Blues icon Robert Cray speaks with Braintree Jim about his long career, upcoming performance, and musical journey. Cray discusses his songwriting and how he prefers improvising guitar solos live rather than practicing them. He also describes his excitement for live performances, where the unpredictability keeps things fresh. Cray has a show at Chautauqua Auditorium on Saturday, August 31, where he promises a fun and adventurous set.
Braintree Jim: This is Braintree Jim calling from KGNU Community Radio here in Boulder, Colorado, and I’ve got a very special guest with me here today. Grooving for 50 years now, the incomparable blues icon, soul man, singer-songwriter, guitarist, Grammy winner, globetrotter. And you may not know this, but he appeared as an uncredited bassist in the house party band Otis Day and the Knights in the 1978 film National Lampoon’s Animal House.
Of course, I’m talking about Robert Cray, back on tour, back at the Chautauqua Auditorium this Saturday, August 31st. Robert, thank you so much for joining me. Happy belated birthday. How are you?
Robert Cray: Good. Thank you so very much for that introduction.
Braintree Jim: I know you usually focus on thinking forward rather than the past, but after 50 years of performing and recording, do you have any particular memories that really stand out to you?
Robert Cray: Yeah, there’s quite a few. We’ve had great opportunities to play with a lot of our heroes, like Albert Collins and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. When we were starting off in the early days as teens, we listened to a lot of the music of the people that I just mentioned. We wanted to meet them, and we wanted to be like them. We were lucky to have met them, and have opportunities to play together and record with some of them, and it’s just been a dream come true.
Braintree Jim: Absolutely. What’s your proudest accomplishment as a musician over all these years?
Robert Cray: I’d like to say that the proudest accomplishment is to still be able to do what we started off doing. We dreamt of being able to do this and we’re still doing it.
Braintree Jim: Robert, with regard to the breakout release of Strong Persuader in late 1986, please share with us this amazing story about the cassette in a boombox in Keith Richards’ hotel room around that time.
Robert Cray: Yeah, we had recorded the record, Strong Persuader, and I was invited to take part in the Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll movie about Chuck Berry that Keith helped put together. Our first meeting was in Keith’s hotel room. There was a boombox on top of the fireplace in the room, and I went over there and I found a cassette. It didn’t have the record company’s marking on it, it just said “Strong Persuader” on it. I said, “How did you get this?” He says, “I’m a Rolling Stone. I’ve got everything.”
Braintree Jim: I love that story. And let’s talk songs for a moment. Your first album, Who’s Been Talkin’, was released in 1980. Has your songwriting process evolved since then?
Robert Cray: I’d like to think so. I’ve had a lot of great opportunities, one of which was being able to work with Dennis Walker, who was one of our producers in the early days. I listened and sang a whole lot of Dennis’s tunes. What I gathered was that he was painting pictures with his lyrics. I thought about that as one way of going about doing things. And I just love the way he did that. So I take that advice on some songs and then do other things as well.
Braintree Jim: Sure. You were commenting recently on guitar solos and you said, and I’m going to quote from this particular piece, “practicing a solo ahead of time puts you in a position of being unable to reach it later”. Now that’s a really interesting point to me. Can you expand upon that? Is that part of what I would consider seeing you in concert? Part of the meditative process, the meditative state that you’re in while performing live?
Robert Cray: I think that it’s better to be there right in the moment. I don’t agree with making up a solo and then playing it night after night. Where’s the soul? Where’s the feeling? Where’s now? Now is where you’re at.
Braintree Jim: And to get that improvised expression out, right?
Robert Cray: Exactly. You’re going to play the song that’s there and then the tempo is not always going to be the same. Everybody’s going to hear different things. Let’s just get together and we have an idea even though it’s the same song, but let’s expand upon it. What are we going to do with it tonight?
Braintree Jim: So tell me, what’s the last record you bought?
Robert Cray: I don’t recall exactly. But Dover Weinberg, who’s our keyboard player, and myself are record fiends. We go to used record stores and we buy a lot of stuff. It’s great. We’re collectors, so I don’t remember exactly what I bought, but it wasn’t a big stack of records. Not as big as Dover’s anyway.
Braintree Jim: Is that right? I’ve caught the bug of record collecting and wherever I end up going, my first instinct is to find a record store even before finding a coffee shop or what have you. I try to leave some extra room in my bags for some vinyl to make the trip with me.
Robert Cray: Oh, yeah, it’s a thing. Before you get to the next town, you look up on your phone at the record shops and then an upcoming town and look forward to it. How are we going to get there?
Braintree Jim: What’s the last song you listened to?
Robert Cray: The last song I listened to was “You’re My Thrill” by Billie Holiday. I listened to that last night.
Braintree Jim: Fantastic. Robert, you described your latest album, 2020’s That’s What I Heard, as funky, cool, and bad. I know you’re working on a new album. How’s it going? And how might you describe that particular project?
Robert Cray: We haven’t set a date as to when we’re going to go into the studio. I have a bunch of ideas, but I haven’t really set the parameters as to what it’s going to be like, and as we get closer to that, we’ll see. Hopefully we’re going to record in the winter break.
Braintree Jim: I look forward to it, as I’m sure all your fans do. And after 50 years, what excites you about continuing to tour as relentlessly as you continue to do for so many years? What is it about that feeling of performing live that really gets your juices going and gets you motivated to want to go out and play?
Robert Cray: It’s just the excitement of being on stage and not knowing what’s going to happen. You walk out on the stage, there’s a new audience out there and they’re looking for, what are you going to do?
Braintree Jim: A little bit of that sense of jeopardy, right?
Robert Cray: Yeah. So what do you have today? What’s your voice going to be like? You’re not going to know until you open up your mouth. When you get into the groove, is it going to be there? What’s happening? So let’s get to work, see what we’re going to do. So it’s the challenge. It’s the adventure.
Braintree Jim: You do a lot of audibles. Not really a formalized setlist per se, right?
Robert Cray: I used to do more audibles, but if I feel like I want to do something different, I’ll just turn around and say to the guys, we’re going to do this. And we do that. But we do change the list every night. And for the most part, Richard Cousins, our bass player, has decided he’s going to set the list.
So he does that. And then I look over it. Then I read the list like I’m reading a food menu, right? How’s this gonna taste after this one, then I’ll do that, and then on stage, if the food’s not tasting good, I’ll change the course, order something different.
Braintree Jim: Just like the song, “Side Dish”, right?
Robert Cray: Exactly.
Braintree Jim: Finally, I know that KGNU’s Iris Berkley and I are looking forward to your show this Saturday at the Chautauqua Auditorium. You’ve performed in the greater Boulder/Denver area many times now. What can fans expect at your show this weekend?
Robert Cray: We’re going to go out and have a ball, and play that venue, which is a classic venue. From the stage, I can see through some of the boards towards the back of the building. It’s great. Upon leaving that venue one time, there was a bear out there and when the guys were packing up, we were told there’s a bear over there. Don’t go in that direction. So that’s pretty exciting too.
It’s gonna be great. We look forward to it. And it’s always been a lot of fun.
Braintree Jim: We look forward to it as well. And Robert Cray, thank you so much for your time today. We will see you Saturday night. Have a fantastic show.
Robert Cray: All right, Jim. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.
