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harp playing but the organ/saxes again take over, ditto ‘Little Girl How Old Are You?’. ‘It’s a
Bloody Life’ features Jimmy Page’s guitar to the fore and we do hear a bit more harp alongside
the organ/saxes, finally ‘Getting Out of Town’ is another swinging track with everybody
joining in and having a ball – the best track here. I couldn’t really recommend this album to

Sonny Boy Williamson fans or to fans of British blues it’s a bit of a one-off oddity. Which is a
pity, with a rehearsal and some direction it could have produced some great music – in the
style of Sonny Boy’s ‘Help Me’ track.

Graham Harrison

Robert Cray—Standing My Own Ground (Live 1980)—
Night Parade

As a fan of Curtis Salgado I was very interested to learn that
he had been the harmonica player with the Robert Cray Band
in its early days and I wished I could have heard them
together. Then along comes this live album recorded in

January 1980 at the Keystone, Palo Alto for a KFAT FM radio
broadcast. Robert’s band featured him on guitar and vocals,
Warren Rand (tenor sax), Curtis Salgado (harmonica and
vocals), Richard Cousins (bass) and David Olsen (drums).

Opener ‘Cold Women’ is a typical Cray funky blues complete with blistering guitar solos and
with Curtis chugging along behind on chromatic harp. Robert’s introductions are short and
snappy and his guitar playing and vocals are both rawer than they became later. There is nice
variety here with Curtis taking over lead vocals on songs like Charlie Rich’s ‘Mohair Sam’ and
BB King’s ‘I’m Tired of Your Jive’ and on ‘Blind, Crippled and Crazy’ Robert joins him to sing

the chorus to great effect.

Robert’s ‘Whose been Talkin’’ album was released in March 1980 with Curtis featured on a
few tracks but by the next album he was gone and you can see why – did the band really need

a harmonica player AND a sax player? However, I really like the combination – listen to ‘Can’t
Hold Back the Tears’ where the harp and sax play in unison, and on Willie Dixon’s ‘Too Many
Cooks’ both make telling contributions. ‘Hands Off That Woman’ is a blues belter with Curtis
on vocals and diatonic harp but with sax and Robert joining in on the choruses and ‘I’ve Got

Everything I Need’ is a gorgeous slow blues with Robert and Curtis swapping the lead vocal.
Obviously given the date this isn’t a hi-fi recording but I thought that it perfectly captured the
early Cray band which I found exciting and I liked the rawer sound compared to some of his
later blander recordings. (Also check out the album Have Mercy (Eugene, Oregon live 1978) –

where the band features Curtis and Dave Stuart on piano and vocals)

Graham Harrison