Chautauqua Member Pre-Sale: Wednesday, April 17 at 10:00 AM
Artist Pre-Sale: Wednesday, April 17 at 12:00 PM
Z2 / KBCO Pre-Sale: Thursday, April 18 at 10:00 AM
Public On-Sale: Friday, April 19 at 10:00 AM
Presented by KBCO
Door time: 6:30
Show time: 7:30
Blues icon. Soul man. Rock and roller. Robert Cray is all these things – and more. The Georgia- born, Washington-raised musician first picked up a guitar after seeing The Beatles on TV then, having witnessed Jimi Hendrix perform in Seattle, determined that his destiny would also follow a similar path. And so he has: across the past half century Robert Cray’s developed into one of American music’s most singular artists.
“I guess you’d have to say that we were lucky,” reflects Cray on his life in music, “because, growing up in the 1960s, the different music played on the radio really opened us up. I mean, we even had Albert Collins play our high School graduation party.”
From forming a teenage garage band, through to striding the stage alongside several of the world’s greatest guitarists, Robert Cray’s story is one of struggle and commitment. Struggle and commitment that led to Cray enjoying phenomenal success – selling millions of albums and countless concert tickets, winning five Grammy Awards, being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, recipient of the Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award, designing two signature model Fender guitars – yet for Robert what’s always mattered most is the music. Every note he plays counts, every song he sings is delivered as if it is his last: integrity and intensity are what has guided Cray’s musical career. He has never cheapened his output or delivered a substandard performance.
Indeed, his commitment to making music of the highest standard has won Cray both a loyal audience and the respect of many of popular music’s most legendary figures.
Think about it: Robert Cray has shared stage and/or studio with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, Albert Collins, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Memphis Horns and Hi Rhythm Section. Cray’s stinging guitar playing and soulful voice, his skills as a band leader and performer, mark him as keeper of the flame for American roots music, an artist who never fails to deliver.
“We were so lucky just be able to see them,” says Cray of trading guitar licks on stage with legends of blues, rock and soul, “let alone share the stage with them – what an experience!”
Cray’s rise to the top was, like his music, a slow burn, he first building a following in small towns across the Pacific Northwest. Even before Cray had a record deal he enjoyed local hero status – so much so in 1978 he was cast (as a musician) in Animal House, the blockbuster comedy that made John Belushi famous. 1978 was also the year Cray recorded his debut album, Who’s Been Talkin’, although Tomato Records’ internal problems held up Talkin’s release until 1980. And then, just as Talkin’ was winning great reviews, Tomato collapsed into bankruptcy. Got the blues? Young Robert certainly could have claimed he had them. But Cray isn’t given to complaining, instead he persevered, committed then, as he is now, to taking his music to the people.
After Tomato became music biz ketchup, Cray and his band – today consisting of Richard Cousins (bass guitar – there since high school days), Dover Weinberg (keyboards) and George Sluppick (drums) – used the momentum the album gave them to play further afield. By now Cray was buddies with a young guitarist from Texas: Stevie Ray Vaughan.
“We played in 1979 at the San Francisco Blues Festival,” recalls Cray, “and I watched Stevie’s show and he’s just smoking. Afterwards Richard and I went up and chatted with him and we just hit it off. Stevie was great – if we were in Austin he’d always come and join us on stage.”
Signing to Hightone, Cray’s 1983 album Bad Influence established him internationally: he was invited to play Carnegie Hall, toured Europe, later finding Eric Clapton recording Bad Influence’s
title track. 1985 saw Cray’s False Accusations album increase his standing as the foremost singer of blues noir songs, while that year’s Showdown! – a sizzling collaboration with guitarists’ Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland – won Robert huge acclaim from blues musicians and fans: the new
guy’s the real deal! Signing to Mercury Records, Cray’s 1986 album Strong Persuader ensured he became the first blues/soul musician to breakthrough in the MTV era.
Strong Persuader won Cray rave reviews from pop and rock critics, topped charts worldwide, saw Cray grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and winning the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Recording in 1988. Strong Persuader, with its songs of infidelity, guilt and unease, while not in any sense conventional Top 40 music, proved so strong an album it broke through barriers, sold millions of copies and would prove extremely influential. Cray’s breakthrough allowed both young and older blues and soul musicians to gain wide attention and radio play: John Lee Hooker’s career resurrection came soon after with The Healer, and Robert plays on that seminal album.
