ROBERT CRAY

ROBERT CRAY IN MY SOUL "First and foremost, the stories are where my heart lies," says Robert Cray. "In the blues guitar thing, most of the time, you carve out the section for the solo and that's really what the song is based on. And I love that, there's a time for that, but then I have to get back into the meat and bones of storytelling."

With his seventeenth studio album, In My Soul, the five-time Grammy winner (and 15-time nominee) reasserts his position as one of his generation's great musical storytellers—this time steeped in the down-home sound and rich emotion of Southern Soul, yet never straying far from his incomparable guitar mastery. Produced by Steve Jordan, whose long list of credits includes extensive work with Keith Richards and John Mayer, the album blends funky originals with surprising covers, and captures a new configuration of the Robert Cray Band: long-time bass player Richard Cousins is joined by keyboardist Dover Weinberg (returning to the group, with which he played in the 1970s and '80s) as well as new drummer Les Falconer.

Robert Cray is widely recognized as one of the greatest guitarists of our time. The New Yorker recently called him “one of the most reliable pleasures of soul and blues for over three decades now.“ He has written or performed with everyone from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, from Bonnie Raitt to John Lee Hooker, and in 2011, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.