Robert Cray - Nothin' But Love (Album Review)
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Tuesday, 28 August 2012 |
Written by Jonathan Lin
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Robert Cray has had quite the career as a musician. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Cray also takes the helm as bluesman for his own band, and the new album 'Nothin But Love' is his sixteenth studio release.
 One immediately feels the energy of Gary Moore, the lyrics of Eric Clapton, and the melancholic licks of B.B. King. 'Won't Be Coming Home' is a strong start, detailing a case of love gone south that is a typical theme for the blues. This song has something enjoyable for the wide variety of blues fans: passionate singing, rhythmic pace that gets the feet tapping, and crisp guitar providing passage to a whole new emotional level.
The beginning track has a modern feel, in contrast to other songs like 'Side Dish' which clearly have the sound from an earlier era. This is not to suggest superiority of one over the other, but that the musical flavors on 'Nothing But Love' are distinctly varied and can delight fans from both ends of the spectrum, in addition to finding new ones where songs overlap in the middle.
The slow tracks are certainly the album's highlights. 'I'm Done Crying' has the loneliest guitar tone, echo-laden against the string accompaniment to deliver a powerful punch of defiance. Cray's vocals here are probably the strongest of the album; on paper they don't seem like much, but when he starts howling "But you won't take away my dignity: 'Cause I'm still a man," you really feel for the narrative voice, and can hear his guitar crying at the same time. The short 'Blues Get Off My Shoulder' takes us down the well-trodden path of writing a blues song about the blues, but again Cray's crooning vocals are passionate enough to steer it clear from becoming just a filler.
There are tracks that sounded lazier and half-hearted, as though unable to make up their mind on a distinct sound. An example is 'Fix This', where structurally the song is rather unmemorable, and musically the tune felt generic and flat. One might ask what makes it different from another such as 'Great Big Old House,' which is arguably quite similar in tone. The latter track has its own voice, with harmonizing background organs that complement Cray's singing and the background vocals, giving the track a much more distinct quality and thus more readily conveying the loneliness.
Cray's talent and experience as a veteran bluesman should not be disputed, and 'Nothing But Love' does well to substantiate the title, in case anyone be in doubt. While not flawless, the new release comes late in his career, and shows that the future of his dynamic energy and capable band is promising indeed. The variety on the album provide a healthy sample of the blues genre, from the modern to the classic, the defiant to the sentimental, and it should be unsurprising if both newcomers and fans find 'Nothin But Love' a rewarding listen.
'Nothin But Love' is produced by Kevin Shirley and features long-time Cray Band members Richard Cousins (Bass), Jim Pugh (Keyboards) and Tony Braunagel (Drums). The album was released on August 27th by Provogue Records.
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