Like God, the novel and the middle class, the blues are always said to be either dead or on the rise. The on-the-rise theory predominates at the moment, and the Robert Cray Band is one convincing reason.

False Accusations, the band's third LP, is a more than worthy follow-up to 1983's Bad Influence, the record that established the thirty-two-year-old singer and guitarist as a major force on today's blues scene. The nine solid tracks – all originals – draw with equal ease from Chicago blues, funky Memphis soul and Sixties-style R&B-based rock to fashion a sound that honors its sources while still hitting with contemporary force.

Five nights a week on the road has a way of making a band play like a band, and Cray's sidemen – keyboardist Peter Boe, bassist Richard Cousins and drummer David Olson – support him with the unobtrusive regularity of blue-chip dividend checks. The groove secure in these hands, Cray can spice things up with pungent Stax rhythms ("Change of Heart, Change of Mind"), unleash the stinging, tightly phrased leads that are his signature ("Porch Light," "Playin' in the Dirt") or ease into the heart-rending, single-note elegance that is derived from B.B. King ("Sonny").

As a singer, Cray has an easy, confiding way with words that in combination with Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker's no-frills production makes these tales of infidelity, loneliness, guilt and desire seem all the more elemental and affecting. Cray sings as if he knows you know what he means. That belief has always been at the core of the blues, and it's why False Accusations rings so resoundingly true.

False Accusations is available from Hightone Records, P.O. Box 8064, Emeryville, CA 94662. (RS 468)

ANTHONY DECURTIS