The Kingston Daily Freeman
February 22, 2008



Robert Cray Comes To Poughkeepsie

By Blaise Schweitzer, Freeman staff


Whenever takes the stage with his guitar, Robert Cray notes young
musicians peering at his hands, trying to pick up on some of the
techniques that helped make him a five-time Grammy Award winner.

Cray is to appear Saturday at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, along with
Kevin Hayes on drums, Jim Pugh on keyboards and Karl Sevareid on bass.
When interviewed by telephone this week, Cray said he too looked
closely at the fingerings his idols used when they played, but said
that examination did not really boost his technique.

"I don't know how much you can get from just watching someone," he said.

Early on, Cray's development was aided more by time spent listening to
records and doing his best to mirror the riffs he admired. "I did a
lot of that," he said.

Still, being in a live setting with a musician eclipses the solitary
experience of listening to a recording at home, he said. He recalled
the first time he saw one of his heroes, blues man Albert Collins,
live in concert.

"I watched him at this outdoor rock concert I went to when I lived in
Washington state in 1969," Cray said. "He walked the crowd. He walked
through the crowd with that long guitar cable and slayed everybody
that had been on previous. It was just sick, he was playing behind his
back and all that. I had never seen anybody perform like that."

Cray picked up on enough skills that 23 years later he was invited to
perform at the "Guitar Legends" concert in Seville, Spain. He shared
the bill with Albert Collins, among other greats.

He already had his first Grammy under his belt by then, for "Strong
Persuader." Throughout his career he has performed Collins, John Lee
Hooker, John Hiatt and the Hudson Valley's own Levon Helm, among others.

Cray was onstage at the Ryman Auditorium last summer, during one of
Helm's beyond-barn rambles. "I've only briefly met him and had great
conversations with him. He's a real down-to-earth guy. He just seems
to be in this great flow," he said.

Most of the material Cray performs is original, hence the fact that
he's never performed any of John Hiatt's music despite having toured
with him.

Hiatt's clever lyrics have pushed his game, however.

"He makes me think about what I write," Cray said, naming Hiatt's
song, "Paper Thin," as one of his favorites.

Cray is technologically old school, when it comes to his equipment. He
eschews many of the breakthroughs in digital recording and
amplification equipment, even preferring amps with vacuum tubes.

"There's so much more warmth," he said. "They're coming up with all
kinds of ways to trick you, but it doesn't cut it."

Cray has stepped into some controversy by recording a song on last
year's "Twenty" album that questions the war in Iraq.

"My thing was to put a voice to actual personnel that understood that
what they were doing wasn't what they wanted to do, what they should
be doing," he said. "Thinking they should be in Afghanistan when
they're in Iraq."

A portion of the song goes:


"Standing out here in the desert

Trying to protect an oil line

I'd really like to do my job but

This ain't the country that I had in mind

They call this a war on terror

I see a lot of civilians dying

Mothers, sons, fathers and daughters

Not to mention some friends of mine"


Cray said the soldiers who have responded to the song, so far, have
been positive.

Fans will find that song on his set list Saturday, along with a
veritable retrospective of his work.

"What we've been doing is going back through the whole catalogue,
basically, as far back as to the 'Bad Influence' album that we
released in '83, to the most recent studio album, 'Twenty,' and just
kind of mixing it up," Cray said.



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