Liz Sings the Blues
Yes, I’m singing the blues this morning. The “I didn’t get my hands on a Nintendo Wii” blues, to be precise. I started feeling them around 8:00 PM last night, when my husband and I drove past Target and saw a line of two dozen people swaddled in sleeping bags in what would become thirty-degrees temps, willing to wait overnight for what the salesclerk told us would be “twenty to twenty-five” systems. There are many humorous anecdotes in our family about the lengths to which we have gone to secure a much-desired Christmas present. But camping in freezing temps ain’t gonna be one of ‘em.
At least I have the Robert Cray Band to keep me warm this morning. Even though what they really are is totally cool.
“Strong Persuader” doesn’t have any songs that are appropriate for those of us who have been wronged by our misplaced materialistic holiday obsession. But it has EXcellent tunes for those who’ve been wronged by love. In fact, pretty much every song in the collection is about that. In most cases, it’s the singer who’s been wronged by his woman. But in “Right Next Door,” he’s the one who’s caused the problems, by messing with another man’s wife. And in “Still Around,” he’s singing the blues because he wants the woman in his life OUT of it for good, but she just won’t leave.
There are some flashes of hope, however. In “Nothin’ but a Woman,” the blues are averted by the presence of a woman--although it could be any woman--in the singer’s life. And in “Fantasized,” there is the possibility of love blossoming between the singer and a waitress who’s captured his attention.
Still, I should probably be offended by a lot of the lyrics, since most of them make my gender look pretty bad, and the opening number describes the murder of a woman by her ex--who happens to be the singer of the song. But I suppose there are plenty of women singer/songwriters out there who paint men in less than flattering light. Love hurts when it’s the wrong kind of love, and we’ve all experienced that in some form.
But it’s not the lyrics that make this music so exquisitely moving, anyway. It’s the guitar that really twists in your gut. Virtually every song features a cool guitar solo of some kind to showcase Cray’s incredible gift with the instrument. Some are slow, like in “New Blood,” some are jazzier, like in “Guess I Showed Her.” And some, like in “I Wonder,” are the epitome of smoky blues riffs. The horns are great, too, thanks to the appearance on the album of the Memphis Horns, exuberant, audacious and soulful.
Okay, so I didn’t get a Wii to put under the tree for my son. I can listen to Robert Cray and realize there are a lot worse things in life. And a lot better things, too.