Robert Cray and producer Steve Jordan are an unbeatable team with a history that’s already produced a Grammy win with 1999’s Take Your Shoes Off and a nomination with the more recent Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm. Cray, of course, has five Grammy wins so he has proven he can do it without Jordan in his catalog of twenty plus albums. Yet, given Jordan’s encyclopedic knowledge of soul and R&B, one can always count on that when the two collaborate. Jordan says this about That’s What I Heard, “I thought if we could get this thing that Sam Cooke used to have, the kind of sound that early Sam Cooke records had, that we could pull this off.” Albums don’t get much more soulful than the Memphis sound the two channeled on Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm, yet this continues in a similar vein, plunging deeper to include not just soul but some deep gospel too. Cray celebrates the music of Curtis Mayfield, Bobby “Blue” Bland, the Sensational Nightingales and more together with four new originals.
He sets the tone with the authentically soulful original “Anything You Want” which has been released as a single. He follows with the traditional song from the Sensational Nightingales, inspired by his youth when his parents would insist on gospel on Sundays, delivering it with requisite gospel fervor. Cray’s core band remains Richard Cousins (bass), Dover Weinberg (keys), and Terence F. Clark (drums) with Jordan behind the traps on some of these too. The background vocalists (The Craylettes) lift tunes like “Burying Ground” and Curtis Mayfield’s “You’ll Want Me Back”. The deep spine-tingling soul of “You’ the One” comes from his hero Bobby “Blue” Bland. Cray says, “There’s this thing where I feel you kind of gotta get out of your own head when you’re covering one of your heroes. Bobby’s one of those. You just let yourself go and do the song because you love it.” That attitude surely comes across in his gorgeous interpretation.
Cray’s funky side first reveals itself on his original “This Man” featuring stellar guitar work and interplay with Weinberg on the B3. The vocalists keep repeating “Get him out, get him out” over Cousins’ walking bassline to the point where it is simply infectious as if you’re rooting for it to happen. “Hot,” another original, is another foot stomper, a relentless shaking groove accented by Weinberg’s pounding piano, Cousins’ throbbing bass, signature Cray guitar licks and the eminently repetitive “hot, hot” chorus. There would be no choice but to take the tempo down as Cray does with a ballad written by Jordan, Kim Wilson, and Danny Korchmar – “Promises You Can’t Keep” that coincidentally because Steve Perry was in the studio, he contributes harmony vocals. Cray’s tune, “To Be With You” is a heartfelt homage to his late friend Tony Joe White, an artist Cray covered on his last two albums.
Cray and Jordan unearthed a couple of obscure ones too – Don Gardner’s “My Baby Likes to Boogaloo,” a horn-infused dance number and Billy Sha-Rae’s minor hit, “Do It,” both acknowledged rarities (the originals can be heard on the compilation, Groove & Grind: Rare Soul). The latter is leaner and meaner, the kind of earthy funk that defined the Detroit club sound in the early ‘70s with Sha-Rae, Dennis Coffey (who this writer has covered often on these pages), and Earl Van Dyke. Cray gets an extra push from guest guitarist Ray Parker Jr., who played in Sha-Rae’s band as a teenager. Parker Jr. pushes Cray to perhaps his most searing solo on the disc.
”You Can’t Make Me Change” is one of those solid Cray tunes with his clean, impeccably guitar runs. “A Little Less Lonely” is a co-write from long-time bassist Richard Cousins and Hendrix Axle, a perfect vehicle for yet another excellent Cray solo. There may be no one who understands Cray’s approach than Cousins and this fits right into his groove.
Here we are 40 years on. Nobody sings like Robert Cray and nobody plays guitar like he does either. Perhaps the late Johnny “Clyde” Copeland said it best, “Nobody has that soulful feel like Robert. It’s special.” And, if that’s not enough, he may well be the best blues songwriter since those early days of the originators. Of course, what makes Cray’s signature style is the fusing of so many styles of music. He could just as easily fall into the soul and R&B category. And damn! He’s still doing it his way, like nobody else – a true original.
