.
), the ten-song album includes material written by all four Robert Cray Band members;
(drums). The new album blends blues, rock, soul and jazz, with a
lyric-sheet that examines the triumphs, fallouts and follies of love.
is Cray’s sixteenth studio
album and marks the latest milestone in a career that has produced 15
Grammy award nominations (5 wins), over 12 million record sales
worldwide, thousands of sold out concerts across the globe, and even
his own signature line of Fender guitars.
was recorded live over two-weeks at the Revolver Studios in LA. The album features the soaring break-up blues of
, Cray has been Blues rock royalty. He has performed and recorded alongside the best in the business - from
.
Cray was recently inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame at the age of
57; making him the youngest living legend to receive the prestigious
honour.
ROBERT CRAY - BIOGRAPHY
With
5 Grammy Awards,
15 nominations, over
12 million of records sold worldwide, and
thousands of
sold out performances, rock blues icon
Robert Cray is considered “one of the greatest guitarists of his generation.”
Rolling Stone Magazinein their April 2011 issue credits Cray with reinventing the blues with his “
distinct razor sharp guitar playing” that “
introduced a new generation of mainstream rock fans to the language and form of the blues” with the release of his
Strong Persuader album in 1986.
Since then, Cray has gone on to record
fifteen Billboard charting studio albums and has written or performed with everyone from
Eric Clapton to
Stevie Ray Vaughan, from
Bonnie Raitt to
John Lee Hooker. Recently inducted into the
Blues Hall of Fame
at the age of 57, he is the youngest living legend to receive the
prestigious honor. And while he can look back over an astonishing
three-decade career punctuated by his trademark sound and distinct playing style,
Robert Cray is too busy moving forward on an amazing journey that has him releasing his
sixteenth studio album and embarking on yet another
world tour.
Nothin But Lovewill be released
on August 27, 2012 and will be both his first collaboration with the
Provogue Records label and super-producer
Kevin Shirley (
Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, Joe Bonamassa). This
ten-song stand includes material from all four
Robert Cray Band members;
Cray (vocals/guitar),
Jim Pugh (keyboards),
Richard Cousins (bass) and
Tony Braunagel (drums) that blends
blues, rock, soul and jazz with a lyric-sheet that examines the triumphs, fallouts and follies of love.
“Kevin did an amazing job producing this album and I’m really happy
with the outcome,” says Cray, “he captured the real essence of the
Robert Cray Band,
that live energy we deliver on the road that is usually so difficult
to nail down in the studio. I think it’s one of the strongest records
that we’ve done.”
And he’s right. In terms of production, long-time fans will be thrilled with a recording featuring what Shirley calls “
the dirt under the fingernails.” Recorded live over a two-week burst at the
Revolver Studios in LA,
Nothin But Love features the soaring breakup blues of “
Won’t Be Coming Home”, the jazz chops of
“I’ll Always Remember You”, the soul-drenched ode to repossession that is “
Great Big Old House” to the frantic ’50s-flavoured rocker “
Side Dish.”
Cray still remembers the first love that led him here. “My dad was in
the army, so we moved around quite a bit,” he explains. “I had a lot
of time and the guitar became my friend. Also, when I first picked up a
guitar,
The Beatles were just out, and that’s why I
got one. That’s why a lot of kids got guitars. The whole atmosphere of
that time was, ‘Hey, I learnt this’. ‘Well, let me show you this…’ So
that’s what sparked my interest, and it never really went away.”
Cray cites
Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy and
B.B. King as formative guitar influences, alongside singers like
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, but just as pivotal for the aspiring bluesman was witnessing
Albert Collins play a set at his high-school dance.
It was that Collins performance that led to the formation of the
Robert Cray Band in
1974, a four piece touring band featuring Cray on lead vocals and guitar and longtime friend
Richard Cousins
on bass, whose thrillingly modern take on the blues was the talk of
the circuit, even if the singer was a bit of an introvert on stage. “I
just couldn’t speak to the audience,” says Robert with a smile, “so
Richard would do all the introductions. These days I think I’m better
at it.” In 1976 after two years of touring and in the first of many
pinch-yourself moments the band was invited to be the house band for
Albert Collins; a stellar musical apprenticeship and schoolboy fantasy that lasted over 18 months.
Opening their account with 1980’s
Who’s Been Talkin’, the
Robert Cray Band fired off three albums in quick succession, and although 1985’s
False Accusations hijacked the charts and won an industry blues award, it was the following year’s
Strong Persuader
that achieved lift-off, hitting a US#13 chart position that was
unprecedented for a blues record in the synthesizer age. “I guess
Strong Persuader
just captured a good spirit and energy,” Cray reflects. “People are
still calling out for some of those songs at shows. It gave us a good
springboard. I guess it was the songs, but it was also the era, because
radio and
MTV gave us a foothold, and we had videos out too.”
Cray had arrived in the big league. As singles like “
Smoking Gun”
scaled the singles charts across the planet and word spread of his
incendiary live shows, his name began to be mentioned in the same
breath as the blues heavyweights, and he was regularly to be found
working alongside them. He spent the years that followed guesting on
Eric Clapton’s
Journeyman album, jamming live with
Keith Richards, appearing in
Tina Turner’s TV special
Break Every Rule, posthumously inducting
Howlin’ Wolf into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and supplying solos for the late
John Lee Hooker.
“We became good friends,” says Cray of this latter hero. “We were with
the same agency, so we did a lot of shows together. I went to Japan
with
John Lee and watched as the Japanese fans mobbed him. It was fantastic. He was a real one-off.”
The oft-quoted line reads ‘
bluesmen improve with age’, and Cray’s evolving output through the next two decades gives weight to the theory. “In the ’90s, we had the
I Was Warned album (1992), and then
Sweet Potato Pie
(1997), which was a Memphis kind of thing that got into the soul bag,”
he recalls. “I really liked those two records: there was some good
songwriting.”
In 2000 he took home a
Grammy for the album
Take Your Shoes Off and went on to release two additional
Grammy nominated albums
Twenty (2005) featuring the poignant anti-Iraq war song of the same name, and
This Time (2009) featuring the soul drenched favorite
“I Can’t Fail.” The following year, the Robert Cray Band release the live album
Cookin’ In Mobile (2010) and once again toured worldwide to sellout crowds.
“We have been very lucky,” says Cray, “with music becoming mostly
digital in recent years and artists not selling the same number of
physical records, we’re afforded the luxury of having a great loyal and
amazing fan base around the world, allowing a band like ours to continue to work.”
It’s quite a humble and unassuming statement, given his illustrious
career – but that’s always been Cray’s style. He doesn’t take anything
for granted, doesn’t rest on his laurels. So on this
sixteenth studio release,
Robert Cray
is once again laying down his cards, testing his talent, fusing that
dazzling voice to some of the most powerful material in his
three-decade back catalogue and offering his fans
Nothin But Love.
Nothin’ But Love is not the kind of album you have a casual fling with. It’s the kind of album you fall for.