Cray’s Greatness Builds On Simple Style

Robert Cray Friday, Nov. 21, Masonic Temple

Forget for a moment the clean, soul-piercing voice that has given Robert Cray his rightful place among the ranks of history’s greatest bluesmen.

Consider Cray’s guitar playing.

Sure, many of his peers can play faster. Sure, many pickers are blessed with a more complex command of the fingerboard.

But whatever Cray lacks in jazz-schooled virtuosity, he more than overcomes with a wondrous staccato and melodic style that sets him apart as perhaps the most expressive and identifiable blues guitarist.

Playing extended, thoughtful solos based on amazingly simple themes, Cray has mastered something few professional musicians ever learn: how to play the right note at the right time.

Maybe only the great B.B. King can make more out of less. Maybe.

Cray’s voice and guitar were in full expressive form Friday night when he used both to mesmerize a big crowd at Spokane’s Masonic Temple. The show, sponsored by the Inland Empire Blues Society, was a demonstration of consummate musicianship and worth every penny of the $29 admission.

Why not, when you get Cray plus Robben Ford as the opening act?

Ford is one of those aforementioned guitar gods. He could knock your knickers off playing anything from Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix.

And Ford was his usual polished, pyrotechnic self. A couple of complaints about his performance, though: It was sadly too brief, and he didn’t dig out any treasures from his celebrated 1988 album, “Talk to your Daughter.”

Cray was more brilliant than I expected. His latest CD, “Sweet Potato Pie,” gave me minor indigestion. A few songs (“Nothing Against You,” “The One in the Middle” and “I Can’t Quit”) are Crayworthy. But the album suffers from a commercialized, formulaic feel that isn’t helped by cornball, sanitized horn parts a la The Memphis Horns.

Cray left the horns back in Elvisland, thank God. Instead of trying to faithfully recreate a semiweak album, the Masonic crowd was treated to a raw and bluesy Cray quartet of drums, keyboards, bass and guitar. It was Cray at his best, playing only the most worthy songs from his new release, plus some tried-and-true selections from his Grammy-winning past.

Glorious.

, DataTimes