Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Phone Booth
2. Poor Johnny
3. Our Last Time
4. Right Next Door (Because of Me)
5. 12 Year Old Boy
6. I Guess I Showed Her
7. Things You Do to Me

Disc 2:

1. I Was Warned
2. Twenty
3. Bad Influence
4. One in the Middle
5. Back Door Slam
6. Time Makes Two
7. I'm Walkin'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #97783 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-12
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Amazon.com
Subtlety is both a blessing and curse for Robert Cray. In the studio, his increasingly restrained arrangements have served to frame his growing mastery of classic Memphis soul, allowing his soaring, vibrato-rich voice to carry tunes that directly echo the Stax years. That can work well live, too, and does so here in "Phone Booth" and the funky distillation "Back Door Slam," an ode to sexy down-home belters like Little Johnnie Taylor. But too often Cray downplays his incendiary guitar abilities on stage, which makes long numbers like "The One in the Middle" interminable, and leaves this two-disc live set--recorded during a week of shows opening for Eric Clapton at London's Royal Albert Hall in May 2006--full of cold spots. Things heat up whenever Cray picks up his Stratocaster in earnest, whether he's plucking out fat, singing notes à la Albert Collins in his radio hit "I Guess I Showed Her" or weaving a slow, soulful path through the bridge of the ballad "The Things You Do to Me," using his whammy bar and unpredictable variations on the melody to conjure shades of introspection. Overall, this set will please Cray's die-hard fans, but is unlikely to lure new listeners. --Ted Drozdowski

Customer Reviews

Editorial review?
This isn't a review of the album, it's a review of Ted Drozdowski's (?) editorial review. I just heard Cray open for Clapton in Dallas a few nights ago. I didn't hear Cray downplaying his "incendiary" guitar abilities on stage, either in this album or the recent concert, as Drozdowski contends. B.B.King says he plays in "sentences." Cray is similar--but with longer, more complex sentences. Still, though, sentences. The contrast was startling when Clapton came out and played his melodic paragraphs. Neither is better. They're the unique voice of the respective artist. Cray is so smooth that the transition from vocal to guitar solo is seamless. He's always "incendiary," but it's often a slow burn.
Oh, and BTW, Cray doesn't have a "whammy bar." He plays a Strat with a hard-tail bridge (i.e., no tremelo).

Really fine double live disc by Cray
Prior to the release of Robert Cray's breakout recording, "Strong Persuader," I happened to listen and record off the radio a live broadcast of the 1982 Long Beach Blues Festival among whose highlights was a young Robert Cray. One could hear a definite Albert Collins influence even if Cray's guitar playing didn't quite have Collins' fretful sound. Yet Cray's serpentine guitar playing had its own charms. Over two decades later, Cray remains one of the few blues acts to break through and reach a pop audience in that period. After many studio albums, Cray and his Band has just issued "Live From Across the Pond" from shows at Royal Albert Hall where he was opening for Eric Clapton. He perhaps has left behind the Jesse Fortune number "Too Many Cooks," but still performs "Phone Booth," and several songs from "Strong Persuader," including "Right Next Door (Because of Me)," "I Guess I Showed Her" and "Bad Influence," along with other numbers that he has added over the intervening years such as "Poor Johnny," and his anti-Iraq War number "Twenty" from his recent studio recordings. Perhaps because of his success, Cray has been criticized by some for the clean sound. Some would accuse his music of being antiseptic, although the performances here belie that claim as Cray does invest quite some passion into his performances. Cray's clean, urbane delivery of songs and his guitar playing should be viewed as more of style than relating to the substance of his performances. This music comes off much more successfully than the heavy metal sound of some blues rockers and comes off as a nice summing up of what he has meant musically for over two decades. A very nice release that will please his fans and even some who have shied away from his more recent work.
A footnote to the above review i my 4 stars should be viewed as a conservative rating (after all Amazon does not allow half stars) and not reflecting anything about this disc.

Up there with studio albums
This is a very good double live album well worth the purchase. If you have all the other cds this one will be played just as much. It is a little different in sound to the originals beceause its live making it sort of different. Most live albums are played a couple of times and thats it but this one is different and you will keep playing it. Not a waste of money at all.