Conference napalm::guitar

    
    Robert Cray sits between traditional electric blues and soul music,
    i.e he doesn't do many straight 12 bars, but his background is blues.
    
    His records:
    
    Bad Reputation (Hightone) (extra tracks on CD)

    False Accusation  (Hightone)
    
    Strong Persuader  (PolyGram/Hightone)
    
    Don't Be Afraid of the Dark  (PolyGram/Hightone)
    
    With Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland:
    
    Showdown!  (Alligator)
    
    

    There's also Who's Been Talking.
    
    If you've never seen him before, you'll enjoy him live. Personally,
    I've always felt that his live performance doesn't quite live up
    to my expectations...
    
    FWIW
    
    Nick

    Robert Cray also has another album entitled "Look Who's Talkin'"
    but "Strong Persuader" is his most popular to date. He definately
    has a big Motown-sounding soul voice, but his playing is progressive
    blues all the way. He was interviewed in Guitar Player magazine
    about 6 months to a year ago. They refered to him as "the great
    blues hope". His playing is very clean (he plays a pre-cbs Strat
    through super reverb amps with little or no effects) but his sound
    screams just the same. He has been joined in concert by Eric Clapton,
    in fact, the issue of GP with the Robert Cray interview includes
    a soundpage with Clapton.
    
    If you have a chance to see him live, don't pass it up. The guy
    is extremely tasteful.
    
    Have Fun,
    
    Mark Jacques, in the good ole USA
    

    
    That's right, I did forget one album...
    
    "Who's Been Talking", by the way, is a reissue on Atlantic, remixed and
    with a new cover,of the album of the same name that came out on Tomato
    back in the late seventies.  The band is considerably less mature
    sounding and Robert shares vocals with Curtis Selgado, who more
    recently sang for Roomful of Blues. The Hightone and Alligator stuff is
    the real meat, this early effort is for real fans. 

Ok Graham in answer to your third question - the official HUM topic appears to 
be number 488. This mainly discusses a Gibson ES-355 but the same principles 
hold.

I think that single coil pickups on Strats are inherently noisy. I have a Strat
with a single humbucker & I think that the hum on that is quite loud although
compared to other guitar/amp combinations it seems about par for the course. I 
guess it partly depends on your standards.

Nigel

    
    I too was slightly disappointed when I saw Robert Cray live. I'd
    seen him on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" in England and thought he
    was superb. I especially liked the way he mixed 12-bar blues with
    Motown style soul and R&B. 
    However, when I saw him live I thought he was strangely lacking
    in feeling. Maybe I just caught him on a bad night. There was a
    guitarist of Japanese origin on 2nd lead guitar who was the exact
    epitomy of what I don't like in a blues guitarist; all jazzy scales
    and fast tasteless runs. Give me Peter Green any day!!
    
    Regards, 		Dom
    

    Re. The pickup noise...
    
    There is a pickup topic early on in this conference which discusses
    your problem. Somewhere in the double digits 35-39 something like
    that. I solved the him problem with Seymour Duncan hot stacks, they
    just plop right in the old holes with no modifications. They sound
    good too (to me, of course).
    
    Regards,
    
    Tony

    
    Re: .7
    
    That "guitarist of Japanese origin" is Tim Kaihatsu (sp?) who plays
    in blues bands in CA and also is a music journalist.  I guess he's
    good friends with Robert, so when he had the dough to pay for a
    second ax-man on his tours, he tapped his old buddy.
    
    Not a bad gig, getting to tour the world with Robert Cray.
    
    And, yes, I too feel that Tim has more technique than soul but he's
    not *too* bad.
    
    Where *is* Peter Green these days, anyway???
    
    

    I think you will find that Peter Green is living as a recluse in
    London somewhere. He has grown his hair and his fingernails to about
    the same length and i believe there is some doubt about his mental
    wellbeing.
    
    

    
    ol' Peter Green has turned into a real bum, with a gut the size
    of his cocaine filled nostrils.
    
    real shame.

I heard this song a while back on Mai Cramer's (sp?) Blues show, and
now I'm catching up on the "Don't be Afraid of the Dark" album. I can't
get the tune (Don't You Even Care?) out of my head, and I want to know 
how to play the chords. I'm sure knowing where/how they are played will 
help me more than knowing the names of the chords. Has anyone out there 
figured out this tune?  Or don't you even care? ;-}

Thanks,
Dave

    BTW, although he doesn't play "scales", tap, use a whammy bar or have an
    insaine gain sound (snippet in Guitar World described it as "definitely
    non-sustain") and the rest of what some folks seem to equate with
    musical ability, I thought that I'd just point out in this forgotten
    topic that Robert Cray's guitar work in the title track of his new album
    "I Was Warned" must have made Stevie Ray Vaughan sit straight up. He
    stretches out for 4 or 5 verses at the end and just burns with emotion.

    For me, it's a new high water mark for blues guitar playing.

    --Ron

    re .-1
    
    I agree 100%! Killer tune; chords, vocals, conga drum-beat, 
    solo, everything. I also was stunned by "He Don't Live Here
    No More" or whatever it's called. Very emotional.
    
    - Dave

    Yeah, Dave, that's a very sad tune. Almost too scary to listen very
    closely. For everyone else, it's about going to visit your father after
    a long estrangement only to be told by a new tentant that he passed
    away a while ago. It's real blues.

    I've seen Cray twice. First time was luke warm. The second time was a
    barn burner. For my money, he's the best blues artist alive.

    --Ron

    RE: .15
    
    >For my money, he's the best blues artist alive.
    
    	I must say Robert Cray is my absolute favorite guitarist who still
    breathes.
    
    Peace,
    David the Lorax

    I saw Robert Cray at The Orpheum last night and he was fantastic.  The
    combination of his singing and guitar playing blows me away.  Plus, the
    keyboards and horns were good, too.  I wasn't dissapointed at all.  It
    was excellent.  I could listen to him play live for hours.
    
    Lorna
    

    >>I could listen to him play live for hours.
    
    Lorna,
    
    you have good taste (IMHO)
    
    dawg