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Robert Cray enjoys the celebrity his music has brought, and as he reflects upon his position in the blues world, humor punctuates his memories.
By GINA VIVINETTO, Times Pop Music Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 10, 2002
Blues guitarist Robert Cray enjoys a celebrity only a handful of musicians in his genre -- perhaps B.B. King and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan -- achieve. Cray, 48, found success early in his career with 1986's breakthrough hit Smoking Gun from the Grammy award-winning Strong Persuader. Since then, he has had one Grammy-nominated album after another, nine albums in all.
"I feel pretty fortunate," Cray says by telephone from his home in Los Angeles. "It has all been like a dream to have some name recognition ever since starting off. If someone mentions my name along with Stevie's or B.B.'s, that's fantastic."
Not many blues musicians can claim such success.
Then again, not many can be spotted in the legendary comedy flick National Lampoon's Animal House. Yes, that's Cray playing bass in the frat party band Otis Day & the Knights.
Did Cray party with the film's wild star John Belushi?
"Well, we hung out," Cray says.
The Cray Band and another act, the Nighthawks, led by harpist Curtis Salgado, were both at the time living and gigging in Portland, Ore.
"Belushi was in town," Cray recalls. "We didn't know who John Belushi was. We were always working on Saturday nights," and so they didn't see the TV show that made him famous. Cray and Salgado had a splinter band, called the Crayhawks.
"Belushi would come in and watch the band. We let him up on stage one night, and he did his Joe Cocker impersonation. It was then we became close friends with Belushi and turned him on to all this blues stuff. That's where he got the idea for the Blues Brothers. And he credited Curtis on the back of the first Blues Brothers album."
Once upon a time, Cray at 48 would have been considered young for a blues artist. What does he think of the recent bunch of teenage and twentysomething blues musicians?
"It's funny in the sense that record companies have kind of jumped on that, like, 'Well, we've got another young kid who can play the blues. Let's get one on our label,' " Cray says. "But out of all the young kids I've seen, the one I like the most is Jonny Lang."
Can you be young and white and authentically sing the blues?
"No, I don't believe so," he says. "I don't even think a young black kid can play the blues." Cray laughs. "The blues is all about living. It's one thing to enjoy the music, but it's another to know of what you sing. That takes a little time. Everybody can get the blues, but you've got to be a little bit older than 16 to sing about it."
Shoulda Been Home, Cray's latest, features more of his smooth croon and tasty guitar. Two songs penned by Chicago slide guitar master Elmore James, Cry for Me and The 12-Year-Old Boy, are merged by Cray's band in an improvisational studio jam.
"What happened was, we finished up Cry for Me," Cray recalls, "and we had two drummers playing, ours and the producer, Steve Jordan. Steve got up to listen in the control room. He expected the rest of us to follow, but we didn't. We went into 12-Year-Old Boy, and as soon as he heard us, he went in and told the engineer to turn the tape back on."
Cray's own songwriting is strong on Shoulda Been Home. Though the album has no laugh-out-loud frisky tunes such as 1990's clever So Many Women, So Little Time, Cray says he hasn't lost his sense of humor. He says when he's not playing the blues, he can be "a little goofy."
Cray recently filmed the video for the single No One Special. The director? His wife, filmmaker and actor Sue Turner.
Cray says in the past he has helped Turner on shoots, but this is the first time he has been directed by his wife. The filming, he says, went perfectly well for him, both as an actor and a husband. Why?
"Because I did what I was told," Cray says, laughing.
The Robert Cray Band, 7 tonight, Jannus Landing, St. Petersburg. $20. Call Ticketmaster at (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.