Robert Cray, most of the most popular names in contemporary blues, is considered by many to be the main mover behind the new boom the genre is currently enjoying. With a voice full of feeling and a sharp, economic guitar-playing style, Cray rocketed to success from the first. His debut album won a Grammy award in 1986, and ever since he has continued to woo an audience enamoured of his innovative yet accessible style as he experiments with blues and soul. Supporting Cray at the Poble Espanyol will be another outstanding figure in today’s soul music scene, the singer and multi instrumentalist Taj Mahal, one of the musicians who has done most both to conserve traditional acoustic blues and to bring it up to date, a modernising labour of love based on a sensitivity that, with his musicologist’s curiosity, has led Taj Mahal to explore the vast territories of folk and ethnic music, from gospel to Latin rhythm and the sounds of West Africa.
