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Jazz Articles about Robert Cray
John Lee Hooker: The Best of Friends
by Doug Collette
In contrast to his often (always?) irascible peer Chester Burnett, aka Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker has long been amenable to collaborations, reciprocal and otherwise. Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Charlie Musselwhite and Carlos Santana, among others, appeared on The Healer (Chameleon,1989) and all those artists also populate the credits for The Best of Friends. (Santana, the Mexican-born guitar hero, appears with two different iterations of his band). Fittingly titled, this anthology is a suitable companion piece to Whiskey ...
Continue ReadingVarious artists: Alligator Records: 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music
by Jim Trageser
Maybe this half-century commemoration of the Chicago-based, blues-focused label should have been titled, “The Last of the Independents." Almost alone of the mid-major labels that formerly thrived in the 1980s and '90s by specializing in non-mainstream styles of music, Alligator has managed to navigate stunning changes in the music business--from the vinyl of LPs and 45s to cassettes and CDs, and then, most recently, the virtual collapse of the retail record business and wholesale pivot to online digital ...
Continue ReadingRobert Cray: Shoulda Been Home
by Al Rearick
Who says sticking to a proven formula is a bad thing?
For those of you who thought Cray’s last effort was a nice sizzling slab o’ soul, his follow-up continues the tradition. Shoulda Been Home picks up where Take Your Shoes Off left off, and carries the groove forward in a manner that would have made the folks at Stax proud. In fact, Cray and the band proudly display such influences on most of the tracks here.
A word of ...
Continue ReadingRobert Cray: Take Your Shoes Off
by AAJ Staff
If ever a title captured the mood of an album, this is it. Take Your Shoes Off, Cray's latest release from Ryko, is a bit of a departure from what we might expect from Robert and his band. The album flows effortlessly from beginning to end, allowing us to listen to it in it's entirety; a true phenomenon these days. The track list here, as the title suggests, is composed mostly of bright melodic tunes, but that's not to say ...
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