“It was great to be able to travel around the world,” says Cray of Strong Persuader’s success. “It afforded us a lot of great opportunities that we were lucky to experience.”
Cray’s being modest here: suddenly he found himself the hottest guitarist working – Tina Turner invited Robert to support her huge European tour (every night, after playing with his band, Cray would join Tina on stage to play A Change Is Gonna Come), then Keith Richards called, requesting Cray join the band backing Chuck Berry for Taylor Hackford’s celebratory feature length documentary Hail Hail Rock ‘N’ Roll. Here Cray not only got to play with the mercurial Berry (+Linda Ronstadt and Etta James, amongst many notable artists), he also formed a friendship with Steve Jordan, then drummer for the project and Richards’ solo band.
Now internationally famous, Cray found himself in intense demand: he toured with the Stones and Eric Clapton, played with B.B King and Buddy Guy (both of whom were inspirations), headlined noted music festivals – these included Glastonbury in the UK and Crossroads Guitar Festival in the US – and kept developing his sound over a selection of strong albums across the 1990s. Cray’s songwriting has addressed ageing, love, loneliness, domestic turmoil and US politics, while his music’s expansive vision found the likes of Cajun accordion legend Jo-El Sonnier and Memphis Horns’ trumpet and saxophone masters Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love guesting on his albums.
As an artist Robert Cray’s aged like fine wine – his voice has developed a greater range and
expressiveness, this he’s put to use on masterful interpretations of such Southern soul standards as I Forgot To Be Your Lover (William Bell), Your Good Thing Is About To End (Mable John) and Nobody’s Fault But Mine (Otis Redding). At the same time, Cray’s guitar playing now possesses an additional depth, a growl that can hint at a caress then signal emotional upheaval.
His recent run of albums – 2014’s In My Soul, 2017’s Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm and 2020’s masterful That’s What I Heard (all produced by Steve Jordan: now the Stones’ drummer) – are amongst the very finest he’s made. Every song here is deeply felt, whether an agonised song of loss, an angry protest number, or a dance tune that gets audiences pumping (My Baby Likes To Boogaloo is great funky fun).
Across five decades Robert Cray has created a richly inclusive American music, revitalising both blues and soul while rocking hard with the very best. To achieve 50 years in the music industry and still be as fresh and committed as when starting out is an achievement few can boast of but Cray can: he has released 19 studio albums, every one replete with his extremely distinctive songs, won five Grammy Awards and continues to make music that sounds like no one but Robert Cray. “All these years we have been fortunate to do what we love doing, playing the music we love playing,” says Cray with a smile. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Legendary artist Graham Nash, as a founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash, is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who has seen rock history unfold at some of its seminal moments – from the launch of the British Invasion (that’s him on-screen in 1967, eyewitness to the Beatles global broadcast performance of “All You Need Is Love” from Abbey Road studios) to the birth of the Laurel Canyon movement a year later. An extraordinary Grammy Award® winning renaissance artist – and self-described “simple man” – Nash was inducted twice into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for his work with CSN and his work as a solo artist, beginning with two landmark albums, Songs For Beginners and Wild Tales.
Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of our lives for nearly six decades. Nash’s remarkable body of work began with his contributions to the Hollies opus from 1964 to ’68, including “Stop Stop Stop,” “On A Carousel,” “Carrie Anne,” “King Midas In Reverse,” and “Jennifer Eccles,” and continues all the way to Now (2023), his most recent solo album.
The original classic union of Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) lasted but twenty months. Yet their songs are lightning rods embedded in our DNA, starting with Nash’s “Marrakesh Express,” “Pre-Road Downs” and “Lady Of the Island,” from the first Crosby, Stills & Nash LP (1969). On CSNY’s Déjà Vu (1970), Nash’s iconic “Teach Your Children” and “Our House” (for Joni Mitchell) beseeched us to hold love tightly, to fend off the madness that was on its way.
Nash’s career as a solo artist took flight in 1971, with the two aforementioned albums further showcasing the depths of his abilities as a singer and songwriter: his solo debut Songs For Beginners (with “Chicago/We Can Change the World” and “Military Madness”), and Wild Tales released in 1974 (with “Prison Song,” “Oh! Camil,” and “You’ll Never Be the Same”).
