In the 80s and early 90s there was a shortived bluesrevival: Some of the guitarplayers from the 60s and 70s made new albums which contained mainly blues songs. People like Gary Moore found new fame with his album “Still Got the Blues”, Eric Clapton recorded some acoustic versions of his earlier hitsongs and if we track back a few years we find someone like Robert Cray who was crafting catchy bluessongs songs with a prestine clean guitartone. For this article I will look at some of his early songs and what kind of guitartone he uses.

“Right Next Door” was probably Robert Cray biggest, global hit: 

When you watch the video you will notice the Fender Twin Reverb amp, a great amp to amplify those fantastic clean tones of the Fender Strat. Robert Cray uses for this song one of the In-Between-Settings of his pick-ups, which creates a great contrast with the sound of the chords of the backingchords. For the backing the middle pick-up is being used. Together with the sound of the bass and the keys you get a rich tapestry which is very inspiring to play melodic ideas over.
One of the keyelements of Robert’s guitar playing is melody: His solos are not just riffs, there are melodic ideas which connect each other to create a story. The guitarplaying is backed up by Robert’s singing which is as powerful and emotinal as his guitarplaying.

Robert Cray’s songs sound almost like Pop songs, not very different from Eric Clapton’s approach: Play strong guitarlines over catchy songs which appeal to a larger audience, songs steeped in the tradition of the blues but also borrow heavily on what is current at the time.

Here is a good interview with Robert, interview covers how much time is involved in making music, touring and rehearsing, there is mention of Eric Clapton, there is talk about guitartone and Fender Stratocasters and more.

Here is a good video Robert Playing acoustic guitar: You can hear his playing, it is just him, acoustic, his fingers, his singing and a bassplayer who helps him out:

Enjoy and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie