A Sort Of Homecoming

Robert Cray arrives in town for his Vicar St. appearance just days after the death of one of the legends of blues and a true giant of American music. Cray had worked with John Lee Hooker on his trio of comeback albums beginning with The Healer in 1989 and the follow-ups Mr Lucky and Boom Boom, which had introduced Hooker to a whole new audience in the 1990s. Cray describes the moment he heard the news that Hooker had died.

“I was in New York last week doing some press and I came back to the hotel when the phone rang,” he begins. “It was Mike Kappus my agent and manager who is also John Lee’s agent. He told me the news, which he’d just heard. It was a shock in some ways but I was wondering when we were going to get that phone call. John was getting on, he was 83, but he was still out there doing it. He died on a Friday but he’d done a gig the Saturday before that. That’s the thing about a lot of blues players of that generation. B.B. King will probably keep playing ‘till he falls over onstage.”

Cray is visibly emotional when talking about his old friend, mentor and long time neighbour in San Francisco. “When I think about John I just have to smile,” he reflects, his voice softening to a whisper. “Whenever he was around he made everybody feel good. I’m just grateful that I had the opportunity to work with him.”

Meanwhile, just as he has done for the past two decades, Cray is out on the road once again promoting his 12th album, Shoulda Been Home, the follow-up to the Grammy winning Take Your Shoes Off. Like its predecessor the album sees him revisiting the classic early ’70s Memphis r’n’b and Southern Soul sound. Legendary Memphis sideman Andrew Love leads the horn section on tracks like the Cray original, ‘Baby’s Arms’ and the Mack Rice classic, ‘Love Sickness’ with Cray’s trademark impassioned vocals and lean, masterful guitar playing sounding better than ever.

“We do an album every 18 months or so and then we go out on the road,” he explains. “We try and keep it simple – with this one and the one before it we had Steve Jordan producing. We’d get up in the morning and go until we get tired. The instructions are not to over-rehearse anything, though we’re open to ideas that might come along in the studio.”

Blues in all its myriad shapes and forms has travelled down many avenues over the past fifty years. How does Cray see the music today and his own place within it?

“Well there’s probably more blues bands out there than there’s ever been,” he replies. “There seems to be a resurgence of people playing solo acoustic blues. We’ve got Chris Thomas King out on the road with us for these shows and there’s Keb Mo’ who’s been doing it for a while. Our own music in the Robert Cray Band has always been infused with r’n’b and I don’t see it as much different than listening to Bobby Bland. Though you have to be careful these days,” he adds. “Depending on who you’re talking to, r’n’b doesn’t mean Johnny Taylor or Bobby Bland anymore. It can mean Destiny’s Child!

“But generally I’ll put on the same stuff I’ve been listening to for years which is Howlin’ Wolf, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. But I listen to Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix too.”

Shoulda Been Home is out now on Rykodisc