Blues Mestres Do Blues Mestres Do Blues 16 - Robert Cray Band - The Score Charly Blues Masterworks (1993)
Mestres Do Blues 16 - Robert Cray Band - The Score Charly Blues Masterworks (1993)
Mestres Do Blues 16 - Robert Cray Band - The Score Charly Blues Masterworks (1993)
1.Too Many Cooks 2.Score 3.Welfare (Turns Its Back on You) 4.That's What I'll Do 5.I'd Rather Be a Wino 6.Who's Been Talking? 7.Sleeping in the Ground 8.I'm Gonna Forget About You 9.Nice as a Fool Can Be 10.If You're Thinkin' What I'm Thinkin' Musicians: Robert Cray - Guitar, Vocals Richard Cousins - Bass Dennis Walker - Bass Nat Dove - Keyboards Dave Stewart - Piano Tom Murphy - Drums Buster Jones - Drums David Li - Saxophone Nolan Smith - Trumpet Curtis Salgado - Harmonica, Vocals
Although Robert Cray seemed to materialize out of thin air to save the '80s blues scene, his sound was certainly no fad. As his first album (recorded in 1978) goes to show, Cray did his homework like everybody else, steeping himself in a curriculum of vinyl culled from Chess, King, and Back Beat, among other labels. Cray's blend of electric blues and Memphis soul is still developing on The Score, and you can sense him searching for an elusive middle ground somewhere between Buddy Guy and O.V. Wright. He doesn't always find it, but overall this is still an inviting roadmap to Cray's roots, and probably more "straight" bluesy than you'll ever hear him (especially on three tracks featuring Curtis Salgado's amplified harp). Already Cray's trebly guitar is a solid, assertive voice -- no doubt this had something to do with the fact that since 1977, Cray had been doing West Coast tours with his mentor, Albert Collins. (Like Collins, Cray cuts a version of the standard "The Welfare (Turns Its Back on You).") Half of the songs on The Score are originals, mostly of the 12-bar variety, that are distinguished more by Cray's delivery than their content. But one of them, a minor-key groove titled "That's What I'll Do," does offer a prescient glimpse of vintage Cray, and it's here that the album suddenly feels like a major historic document of the entire blues idiom: Robert Cray finding his sound. ---Ken Chang, Rovi