THE ROBERT CRAY BAND
''COOKIN' IN MOBILE''
Recorded 2/21/10 at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile, AL.
JUNE 28 2010
74:58
1/Our Last Time
John Hanes / Jim Pugh/6:32
2/Anytime
Jim Pugh/6:02
3/Love 2009
Jim Pugh/6:44
4/Right Next Door
Dennis Walker/6:34
5/Chicken in the Kitchen
Robert Cray/6:48
6/Sitting on Top of the World
Chester Burnett/4:19
7/One in the Middle
Jim Pugh/9:30
8/Lotta Lovin'
Robert Cray/5:34
9/Smoking Gun
Bruce Bromberg / Richard Cousins / Robert Cray/7:15
10/I Can't Fail
Robert Cray/3:40
11/That's What Keeps Me Rockin'
Tony Braunagel / Johnnie Lee Schnell/4:59
12/Time Make Two
Robert Cray/7:03
Robert Cray - Guitar, Vocals
Jim Pugh - Keyboard
Tony Braunagel - Drums
Richard Cousins - Bass
Review
by Hal Horowitz
Robert Cray is a dependable, professional performer who has been criticized for being too reserved on-stage. He loosens his tie on this set though, recorded at a single show in February 2010. The veteran frontman tears into his staccato guitar solos with gusto here, extending the tunes and singing with a rawness often lacking in his studio work. His band also pushes harder, especially longtime keyboardist/songwriter Jim Pugh, whose featured solos match Cray's own intensity and are spotlighted throughout. This is soul-bluesman Cray's third live release in four years (2010's Authorized Bootleg dated back to a 1987 show), but the only one that includes a full concert DVD -- adding two more cuts, "Phone Booth" and "Twenty" -- along with the audio. He has only recorded one studio disc in that time, four selections from which are reprised. Only a few songs will be familiar to anyone but hardcore fans, including spirited workouts on '80s hits "Smoking Gun" and "Right Next Door," along with "Our Last Time," the latter two already included on 2006's Live from Across the Pond. Two other tracks also appear on that previous double concert CD, which raises the question of why, with as many albums as Cray has accumulated, he couldn't dig back and find different material. A cover of "Sitting on Top of the World" is dirtier than you'd expect, and in general the sweat flows when the guitarist pushes his R&B deeper into the blues as his band grinds into a groove often absent from his more polished catalog. He pulls out guitar effects that creatively double-track his solo on "Lotta Lovin'," another ballad that sounds far more heartbroken and personal here than on 2003's Time Will Tell, where it first appeared. Cray's vocal howls and grunts as he tears into tight, energized guitar solos show that he's been captured on an inspired night, even on "Smoking Gun," a tune he's been playing nightly for over two decades. It makes for a surprisingly tough and uncompromising performance that shows Robert Cray in a different light than many would have expected based solely on his impressive if somewhat similar-sounding and often sterile albums.
Biography
by Bill Dahl
Tin-eared critics have frequently damned him as a yuppie blues wannabe whose slickly soulful offerings bear scant resemblance to the real down-home item. In reality, Robert Cray is one of a precious few young blues-based artists with the talent and vision to successfully usher the idiom into the 21st century 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 in jump-starting 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, Cray's rise to international fame was indeed a heartwarming one. For a guy whose 1980 debut album for Tomato, Who's Been Talkin', proved an instant cutout, his ascendancy was amazingly swift -- in 1986 his breakthrough Strong Persuader album for Mercury (containing "Smoking Gun") won him a Grammy and shot his asking price for a night's work skyward.
