Robert Cray is talking about the future of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, his brand new record, and his attitude is a little surprising. “We just did what we always do: we went in the studio with the same producers and the same band, hoping that this record is going to be better.

“I don’t have any goals for this record, other than I hope people like it. I don’t set goals like, ‘I want to sell 50 billion records.’ Nah, whatever happens, happens—and if the record bombs, the record bombs. We can still go out and work and that’s the main thing, being able to have fun and play.”

Cray sits back on the couch in his suit and smiles as he says this. Perhaps the most polite man in music today, you won’t catch him saying anything bad about anything. But when it comes to trying to calculate a pathway to platinum, you can count him out.

For all the outcry in certain circles that Robert Cray may or may not have sold out the blues, he’s staying to true to that music’s first tenet: maintaining your honesty at all costs. And besides, what’s so holy about being true to a medium that’s strictly for aficionados?

Certainly the music Cray cooks up is a hybrid— he’s the first one to acknowledge that. “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is a slice of soaring, Stax-style R&B that’s thick with horn parts and Cray’s warm vocals. But this departure from blues is held together by the lyrical solo that Cray uses to punctuate the bridge, and play cat and mouse call/response games with the Memphis Horns.

So, sure, you can say what you want about Robert Cray. But remember that with the release of Strong Persuader a couple years back, the soft-spoken band leader put the blues back on a lot of people’s lips. He’s fine about it... just don’t ask him to play the role of the savior of the blues.

"People say that because we play the blues, you know,” he muses. “But we do rhythm and blues, too. It doesn’t bother me because we aren’t a blues band, we just do what we do: R&B and blues, funky fun and boogaloo and saucy fly ...”

That same ambivalence to conformity of style fires the Robert Cray Band live. You can hear echoes of Otis Redding, James Brown and Elmore James when Cray starts shaking his musical influences down. Of course, Milwaukee—where Cray’s band is kicking off its tour—isn’t exactly the home of the blues. It’s hot and sticky here as Cray, bass player Richard Cousins, guitarist Tim Kaihatsu, keyboardist Peter Boe and drummer David Olson take the stage, yet the fans and the faithful are pressing each other as the performance wears on, trying to get a glimpse of the bluesman wringing solo after solo from an already exhausted instrument.

But Milwaukee and the blues have as much in common as the North Pole and working on your tan. The lion’s share of the fresh-scrubbed Midwestern youth in theteeming orchestra pit don’t have any idea what lies at the heart of the blues experience and there’s a safeness that envelopes the night that even Cray’s band can’t peel away.

“I don’t know, I think the kids are there primarily for the music,” Cray allows, “just like I was when I was their age. They may know something about heartache, but not the real down serious stuff. I think the music, the groove, the guitar, the dancing is what brings them in.”

Though he’d never come right out and say it, or even intimate it, Cray must sense a superficiality to the renewed fascination with the music. Going platinum and opening tours for people like Huey Lewis and Tina Turner is certainly going to attract who casual fans who aren’t into everything that came B.C. (Before Cray).

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“Well, there’s a lot of new audience out there,” Cray admits. “There’s lots of young kids who come to the show because they’ve seen the videos. ‘Smokin’ Gun’ really got their attention because it was more rock-oriented. And that’s fine, that’s how I was too, when I was young. I won’t even tell you about some of the bands / liked ...

“And then you’ll get the older audience, too, who do understand the lyrics and that’s what touches them. Like there’s this one song called The Grinder’ on the Bad Influence album and I remember we were in this club where these older black women were really responding to this line that goes,.. I walked in on you and Richard and your legs were up in the air . . .’ These ladies wanted us to just play that song over and over. All the time!

“There were these older black ladies, shouting, ‘Yeah, play The Grinder’! Play The Grinder’!” Cray says, laughing at the recollection. “So, you know, people respond to all different parts of the show—and you really never know what they’re there to see.”

Of course, the days of playing clubs are pretty much over for Robert Cray, who’s become a certifiable entitiy in the music business. But, it wasn’t always so—and it’s out of those experiences that the foundation, indeed much of the Cray organization, was formed.

“Richard and I are into our 14th year of being together as the Cray Band. We started off with nothing, making something like four dollars a night and putting two bucks of it back into the gas tank,” Cray recalls. “We were sleeping on floors and going to gigs without knowing where we were going to end up staying. We had our sleeping bags in the back—or we’d end up sleeping out in parks—just so we could play the kind of music we wanted to. We intend to keep doing it.”

It’s easy to say that in a suite in one of Milwaukee’s finer hotels. This ain’t the Motel 6 and Cray senses that. He picks up on the irony of what he’s saying and acknowledges it. “Things are a lot better now, but this could all be gone tomorrow— and that’s alright.

“What I’m here for is to play what I want and I can do that regardless of where I’m staying. It’s everybody’s dream to do what they want and very few people ever get to. To me, that’s important, that’s what I’ve built my life on and I’d never throw it away just to make some money.”

