Robert Cray’s Blues Legacy Comes to the Paramount Theatre: A 50-Year Celebration of Soul, Storytelling, and Guitar Mastery

The Details:

Where: Paramount Theatre
When: February 28, 2025 | Doors 7 PM | Showtime 8 PM (tickets here)

For 50 years, Robert Cray has done more than play the blues—he has helped shape its future. “All these years we have been fortunate to do what we love doing, playing the music we love playing,” Cray shared in a conversation with the Paramount Theatre, reflecting on the endurance of his career.

Now, on February 28, Cray brings his five-time Grammy-winning sound back to Austin for a night at the Paramount Theatre.

Blues, Soul, and R&B—Interwoven

• Cray’s “storyteller’s approach to blues” sets him apart in the genre, Dallas News explained, pointing to his signature style—one that fuses soulful vocals, clean guitar tones, and precise storytelling. It was this fusion that pushed blues back into the mainstream with “Strong Persuader,” an album often credited with modernizing the genre.
  

• His sound doesn’t just borrow from the blues greats—it builds on them. “His early music heroes were (no surprise) all blues guitar players—Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Buddy Guy,” KNKX reported in a recent feature on blues innovation. But Cray “was not content doing versions of already existing songs,” instead he started to “dig deeper into blues, R&B and soul music” which helped to define his signature sound.
  

A Stage That Matches His Legacy: The Paramount Theatre.

For over a century, the Paramount Theatre has hosted legends of jazz, blues, and rock, making it the perfect home for Cray’s return to Austin. “If the walls of the Paramount Theatre could talk, they’d have thousands of stories to tell regarding iconic [] performances gracing the stage since 1915,” Tribeza detailed in an article profiling Austin’s most iconic venues.

For a preview of the night, watch Cray’s live performance of “Right Next Door:”

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