A Conversation with Robert Cray (continued)

PM: You've always had one foot in the blues and the other in soul. It's really, I think, what makes you such an important and a necessary artist. And being such a fine crooner, who are some of your favorite singers?

RC: My favorite singers--well, I like gospel singers and gospel-influenced singers. And from the gospel groups, I mean it could be Archie Brownlee from the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.

PM: Right.

RC: And Ira Tucker from the Dixie Hummingbirds, and Claude Jeter from the Swan Silvertones. But a lot of those singers. And Sam Cooke and Bobby Bland. And then you got Wilson Pickett and all those cats like that. And O. B. Wright. He's like probably my favorite singer.

PM: Oh, thanks. You're turning people on left and right to some new stuff there, for sure.

RC: So that's on the singing side. And then on the guitar side, you go from like Jimi Hendrix to Freddie King, to Steve Cropper, to Baden Powell, a Brazilian guitar player.

PM: Oh, I love him!

RC: Yeah. And Pat Martino--I just like stuff that speaks to me. Grant Green.

PM: Oh, Grant Green. I saw an amazing video of Pat Martino that a student of his, John Mulhearn, sent to me. Of course, he suffered that stroke.

RC: Right. Had to learn all over again.

PM: Yeah. And did you see that video called the Open Road?

RC: No.

PM: There was an interview with him, and all this old footage of him. Oh, I'm going to bump it and send it to you. It was spine tingling. They had all this old footage of him playing, and it's electrifying.

RC: Wow.  continue

print (pdf)    listen to clips    archives    puremusic home