Robert Cray – Strong Persuader (1986/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Robert Cray – Strong Persuader (1986/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 39:19 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Blues Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mercury Records

#42 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 80’s

The set that made Cray a pop star, despite its enduring blues base. Cray’s smoldering stance on “Smoking Gun” and “Right Next Door” rendered him the first sex symbol to emerge from the blues field in decades, but it was his innovative expansion of the genre itself that makes this album a genuine 1980s classic. “Nothing but a Woman” boasts an irresistible groove pushed by the Memphis Horns and some metaphorically inspired lyrics, while “I Wonder” and “Guess I Showed Her” sizzle with sensuality. –Bill Dahl

“I think that my band was part of a blues-roots movement that included people like the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan, who were coming along at that particular time,” says bandleader Robert Cray. While Cray’s sense of what was happening on the American rock scene in late 1986 is accurate, it modestly downplays the accomplishments of the singer-guitarist and his backing trio.
In February of that year, Strong Persuader — Cray’s fourth album — hit Number Thirteen on the Billboard pop-albums chart, making it the highest-charting blues album since Bobby “Blue” Bland’s Call on Me/That’s the Way Love Is, which reached Number Eleven some twenty-three years earlier. Strong Persuader, in effect, introduced a new generation of mainstream rock fans to the language and form of the blues.

An army brat who grew up on bases in West Germany and the Pacific Northwest, Cray was introduced to popular black music at home, but he discovered blues artists on his own as a teenager. “I still have a lot of the same influences today,” Cray says. “People like Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, O.V. Wright and Sam Cooke.”

In his lyric themes, Cray often veers away from the hard-luck road trod by most bluesmen. But his trebly, razor-sharp guitar playing is straight out of the electric blues tradition, and it provides Strong Persuader with a distinctive edge.

Signed to the small High Tone label when work on Strong Persuader began, Cray was hoping to hook up with a larger company. “The production on the first records was too low-budget,” he says, “and we were looking for a major label because we want to make a better record every time.”

Cray and his band eventually cut a deal with PolyGram, but they continued to work with producers Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker, who had produced their High Tone albums. As a result, Strong Persuader was released with a combined High Tone/Mercury imprint. In addition to coproducing the album, Walker contributed “Right Next Door (Because of Me),” a tale of infidelity played out in a motel room. The song, which became the album’s centerpiece, also includes the lyrics from which Strong Persuader derived its title.

The song that really drove Strong Persuader up the charts, however, was “Smoking Gun,” a smoldering tale of jealousy and murder. Although released two months after the album hit the streets — late for a first single — it became a Top Forty hit, and the video became a staple on MTV.

Strong Persuader ultimately went gold, a feat virtually unheard-of for a blues album. Yet Cray maintains that the album was less a departure from his blues path than a natural evolution. “The recording sessions have been pretty much the same for each of our albums,” he says. “I just thought the quality of the music we were making was getting better. It was about the whole band being together.” –RollingStone

Tracklist:
01. Robert Cray – Smoking Gun (04:08)
02. Robert Cray – I Guess I Showed Her (03:40)
03. Robert Cray – Right Next Door (Because Of Me) (04:20)
04. Robert Cray – Nothin’ But A Woman (03:59)
05. Robert Cray – Still Around (03:42)
06. Robert Cray – More Than I Can Stand (02:58)
07. Robert Cray – Foul Play (04:06)
08. Robert Cray – I Wonder (03:56)
09. Robert Cray – Fantasized (04:03)
10. Robert Cray – New Blood (04:23)

Personnel:
Robert Cray – guitar, vocals
Peter Boe – keyboards
Richard Cousins – bass
David Olson – drums
Lee Spath – percussion
Andrew Love – tenor saxophone
Wayne Jackson – trumpet, trombone

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