck right.

They worked with them for a little while and told me that they were going to build the new guitar out of the Fender Custom Shop. I jumped on that and told them I’d like three of them, purple, sunburst, and Inca Silver! And why not get some of that curly maple on the neck? I wanted it to be a hard tail because I don’t use a whammy bar. I also wanted some custom pickups.

The pickups in the Mexican made model are hotter than the ones in the Custom Shop guitar. What happened was the prototype from the Custom Shop had these super-hot pickups and I opted for a different style, less hot. So when we did the Mexican Strat, I gave them the prototype and they copied from that one.

Click to Check Out the Robert Cray Artist Strat at Musician’s Friend

Rick: How did your life change after the Strong Persuader album exploded on to the scene?

Robert: Well, when that came out I had been thinking that we couldn’t work any harder than we’d been working. That came out in ’86 or ’87 and we’d been going to Europe for a couple years. When Persuader came out and it hit, we were already tired. But, it was good.

We were working. The Bad Influence and False Accusations albums took us all over Europe and that was cool. Then the Persuader album came out and all of a sudden the crowds got huge!

It got scary, but it was fun! We had that period when we were playing the occasional coliseum gig. That was a big rush for a bar band to go to a coliseum. It was funny!

Rick: How’d your equipment stand up?

Robert: Well, we realized it wasn’t about the bigger equipment. We were still playing through [Fender] Super Reverbs and stuff like that until this guy from Matchless came around at the Hollywood Bowl gig. We were playing with Bonnie Raitt and the guy said, “You gotta try this!” I tried it and it was like “Whoaaa!” And that was that!

You don’t really need a whole lot of bigger equipment. Everything goes through the main [sound board].

Rick: Your music often leaves traditional blues to venture into other musical arenas. Is traditional blues still your bedrock?

Robert: Yeah, I think that’s the home ground. But, really my background is all a part of it. I have that, I love the blues, but I have that Beatles sensibility and that soul thing. We also love gospel music. It all melds together, but I have an allegiance to the blues. But, you know I’ve heard a lot of other music and you can’t keep me in the closet! [Laughs]

Rick: Do you listen to any international music like African, Middle Eastern, Native American or other outside influences to get you out of your comfort zone?

Robert: I haven’t really gotten into the African music. There’s so much. I need somebody to walk me through all that’s out there. My friends in England, some are DJs, and they know a lot about music. Guess they should, that’s what they do. One guy brings in a stack of CDs and I bring in a stack of CDs and I play a song, then he plays a song.

We try to bring something to play that nobody’s ever heard. He plays some incredible stuff from England. And it’s pretty cool. They’re schooling me on this stuff and play some pretty incredible music from Africa.

I’ve been a big fan of Brazilian music for a while and I like this guitar player, Baden Powell, who passed away about three, four or five years ago. I have about twenty of his CDs and a lot of other Brazilian music. The sambas, the bossa nova and things like that. And I’ve been a big fan of Jamaican music, mostly the earliest stuff like ska.

I like people like [Thelonius] Monk. I listen to a little Grant Green, Pat Martino — music along those lines. And I get into a lot of soul and blues music, and rock, like Hendrix always there.

Rick: Any younger guitar players who you think will have some longevity?

Robert: I like young Jonny Lang. He’s got his head on right. He’s a good guy. He’s cool and is probably the youngest of the guys I’ve seen out there in a while.

Rick: When you go on stage do you and the band have a set list or do you roll with it?

Robert: We have a list out there just in case we have a mind lapse, so we have something to go to. But we go out there and we call them. I just turn around and tell them, “Let’s do this!” or walk over and ask Jim what he wants to do. It’s more like how can we find a roll and keep it going. Or change the mood with a ballad here and there. It’s that kind of thing.

Rick: What new things are you trying to learn on guitar?

Robert: Everything’s new to me! I don’t know, I just play and try to keep fresh.

Rick: Some of our readers are struggling to make careers in music. Any advice?

Robert: I think playing together with other people is a really good thing to do. I think just getting together and having fun is the most important thing when someone’s trying to make it in the industry.

I think you can’t look at it too hard, so that you get frustrated by the process. The whole process is frustrating. Even for us where we are today it’s frustrating. You always have to hope when you have an album come out that it’s going to be big. It’s like starting all over every time!

So, I think the thing to do is to go out and have fun, make good music and make people happy. And when people see you happy, they’ll be happy. It kind of goes from there on its own.

Rick: You’ve backed up and played with some legendary guitar legends.

Robert: I’ve had the good fortune to play with John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. John Lee – it was a beautiful thing because he was one of those guys! We played on a few of his records. We toured with John Lee. The first time I met him we were there to back him up. We opened the set as the Cray Band and then John Lee Hooker walked out on stage playing and it was like, “Uh, what key?” [Laughs]

And it’s not like, oh, twelve-bar blues, it’s like thirteen-and-a-half bars. But it was okay, back to school again! Which was great, it was a great lesson and taught us to follow the front man. When John Lee did his thing – he was unique.

We played six shows with Muddy Waters and on five of those shows he invited me up for the encores to sing the song with him, “Mannish Boy.” And on the last show one of the blues guitarists ended up going to Chicago and Muddy asked if I could play some of that Muddy Waters!

I got to sit back with him before and after the shows and talk to him about people like Little Walter and Otis Spann.

And of course, playing with Eric Clapton was great. I was good friends with Stevie Ray Vaughan and we did a lot of dates together. I was at Alpine.

And B.B. [King] is the nicest man walking the planet! He’s got time for everybody. He’s just a beautiful man.

Rick: You now have your star on the Hollywood RockWalk.

Robert: Yeah, it was cool because I got to meet Ike Turner. I mentioned to him some of the songs he did with Albert Collins, like “Bold Soul Sister.” It’s so funky and Collins comes in blazing. It’s a rockin’ tune. I found a compilation CD and it’s on there. It was a single and I remember it from the ’60s. Back then, I didn’t know who was playing it, but I thought it was cool.

Solomon Burke was at the Rock Walk too. I live in Los Angeles and Rock Walk is on Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. It’s a bit different. It’s in front of a guitar store with all of those guitar players’ stars. I was able to pick mine, so it’s next to John Lee Hooker and Les Paul. Les Paul is funnier than hell, isn’t he? Lots of stories. He’s such a great guy.