By Robert Cray Band, 2005

Robert Cray and band raise their profile recently with standout appearances in Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival film and DVD as well as Robert’s stunning performances in two in Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival film and DVD as well as Robert’s stunning performances in two segments of Martin Scorsese’s film and just released DVD, Lightning In A Bottle. The band started the year with their 1,000th performance as a unit and now the five-time Grammy winner (11 nominations) delivers Twenty, a set whose title track is a poignant commentary about the US war in Iraq. The Robert Cray Band’s album Twenty was released on a week bookended by the May 24 birthday of one of this generation’s most eloquent protest songwriters, Bob Dylan, and by Memorial Day, May 30. The dates are significant when one considers the subject matter which defines the album’s title track, "Twenty." While Cray has generally focused his writing on personal relationships, his song "Survivor" as well as co-producer and bandmate Jim Pugh's "Distant Shore," both on Cray's 2003 CD Time Will Tell, were also inspired by concerns about what was, at the time of their writing, an impending war in Iraq. Robert Cray is a five time Grammy winner who grew up on military bases in the U.S. and abroad. His father served in Vietnam so Robert has personal knowledge of the effect on a family when one of it’s members is serving abroad. On May 24 – the album’s street date -- TrueMajority.org, a non partisan, non-profit, grassroots education and advocacy project founded by Ben Cohen (Ben & Jerry's), offered the song a streaming audio to its entire online community of 575,000 Americans who are committed to getting government to reflect our values of justice, compassion and sustainability. The release of Twenty, Cray’s fourteenth album, will be backed by an extensive worldwide tour by The Robert Cray Band (beginning on the week of release with a May 26 San Francisco benefit for Music In Schools Today.) The tour will continue across the U.S. and Europe throughout the summer.With his chocolaty cool, soulful Memphis croon and sure sense of melody, Robert Cray has never been considered a straightahead bluesman. His often interchangeable albums have instead stayed closer to R&B, adding compact, stinging lead guitar to songs about matters of the heart. That formula remains, with minor variations, on Cray's 14th release, rather confusingly named Twenty. The title track, a gripping, emotional anti-war ballad of the experience of a GI in Iraq (that, incidentally, doesn't contain the word "twenty") shows the singer/songwriter shifting his emotionally charged storytelling lyrics to the political arena. It's a brief but confident detour from his usual M.O. of relationships on the brink of collapse or in general disrepair, typically related in the first person. Subtle yet effective forays into loungey jazz on "My Last Regret" and even reggae on the opening "Poor Johnny" indicate a healthy tendency to push his established envelope, if only gently, into other genres. But Cray sticks to his established bread and butter for the majority of this sturdy album, effortlessly churning out shoulder-swaying, foot-tapping R&B accompanied by a clean, clear tenor voice and a road-hardened band that finesses these songs with the perfect combination of fire and ice. Old fans won't be disappointed, and newcomers can start here and work backwards. --Hal Horowitz

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