The most resilient, long-lived and productive partnership to emerge from the CSNY camp was launched (before Nash’s Wild Tales) with the eponymously titled Graham Nash/David Crosby (1972), bookended by Nash’s “Southbound Train” as the opening track and “Immigration Man” as the closer. The duo contributed further to the soundtrack of the ’70s on their back-to-back Lps, Wind On the Water (1975) and Whistling Down the Wire (1976).
Nash’s passionate voice continues to be heard in support of peace, and social and environmental justice. The No Nukes/Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts he organized with Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt in 1979 remain seminal benefit events.
In September 2013, Nash released his long-awaited autobiography Wild Tales, which landed him on the New York Times Best Sellers list. In recognition for his contributions as a musician and philanthropist, Nash was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth. While continually building his musical legacy, Nash is also an internationally renowned photographer and visual artist whose work has been shown in galleries and museums worldwide. A collection of his photos is featured in the book A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash which was released in November 2021 by Insight Editions.
VIP Packages Available! Click “Get Tickets” to learn more.
Our third Difficult Dialogue Conversation takes up the topic of how to have difficult conversations with people you care about but may disagree with. Our facilitators, Jennifer Ho and Ami Dayan, believe it is possible to have productive conversations about controversial subjects, so long as all parties enter into the conversation with a sincere willingness to listen and learn rather than simply argue in order to persuade someone to their point of view. Join us on March 27 (Wed, 6-7pm) to practice having hard conversations, including on the topic of Gaza and Israel.
The Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) mission is to promote arts and humanities by being a dynamic hub on the CU Boulder campus and by creating connections within the Boulder community.
Our purpose is to hold dialogues on topics considered difficult, provocative, or controversial, among constituents that may have strong conflicting views.
Our objective is NOT to necessarily agree, fix anything, prove anyone right or wrong, or alter anyone’s position.
We are committed to fostering productive dialogues in the hopes that minds and hearts might expand. We ask that you
Keep an open mind
Be respectful of others
Listen with the intent to understand
Speak your own truth
We expect to experience discomfort when talking about hard things. Remain engaged and recognize that the discomfort can lead to problem-solving and authentic understanding.
Our co-facilitators for this evening will include:
The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose own parents were immigrants from Hong Kong, Jennifer Ho is the director of the Center for the Humanities & the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also holds an appointment as Professor in the Ethnic Studies department. She is the past president of the Association for Asian American Studies (2020-2022) and sits on the board of directors for the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Kundiman (an Asian American literature non-profit). Ho has co-edited two collection of essays, Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States (Ohio State University Press 2017) and Teaching Approaches to Asian North American Literature(Modern Language Association 2022), and she is the author of three scholarly monographs, Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels (Routledge 2005), Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture (Rutgers University Press 2015), which won the South Atlantic Modern Language Association award for best monograph, and Understanding Gish Jen (University of South Carolina Press 2015). She has published in journals such as Modern Fiction Studies, Journal for Asian American Studies, Amerasia Journal, The Global South, Southern Cultures, Japan Forum, and Oxford American. Her next two academic projects are a breast cancer memoir and a monograph that will consider Asian Americans in the global south through the narrative of her maternal family’s immigration from Hong Kong to Jamaica to North America. In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current political climate.
Ami Dayan is an award winning Israeli/American playwright, director, and performer. He studied and worked professionally in Europe, Israel and extensively in the United States. He serves on the board of the Jaipur Literature Festival in Boulder, and is founder of The Interview Game Inc., a Boulder based company with a mission of bridging the intergenerational gap, and bringing people closer with curated reciprocal interviews.
This is a free event. Click “Get Tickets” to RSVP.
Located in the Rocky Mountain Climbers Club, on the lower level of the Community House.
Over a year after Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange) reintroduced themselves on their 2021 self-titled LP, the pair shared a special surprise release: Watchhouse (Duo), a self-produced recording of Marlin and Frantz performing the most elemental possible arrangements of all nine songs from Watchhouse. It’s a project that captures the fundamental power of Watchhouse: Two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life.
Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. They’ve sold out iconic venues (Red Rocks, Ryman Auditorium) and attract hundreds of millions of streams while producing exploratory music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post).
2022 was filled with many endeavors including the American Acoustic Tour with Punch Brothers, headlining shows across the US, collaborating with Planet Bluegrass on Mabon, an autumn equinox concert series, and of course Watchhouse (Duo). In 2023, Marlin and Frantz will celebrate the release of Watchhouse (Duo) with a short run of shows that will feature just the two of them, harkening back to their earliest days of performing.
