Aural Fixations
ROBERT CRAY
Shoulda Been Home (Rykodisc)
Sometimes the most innocuous performers are the most difficult to critique. Case in point: Robert Cray.
Cray began his career lumped into the bluesman category, and despite leanings towards MORish, barely bluesy original material, he did cavort with the likes of Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He also showed off his guitar prowess freely. But as time rolled on, he plunged into a decidedly more Stax/Volt R&B direction. Horns and organ crept into the mix, and the guitar took a back seat. The results, such as 1990's Midnight Stroll, weren't exciting at first. Great R&B thrives on great singing, whipcrack arrangements and grooves too deep for your average Humvee. Cray could talk the talk, so to speak, but often came up just short. His voice, while having decent range, has a yelping timbre that lacks the huevos to front a crack R&B outfit. And despite being surrounded by gifted musicians, Cray's band has often been about as funky as a Michelob commercial. As Stevie Wonder sang in "Sir Duke," "just because a record has a groove don't make it in the groove."
Shoulda Been Home is another textbook walk through Cray's strengths and weaknesses. Since '99's Take Your Shoes Off, Cray has handed over the production reigns to Steve Jordan. Cray has benefited mostly as a singer, exploiting the dynamics and subtlety that lend themselves well to the R&B formula. He continues, admirably, to explore the possibilities of his voice, and his direct, almost conversational songwriting style is still refreshing.
"Baby's Arms" kicks things off well enough, with Cray reveling in the simple joy of returning to a loved one. But "Already Gone" almost sinks this CD, because it stretches out in all the wrong directions. The groove isn't subtle as much as it's lifeless, with a dizzying vibrato guitar part. It also finds Cray re-embracing his own lead guitar playing more than in recent years, though it's a case of too much too late.
"Love Sickness," a Mack Rice Stax classic, is just the sort of concise, busybody number that shows off Cray's strengths. The horns are sharp, the guitar playing is tasty, and the band sounds like they're having fun. From that point, four songs in, Shoulda Been Home starts firing on all cylinders. "No One Special," riding on a bed of organ and electric piano, grooves like "Already Gone" should have. Keyboardist Jim Pugh's "Out of Eden" is a nine-minute gospel-flavored weeper that works well enough to justify stretching out. It's all dark regret and grit as Cray laments, "They said it was Paradise, and that we'd live here forever/They stabbed us in the back with a poison dagger."
"Cry For Me Baby" and "The 12-Year-Old Boy" are covers of two lesser-known Elmore James songs, and they're the closest to straight blues numbers Cray has recorded in years. He and the band sound like they're having a ball. "Far Away," a collaboration with his wife Sue Turner-Cray, is just the sort of breakup testimonial that has always been his strength. "I'll come back in the morning, when the kids awake, to tell them that Daddy had to go away," he sings. Heartbreaking stuff.
So once again, Robert Cray and company put out a CD that flirts with greatness while fighting off their demons. Exactly what it would take to push Cray into the territory of the truly houserockin' R&B heavyweights is anyone's guess. An all-new band? An even savvier producer? Hard to say, but as tantalizingly close as Cray is getting, he may stumble on the answer any time now. Brian Briscoe [buy it]
For fans of: Johnnie Taylor, John Fogerty, Jimmie Vaughan
