Robert Cray Then: After leaving blues guitarist Albert Collins band, Robert Cray formed the Robert Cray Band. Which also featured Richard Cousins on bass, Peter Boe on keyboards and David Olson on drums. Their music was a mixture of blues, R&B, jazz, rock and gospel. In 1980 Cray released his debut album, Who's Been Talking. Three years later, he issued Bad Influence, which received four prestigious W.C. Handy Awards for the Blues. Cray's next release False Accusations brought him to the charts in 1985. The next year, he signed a major label and released his breakthrough, Strong Persuader, which featured a #22 pop hit single "Smoking Gun." It became the first blues album to crack the Billboard 200 albums chart's top 20 since 1972. Cray also joined Rolling Stone Keith Richards and Eric Clapton at Chuck Berry's 60th birthday concert performance, which was captured in the film "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll." Cray won his first Grammy Award in 1987 for Showdown!, his collaboration with Collins and Johnny Copeland. In 1988, Strong Persuader was named Best Contemporary Blues Recording at the Grammy Awards and Cray began a headlining tour of major venues. Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (1988) made #32 in the U.S. and earned Cray his second consecutive Grammy in the Contemporary Blues category. Now: In 1990, Cray performed on Clapton's Journeyman album and was on tour with Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan when Vaughan and members of Clapton's band were killed in a helicopter crash. Later that year, Cray began billing himself as a solo artist and released Midnight Stroll. In 1994, he toured with the Rolling Stones. The following year, he released Some Rainy Morning. None of Cray's '90s albums have reached the chart heights of his mid-'80s offerings. Recently, Cray released Sweet Potato Pie, which combined blues and Memphis soul and in 2001 released Shoulda Been Home (their 12th studio album.)