Search - Robert Cray :: I Was Warned

An overlooked masterpiece

Stephen Doig | New Zealand | 12/25/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Of all Robert Cray albums, over a career that has now spanned 20 years, this is the one I keep coming back to time and time again. I Was Warned is not one of Robert Cray's more critically acclaimed or commercially successful albums, yet for me it's a handsome, undemanding record that is full of great songs and superb playing. As a practitioner of the blues, Cray has been instrumental in it's re-emergence as a popular art-form in the 80's and 90's, however he has never considered himself to be a 'bluesman' - preferring to call his sound a blues/soul/rock hybrid. I Was Warned tends towards soul and rock. There is a definite feel-good factor to 'Just A Loser' and 'I'm A Good Man', both carry an irresistable groove and Cray clearly revels in his everyman tales of love and life. 'The Price I Pay' is a meditation on fading love, it is one of Cray's finest ballads - a side of his music that seems to get overlooked. 'On The Road Down' is blisteringly good also and showcases some fine guitar-work. Blues purists may find I Was Warned a little too slick, but I love the mood that these taut, polished and wholly enjoyable songs put me in."

Soulful

Stephen Doig | 08/01/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Robert Cray's most soulful and heartfelt CD among the eight that I own, the one that I reach for over and over again whenever I crave quintessential Cray. The first Robert Cray song I ever heard was "I Was Warned", and it sent me running to the nearest music store. "He Don't Live Here Anymore" is so raw that I sometimes have to skip over it. Just technically, emotionally, viscerally a wonderful collection."