Cray was born on August 1, 1953 in Columbus, Georgia. An Army brat who grew up all over the country before his folks settled in Tacoma, Washington in 1968, Cray listened intently to soul and rock before becoming immersed in the blues (in particular, the icy Telecaster of Albert Collins, who played at Cray's high school graduation). Cray formed his first band with longtime bassist Richard Cousins in 1974 . They soon hooked up with Collins as his backup unit before breaking out on their own. The cinematic set caught a brief glimpse of Cray (even if they weren't aware of it) when he anonymously played the bassist of the frat party band Otis Day & the Knights in National Lampoon's Animal House. Cray's Tomato set, also featuring the harp of Curtis Salgado, was an excellent beginning, but it was the guitarist's 1983 set for HighTone, Bad Influence, that really showed just how full of talent Cray was. Another HighTone set, False Accusations, preceded the emergence of the Grammy-winning 1985 guitar summit meeting album Showdown! for Alligator, which found the relative newcomer more than holding his own alongside Collins and Texan Johnny Copeland. Strong Persuader earned two Grammys in two years and made Cray a familiar face even on video-driven MTV.
Unlike many of his peers, Cray continued to experiment within his two presiding genres, blues and soul, on sets for Mercury such as Midnight Stroll in 1990, I Was Warned in 1992, and Shame + A Sin in 1993. After switching to Rykodisc in the late '90s, Cray released Take Your Shoes Off in 1999 and Shoulda Been Home in 2001, proving that the "bluenatics" (as he amusedly labels his purist detractors) have nothing to fear and plenty to anticipate from this innovative, laudably accessible guitarist. Touring regularly with the likes of Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan, Cray stayed active in the studio as well, signing with Sanctuary Records and releasing Time Will Tell in 2003, Twenty in 2005, a pair of live albums, Live from Across the Pond in 2006 and Live at the BBC in 2008, and This Time, which was issued by Vanguard Records a year later. Cray released his third live album in four years, Cookin' in Mobile, in 2010. The material that comprised the album was taken from a single performance at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile, Alabama in February of that year. The Kevin Shirley-produced Nothin But Love, a solid outing featuring narrative songs that circle around the trials and tribulations of love, appeared in 2012. Nearly two years later, he announced details of his 17th album the Robert Cray Band called In My Soul. Released in spring of 2014, In My Soul saw Cray reuniting with producer Steve Jordan, who had previously helmed Take Your Shoes Off, and settling into a deep, soulful groove.
OFFICIAL SITE
''COOKIN' IN MOBILE''
Recorded 2/21/10 at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile, AL.
JUNE 28 2010
74:58
1/Our Last Time
John Hanes / Jim Pugh/6:32
2/Anytime
Jim Pugh/6:02
3/Love 2009
Jim Pugh/6:44
4/Right Next Door
Dennis Walker/6:34
5/Chicken in the Kitchen
Robert Cray/6:48
6/Sitting on Top of the World
Chester Burnett/4:19
7/One in the Middle
Jim Pugh/9:30
8/Lotta Lovin'
Robert Cray/5:34
9/Smoking Gun
Bruce Bromberg / Richard Cousins / Robert Cray/7:15
10/I Can't Fail
Robert Cray/3:40
11/That's What Keeps Me Rockin'
Tony Braunagel / Johnnie Lee Schnell/4:59
12/Time Make Two
Robert Cray/7:03
Robert Cray - Guitar, Vocals
Jim Pugh - Keyboard
Tony Braunagel - Drums
Richard Cousins - Bass
Review
by Hal Horowitz
Robert Cray is a dependable, professional performer who has been criticized for being too reserved on-stage. He loosens his tie on this set though, recorded at a single show in February 2010. The veteran frontman tears into his staccato guitar solos with gusto here, extending the tunes and singing with a rawness often lacking in his studio work. His band also pushes harder, especially longtime keyboardist/songwriter Jim Pugh, whose featured solos match Cray's own intensity and are spotlighted throughout. This is soul-bluesman Cray's third live release in four years (2010's Authorized Bootleg dated back to a 1987 show), but the only one that includes a full concert DVD -- adding two more cuts, "Phone Booth" and "Twenty" -- along with the audio. He has only recorded one studio disc in that time, four selections from which are reprised. Only a few songs will be familiar to anyone but hardcore fans, including spirited workouts on '80s hits "Smoking Gun" and "Right Next Door," along with "Our Last Time," the latter two already included on 2006's Live from Across the Pond. Two other tracks also appear on that previous double concert CD, which raises the question of why, with as many albums as Cray has accumulated, he couldn't dig back and find different material. A cover of "Sitting on Top of the World" is dirtier than you'd expect, and in general the sweat flows when the guitarist pushes his R&B deeper into the blues as his band grinds into a groove often absent from his more polished catalog. He pulls out guitar effects that creatively double-track his solo on "Lotta Lovin'," another ballad that sounds far more heartbroken and personal here than on 2003's Time Will Tell, where it first appeared. Cray's vocal howls and grunts as he tears into tight, energized guitar solos show that he's been captured on an inspired night, even on "Smoking Gun," a tune he's been playing nightly for over two decades. It makes for a surprisingly tough and uncompromising performance that shows Robert Cray in a different light than many would have expected based solely on his impressive if somewhat similar-sounding and often sterile albums.
