One of the best compliments paid to Robert Cray’s performance at the House of Blues on Tuesday night came from a reaction to “Time Makes Two,” the closing song of Cray’s two song encore.  A gentleman in front of me, probably a few drinks deep, turned around and said to everybody within earshot, “I’m gonna go dance with my woman….gonna love somebody to-night!”

Seeing a full set from the Robert Cray Band has been on my rock and roll bucket list from the moment I finally got a chance to see Robert and his band play an abbreviated set at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2007.  While Cray and his band moved fairly briskly through their business on Tuesday night with a set that timed out right around 90 minutes, it was definitely worth every penny that I laid down for the privilege.  “Time Makes Two” is to me, one of the songs that illustrates perfectly why Robert Cray is in my opinion, one of the most underrated blues players on the scene.  From my perception, he’s been quietly doing his thing for so many years, getting occasional notice and radio play and for anybody that’s been paying attention to the releases he’s been putting out on the table, there’s been plenty to enjoy.  I do wonder why “Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark,” which got a pretty good amount of radio play at the time, never really seems to pop up in the setlist.  Is the sound too far removed from what he’s doing now?  Perhaps.

After seeing Cray at Crossroads, I wanted to catch up and get a quick primer on what he’s been up to since songs like “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” and “Smoking Gun” in the ’80s, which were two of my main reference points for Cray’s music.  Might I suggest if you’re on a similar hunt, the retrospective collection Heavy Picks and also the double live album Live From Across The Pond are two good starting points.  Bringing things into the present, you can also nab This Time, his latest studio album and also another live album, Cookin’ In Mobile (which to my ears, has a better audio mix than the Pond live disc).  From there, I think that you’ll find that whatever path you choose musically in Cray’s discography, it’s all good listening material.

It’s been a while since Cray’s last appearance in the Cleveland area and hopefully we won’t have to wait as long for the return visit, because Tuesday night was nothing but good times which left me wanting plenty more!