The mere thought prompts Cray to shake his head. Having grown up in a mobile military family, he’s able to adapt to new situations easily. But, there are some things he wishes to keep constant. And music, which he’s been pursuing seriously since he was a 14-year-old novice guitar slinger, is one of those things.

“I got in my first band while we were in Virginia and we played Wilson Pickett, the Rascals and Jimi Hendrix. We played a few gigs and one was at a black nightclub in like ’67, ’68, back in the days when girl§ were wearing hip huggers with big wide belts and halter tops.”

Cray can’t help but shake his head and mutter, “Mm-mm,” in reflection. “Back in those days when

people were still doing the jerk, we used to do a rock set, then we’d do a psychedelic set where we’d play Hendrix and stuff. That was what sort of got me into the blues.

“We moved to Washington state shortly thereafter and my'friends were listening to B.B. King, Magic Sam and stuff,” he continues, ‘‘which interested me because I was interested in guitars and there were a lot more hip guitar lines on blues records than on all the rock and roll albums that were out. The touch and feeling behind those B.B. King solos were so cool, I started woodshedding on them.”

Eventually, Cray emerged ready to do his own thing. Blues was a style he was familiar with, since his parents were avid record collectors who’d go down to the PX on base and pick up all sorts of stuff. Cray’s father would listen to gospel records by the Swan Silvertones, the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Five Blind Boys on Sunday mornings, so Cray’s eclecticism began at home.

But before he could begin branching out, Cray would need to reject all other music and devote himself to “the blues.” Along the way, he’d serve an apprenticeship backing up Albert Collins, who he’d later join for Alligator’s Gram my-winning Showdown! LP that featured the pair and Johnny Copeland. He was playing the music of Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, OA/. Wright, Freddie King, Bobby Bland and of course, Muddy Waters.

He was also carving out a reputation as the young hotshot blues guitarist, long before Polygram ever entered the picture. With the help of Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker, Cray recorded Bad Influence in 1983 and False Accusations in 1985 for Hightone—and suddenly America had a young black man doing something only white guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton were doing: playing the blues.

Yet Cray tries not to place undue emphasis on his guitar work. “Every song doesn’t have to have a Bob Cray solo in it, because to me it’s a song first and I’d rather not be squeezing a solo just to have it.

“To me, a solo should be an extension of the story, a story within the story. The idea is to keep the same kind of flow and the same kinds of feelings as when you’re singing. Start with something familiar, then take off and improvise...

“It’s not how many notes you can play in two seconds, either,” he cautions. “It’s not technical things, but the feelings and emotions you’re trying to carry through it.”

For Cray, the story is the one thing that he looks for. “It’s about life, situations. People say, ‘What can you say in the blues?’ Well, everybody has their own version about life, so as long as there are people living, there’ll be the blues.

“But, the thing is, it’s not to bring people down. It’s to recognize a situation and to get it off your mind, your chest, so you can relieve yourself. I’d like to one day write a song that would make people cry because they’ve been there too, but then sigh after because the hurt is all gone.”

But, can platinum-selling, Grammy-winning Robert Cray really get the blues? Sure, he still doesn’t own a house, but that stands to change soon. And he’s hard at work trying to pick out what kind of hot car he wants to buy. So, what s the problem?

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“Well, I have been through some of the things I sing about,” he says seriously. “And the songs I don’t write, well, we try to get songs that are close to how I feel anyways. You need to be able to put some honesty behind it.

“Now, something like ‘Right Next Door (Because of Me),’ which I didn’t write, with that line about ‘She was just another notch on my guitar Okay, I don’t put notches in my guitar, but it’s not so far from the truth. I’ve had my days.”

Cray can’t help but flash a winning grin. It seems even his love life is in order. “Oh no, now wait a minute!” he cautions. “Actually I just broke up with my girlfriend, urn, and, well, it was one of those things where I just didn’t know ’til it was too late...

“Of course, I get my inspiration from my personal life, So, I guess I’ll have all kinds of inspiration for quite a while.”

The grin melts to rueful smile. So yes, even Robert Cray can get the blues. It’s like that, he guesses. Nobody’sexemptfrom hurting—and while it’s painful, it’s not such a bad thing. After all, as long as people are going to drown their sorrows, they’re going to have to listen to something, and Robert Cray is in this for the long haul.

“Twenty years from now, I just want to be able to work,” he allows. “I look at John Lee Hooker, who’s 71 years old and still touring. That cat can still do it—even if it’s only eight days a month—and that’s great. He’s got a great attitude and laughs all the time. He’s like a young kid because he hasn’t taken the time to settle down and become an old man.

“See, I don’t think you get old if you don’t let yourself. It’s all in your mind and I’d liketothinkthat as long as I keep playing, I don’t have to grow old either.”