KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
From Illinois Soul, this is Dialogue. I'm Kimberly Schofield. I host Morning Edition Dialogue is an exchange about culture straight from the soul. Robert Cray is a five-time Grammy award-winning artist on top of 16 Grammy nominations, and he is performing on Tuesday at the Virginia Theater in Champaign. Cray. Has over five decades of playing and touring with music, crossing multiple genres, all with Cray and his band’s unique sound. I spoke with Cray about his life, career, and upcoming performance, starting with some of his first experiences grooving to music. Craig's father had a career in the military, and Cray was born in Georgia.

ROBERT CRAY:
Well, when I grew up, my father was in the Army. We were at an army base there, and then we moved to the west coast just outside of Tacoma, Washington, and we were there for the first five years and then we were off to Germany and then back to Washington State again, which is where I attended high school. But prior to going back to Washington, while we were in Germany, my father, and my mother, they bought this great Grigg stereo console, and they bought 40 fives and albums of people like Sarah Vaughn and John Lee Hooker and Sam Cook and Bobby Blue Bland and all kinds of stuff. And I was preteen, and we were told to go to bed at seven 30, but we could hear the stereo going and my mom and dad out there dancing and whatever.

On Sunday, there was gospel music. And so that's where I got my first taste of music. When I got back to the States. It was in the early sixties, and the Beatles just came out and at that particular time, everybody wanted to get a guitar, and I fell in with that crowd.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
Other than your parents listening to the stereo, was anybody in your family musical at all?

ROBERT CRAY:
I found out later, after we started the band that my father liked to sing gospel music, so he started a group with some friends of his, but basically it was just playing the stereo.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
How would you define the blues?

ROBERT CRAY:
Well, basically blues, if you're not talking about the music so much, it's about your way of life and how you're dealing with your personal relationships or your way of life, basically, musically. It can include those two topics that I just mentioned, but it can also kind of try to describe a genre of music that not only includes the blues but rock because it comes out of blues and jazz that grew out of blues and it's just about everything else that's American.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
It sounds like you had a lot of influence on how you started to actually find your own sound. Are there any musicians who you give credit to that influence, or is it a huge array of people?

ROBERT CRAY:
There's a large array of people, but I think the most influential right before I got out of high school was Albert Commons. I was in high school in Tacoma, Washington. Albert Collins played our high school graduation party, and it was our class that voted for him. And the reason being is that Albert had played a lot around western Washington, and this is the late sixties, and I graduated in 71, so I know that it wasn't just me who saw Albert because the class voted for him. I got an opportunity to say hi to him after he played our graduation party. And I'll always remember what he said. He says, young man, you play guitar. I said, yes, sir. He says, well keep it up. After I graduated in 71, we became his backup band in like 76.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
Oh my gosh.

ROBERT CRAY:
Whenever he was on the West Coast. And so, we were a little band that wanted to play blues and there was our mentor right in front of us.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
Do you think that there's been a significant change in the style of blues or the people who play blues over the years as your career has progressed?

ROBERT CRAY:
It's changed and a natural progression. I think when I look back and what's really great is you can see videos of people like Money Waters and Hallen Wolf and whatnot, and you understand that the way that they play music is a reflection of their and the music that was around them,
And so, it is for somebody like myself or somebody else that's coming up nowadays, they've had all kinds of influences that affect the way that they play the music. So, it's a natural progression and it's supposed to change. And whether it's good or bad, it depends on what you like.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
I You've put out nearly 20 albums of all of them. Is there one that you would consider your master or one that you just have a favorite of? It's a lot to pick from.

ROBERT CRAY:
Yeah, can't really, it's kind of funny because you go back and you listen to stuff and you go, Ooh, I can do that a lot different now or a lot better, I think. So, it's kind of hard to really pick out an album and say that that one's your favorite.
But I do look at the albums as a time and place for the personnel in the band because there's been a lot of personnel changes over the years. Our bass player, Richard Cousins, he's pretty good at describing what unit it was of the Robert Cray Band. At a particular time, there was an album that was called Strong Persuader, and Richard calls that band the Strong Persuaders, and we had the midnight Stroll band, and we had The Bad Influence Band, and there's all these different bands within the Robert Cray Band.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
What was it like when you found out that you were nominated for a Grammy the first time?

ROBERT CRAY:
The first Grammy Award was with an album that we did with Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland called Showdown,
And we went to the award ceremony, all three of us, they called our name and we walked up to the front of the stage and walked up the stairs, and I don't know who was in front first, but that person stopped and we kind of all slammed into one another like the Three Stooges, which was kind of like how the album was made too, because, and we had to crack up about the whole thing because when we did the record, when we met up in Chicago to record, I was standing outside of the studio with Albert Collins and we were chatting because we hadn't seen each other for a while. And Johnny Copeland pulled up in the car, and he got out, and he was hunched over a little bit, and Albert and Johnny go way back to the 1950s, and they've been friends for a long time.
And so, Albert saw Johnny, and he walked over and said, what's going on with your man? He says, man, I've been fasting. And so, he's a little bit weak from fasting, and so Albert just ribbed him all the time. We were in the studio, and we laughed, and we had fun with that. And so, we carried that through that recording, and we had a lot of fun on that recording. So, when we won the award and what was slammed into one another on the band stage, that just went along with the whole vibe of what happened when we recorded and winning the award.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
You've collaborated with tons of artists. What was it like collaborating with Tina Turner?

ROBERT CRAY:
Working with Tina Turner was great. We did some 40 shows with her in the UK and Europe and a lot of outdoor shows and hockey rinks and stuff all over Europe and whatnot. And it was great because the crowds were fantastic and it wasn't just us, some of those shows with big festivals as well. And so, it was right after Strong Persuader came out and we had a pretty big following, and so these shows were tremendous, and it was just great to be on stage with her. She would have me on stage for a song or two, and it's just tremendous, a whole different thing than what we do. I mean, it's a big production and all that, so it was really great to be a part of that. And she was kind, and she worked hard. She was super dynamic. 

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
Black people started The Blues. Is there ever any concern that you have or that you see from other people that the authentic connection with the community could be lost? There are some people who say that that happens with r and b or hip hop with people kind of adopting the culture or the style.

ROBERT CRAY:
Other communities, adapting the blues or hip hop or whatnot, is a reflection of how strong the music is. I think that it's something that can't be denied. I mean, when you think about blues and rock and roll and even country, everything that we see that's played outside of America just proves how strong and dynamic the music is. I mean, there's all these British players that played blues in sixties and turned around and brought it back to America. And when we go down to Brazil or something like that, there's all these blues bands down there. Go to Japan. There's blues bands in Japan, there's hip hop in Japan, there's hip hop in Brazil. It's everywhere. The music, it can't be denied. And jazz, same thing everywhere. We play jazz festivals in Europe every summer.
KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
When you come to the Virginia Theatre here in Central Illinois, what can people expect with the performance?
ROBERT CRAY:
Well, our book is big, so we play a little bit of everything from all the different, like Richard says, different bands, the persuaders, or the bad influences and all that. We play a lot of the favorites, basically every night. But we also, every night change the list dramatically. Or even if somebody yells out something, we just might do that on the spot. But it's always going to be a lot of fun. You're going to hear some ballots. You're going to hear some up temple things; you're going to hear some blues. It's what we do.

KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD:
You can catch the Robert Cray Band at the Virginia Theater in Champaign on Tuesday, March 31st at 7:30 PM For more information, visit TheVirginia.org Blues.