ALL OVER AGAIN

Legendary soul-blues musician returns with All Over Again, his first album in 7 years.

Recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, All Over Again captures 5-time Grammy winner Robert Cray at the peak of his powers.

Illustrious drummer Steve Jordan is All Over Again’s producer and plays on every track.

“Steve understands my sound,” says Robert Cray of a working relationship with Steve Jordan that stretches back to 1986 when Keith Richards hired both men to join a supergroup backing Chuck Berry for Taylor Hackford’s Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll concert film. “He’s a killer drummer, so keeps me on my toes.”

Cray notes that recording All Over Again at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was a first for both men. With passion he says, “where the likes of Wilson Pickett, Etta James and Aretha Franklin – to name just a handful - all made seminal recordings.”

All Over Again is, for Cray, a homecoming album (of sorts): aged seven years old in 1960, young Robert and his siblings went to live with their maternal grandmother in Alabama for three months while his father relocated to Germany (his father served in the US military). Here they experienced segregated schools and water fountains. “It was a different world to what I had seen before,” notes Cray.

The experience of recording in Alabama, alongside his anger at Donald Trump’s government, inspired Cray to write several original songs for All Over Again focusing on the state of the nation.

"1965, when voting rights for black people were enacted, wasn’t that long ago,” says Cray. “I turned 12 that year, my parents were finally able to vote. I’m not the first to write these types of songs. But I know why they are written - it’s just too bad that we have to.”

Every song on All Over Again is deeply felt: on ‘Push Through’, the album’s first single, he calls on his fellow Americans to “get out on the street, vote, take a stand”. ‘Push Through’ addresses the urgent anxieties of this political moment, with Cray aiming a sharp spotlight at the current U.S. administration's efforts to turn back the clock on the progress achieved during the Civil Rights movement. Rather than yielding to despair, Cray urges listeners "to stay calm and to stay focused" amid the political noise and to remember and be motivated by their mom and dad’s past struggles.

On ‘With Everyone’ he pays tribute to Maggie Cray, his beloved mother, Cray wistfully noting on how toxic US politics has become since she passed in 2020. ‘Long Way Home’ is a melancholy soul ballad about a society disrupted by lies, while ‘Tacky Wack’ is a furious successor to 2020’s ‘This Man’ as Cray tears strips off the president.

Alongside Cray’s originals he embraces tunes originally cut in Muscle Shoals by R&B legends Bobby Womack (‘I’m In Love’), Wilson Pickett (‘For Better Or Worse’) and Jimmy Hughes (‘Neighbor, Neighbor’). Fittingly, the album’s closing number, ‘Soul Shot’, is a joyous celebration of all the great soul singers who cut anthems the whole world now loves at Muscle Shoals.

Keeping things down home, Spooner Oldham and Clayton Ivey, both revered Muscle Shoals pianists who played on many celebrated FAME R&B sessions, dropped by to add their distinctive touches to All Over Again’s sessions. Cray’s loyal sidemen, bassist Richard Cousins and keyboardist Dover Weinberg, add the tough, funky bottom which ensure Robert’s albums punch hard.

Robert Cray’s commitment to making music of the highest standard has won Cray countless awards, millions of album sales and the respect of legendary artists. Think about it: Robert Cray has shared stage and/or studio with the likes of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Tina Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Albert Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Hi Rhythm Section.

Long heralded as a master blues musician, Robert Cray has always been equally grounded in soul music: from his 1980 debut album Who’s Been Talking on Cray has employed his beautifully expressive voice to sing masterful interpretations of such Southern soul standards as ‘I'm Gonna Forget About You’ (O.V. Wright), ‘Don’t Touch Me’ (Johnny “Guitar” Watson), ‘Steppin’ Out’ (Syl Johnson), I ‘Forgot To Be Your Lover’ (William Bell), ‘Your Good Thing Is About To End’ (Mable John), ‘Deep In My Soul’ (Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland), ‘My Baby Likes To Boogaloo’ (Don Gardner) and ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ (Otis Redding).

On All Over Again he demonstrates how the youthful blues boy is now a mighty soul man.

“We move forward,” says Cray of music, life and society. “We don’t move back.”