Biography
by Bill Dahl
Tin-eared critics have frequently damned him as a yuppie blues wannabe whose slickly soulful offerings bear scant resemblance to the real down-home item. In reality, Robert Cray is one of a precious few young blues-based artists with the talent and vision to successfully usher the idiom into the 21st century 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 in jump-starting 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, Cray's rise to international fame was indeed a heartwarming one. For a guy whose 1980 debut album for Tomato, Who's Been Talkin', proved an instant cutout, his ascendancy was amazingly swift -- in 1986 his breakthrough Strong Persuader album for Mercury (containing "Smoking Gun") won him a Grammy and shot his asking price for a night's work skyward.
Cray was born on August 1, 1953 in Columbus, Georgia. An Army brat who grew up all over the country before his folks settled in Tacoma, Washington in 1968, Cray listened intently to soul and rock before becoming immersed in the blues (in particular, the icy Telecaster of Albert Collins, who played at Cray's high school graduation). Cray formed his first band with longtime bassist Richard Cousins in 1974 . They soon hooked up with Collins as his backup unit before breaking out on their own. The cinematic set caught a brief glimpse of Cray (even if they weren't aware of it) when he anonymously played the bassist of the frat party band Otis Day & the Knights in National Lampoon's Animal House. Cray's Tomato set, also featuring the harp of Curtis Salgado, was an excellent beginning, but it was the guitarist's 1983 set for HighTone, Bad Influence, that really showed just how full of talent Cray was. Another HighTone set, False Accusations, preceded the emergence of the Grammy-winning 1985 guitar summit meeting album Showdown! for Alligator, which found the relative newcomer more than holding his own alongside Collins and Texan Johnny Copeland. Strong Persuader earned two Grammys in two years and made Cray a familiar face even on video-driven MTV.
Unlike many of his peers, Cray continued to experiment within his two presiding genres, blues and soul, on sets for Mercury such as Midnight Stroll in 1990, I Was Warned in 1992, and Shame + A Sin in 1993. After switching to Rykodisc in the late '90s, Cray released Take Your Shoes Off in 1999 and Shoulda Been Home in 2001, proving that the "bluenatics" (as he amusedly labels his purist detractors) have nothing to fear and plenty to anticipate from this innovative, laudably accessible guitarist. Touring regularly with the likes of Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan, Cray stayed active in the studio as well, signing with Sanctuary Records and releasing Time Will Tell in 2003, Twenty in 2005, a pair of live albums, Live from Across the Pond in 2006 and Live at the BBC in 2008, and This Time, which was issued by Vanguard Records a year later. Cray released his third live album in four years, Cookin' in Mobile, in 2010. The material that comprised the album was taken from a single performance at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile, Alabama in February of that year. The Kevin Shirley-produced Nothin But Love, a solid outing featuring narrative songs that circle around the trials and tribulations of love, appeared in 2012. Nearly two years later, he announced details of his 17th album the Robert Cray Band called In My Soul. Released in spring of 2014, In My Soul saw Cray reuniting with producer Steve Jordan, who had previously helmed Take Your Shoes Off, and settling into a deep, soulful groove.
OFFICIAL SITE
1 comment :
yes links yes music!!!
thanx Davi
have a good weekend
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