Robert Cray Band, The - Heavy Picks-The Robert Cray Band Collection '1999

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Phone Booth
02. The Forecast (Calls For Pain)
03. Smoking Gun
04. Playin In The Dirt
05. Dont Be Afraid Of The Dark
06. Too Many Cooks
07. The Dream
08. Right Next Door (Because Of Me)
09. Consequences
10. Bad Influence
11. I Guess I Showed Her
12. I Shiver
13. Trick Or Treat
14. I Was Warned


Robert Cray left his longtime home Mercury Records following the release of
1997s Sweet Potato Pie, moving to Rykodisc in 1999. Not long after his Ryko
debut Take Your Shoes Off -- just a little over six months, actually -- Mercury
released Heavy Picks: The Robert Cray Collection. It wasnt really an attempt to
steal the thunder from Take Your Shoes Off, since that album had eased into the
catalog by that point; it was merely a welcome compilation of Crays first 17
years of recording. Almost all of his albums, from 1980s Whos Been Talkin to
Sweet Potato Pie, are represented (1995s Some Rainy Morning is conspicuously
missing, perhaps because of its slick soul direction), and the selections are by
and large on the money -- the crossover hits Smoking Gun, Right Next Door
(Because of Me), and I Guess I Showed Her are here, but so are some
straight-ahead blues cuts, too, including the Albert Collins duet The Dream. The
only real fault with Heavy Picks is that the collection feels haphazardly
assembled, bouncing from era to era. Ultimately, however, that doesnt matter,
since this captures the highlights from his Tomato and Mercury recordings quite
well.

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