小简介
Robert Cray是八十年代最成功的布鲁斯歌手，他能够将朴实而简洁的吉他演奏与富有激情的演唱相结合，演绎传统的布鲁斯音乐。同时，他又突破形式上的束缚，以现代的方式来表演传统的主题，并在两者之间找到了一个平衡点。Cray的歌迷们也由此规整的划分为两个阵营：一些人希望他不断开拓新的领域，而另一些人则仍是等待着欣赏Cray的经典节奏与布鲁斯作品。
1985年，Cray与Johnny Copeland和Albert Collins合作推出专辑《False Accusations》和《Showdown》，后者获得了格莱美“最佳传统布鲁斯唱片奖”。1986年的专辑《Strong Persuader》销量很快突破百万，成为三十年来第一张进入排行榜前20名的布鲁斯唱片，专辑赢得格莱美大奖。进入九十年代，Cray不断尝试以各种新的方式来演绎传统布鲁斯音乐，并且大获成功，每张专辑都获得了好评。
by Bill Dahl
Tin-eared critics have frequently damned him as a yuppie blues wanna-be whose slickly soulful offerings bear scant resemblance to the real down-home item. In reality, Robert Cray is one of a precious few active blues artists with the talent and vision to successfully usher the idiom into the future without resorting either to slavish imitation or simply playing rock while passing it off as blues. Just as importantly, his immensely popular records helped immeasurably to jump-start the contemporary blues boom that still holds sway to this day. Blessed with a soulful voice that sometimes recalls 60s great O.V. Wright and a concise lead guitar approach that never wastes notes, Crays ascendancy was amazingly swift — in 1986 his breakthrough album, Strong Persuader, for Mercury (containing Smoking Gun) won him a Grammy and shot his asking price for a nights work skyward. Unlike too many of his peers, Cray continues to experiment within his two presiding genres, blues and soul. Sets such as Midnight Stroll, I Was Warned, and Shame + a Sin for Mercury show that the bluenatics (as he amusedly labels his purist detractors) have nothing to fear and plenty to anticipate from this innovative, laudably accessible guitarist. Sweet Potato Pie concluded Crays stint at Mercury, and he moved to Rykodisc for two albums, Take Your Shoes Off and Shoulda Been Home, both of which more fully embraced his soul leanings. Sanctuary Records was his next stop, where he further broadened his sound by including a couple antiwar protest songs and playing electric sitar on Time Will Tell (2003). Twenty, titled after another antiwar song, followed in 2005. Live from Across the Pond, which features material culled from seven nights at Londons Royal Albert Hall, arrived in 2006.