Robert Cray: Twenty : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Almost twenty years ago, Cray made his good name with Strong Persuader, an excellent album that demonstrated his prowess as a serious blues-guitar slinger and a gifted singer-songwriter. He's done fine work in the years since, but too often Cray seemed to be searching a tad aimlessly for just the perfect balance of his blues and more straight-ahead soul stylings.

Twenty isn't perfect either, but it's Cray's strongest album since Strong Persuader, and it kicks right off with one of the reasons why: "Poor Johnny," a cheating song that doubles your pleasure with two women exacting a price from the title character. Ever since "Right Next Door (Because of Me)," Cray has done well with tales of coital crime and punishment. The title track of Twenty, meanwhile, is a mournfully pointed blues against the Iraq War; "Fadin' Away" is straight blues and just plain pretty. Cray did more than his fair share to keep roots music alive in the Eighties, so it's encouraging to hear him sounding so on his game twenty years later.