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Bluesman Paints the Town Blue

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Description: This image was taken for a story that ran in The Manawatu Evening Standard on 26th November 1988.

"The Robert Cray Band, Chicago Smokeshop, Manawatu Sports Stadium, November 26. Absolutely no doubt about the man's abilities. Robert Cray is an enormously skilful guitarist and vocalist, his songwriting skills encompassing the best of blues, soul and jazz with a natural ease.

Arriving on stage after Chicago Smokeshop's tight and polished warmup, this 35-year-old Washington bluesman got right to the point with the Strong Persuader tracks I guess I showed Her and Foul Play. His face immediately turned into a waterfall of sweat as he tore his heart out of his chest and laid it at our feet -- velvet-smooth, soulful vocals which worked familiar tales of fast women, cheap wine and good times gone bad with a distinct Stax/Motown flavour.

Then the guitar. Giving full rein to an even wider diversity of technique and styles than he demonstrated at the Gluepot last year. Clusters were spat out with all the venom Roy Buchanan demonstrated in his finer moments, single lines soared melodiously in the Mark Knopler style. Strings were bent past breaking point as Cray cranked out the most beautifully expressive and inventive licks ever heard on a Manawatu stage.

The starting point may have been pure Chicago, yet his solos around the minor-chord progressions provided 80s edge, lifting the music above the tiresome hack bands continuing with the trad approach. Such was the inventiveness of Cray's cohorts -- Japanese guitarist Tim Kaihatsu, bassist Peter Boe and drummer David Olsen -- that the Cray band rarely sank into the bog of mindless muso introversion.

The Last Time -- off The False Accusations album -- was a slow blues ballad with all the tension of a tightly coiled roll of steel wire, Across the Line was a boogie-on-down T-Bone Walker instrumental which allowed the band to move out with some nice soloing.

The 3000-strong multi-racial crowd were generally apathetic for the early part of the show, but with Don't You Even Care, Night Patrol and Right Next Door, Cray worked everyone up into some form of life for the fiery Smoking Gun encore. Yet this lethargy had put a ceiling on how high Cray could go -- he made one "I don't have to be here" jibe in reply -- and the problem was further compounded with a generally lacklustre sound mix.

Minor gripes in comparison to Cray's stunning talents, perhaps, but as a result, Saturday night didn't rate as the memorable evening it might have been."