“In all the years I’d played with Albert, I’d always wanted to hear him play something in a minor key – and he smoked it!”: Robert Cray tells the story behind the greatest all-star blues team-up of the ‘80s

(Image credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

Despite all the hair metal, shred, synth-pop and early-stage hip-hop, the Eighties was actually an incredibly fertile period for blues guitar.

Obviously, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray, and Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble were among the primary forces behind the genre’s rebirth (in its traditional and/or modern forms); but, just as the British blues boom of the mid Sixties had inspired young listeners to look beyond Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor and rediscover an earlier generation of American blues masters, fans of the Vaughan brothers started to look backwards and rediscover their heroes’ heroes.

Interestingly, a lot of those heroes – including Albert Collins, Son Seals, Lonnie Mack, Johnny Winter, and Roy Buchanan – had found a home on Chicago’s Alligator Records by the mid-Eighties.

It is against that backdrop that in 1985, Alligator released one of its most popular and successful albums, Showdown!, which brought together three guitar greats – Alligator Records star (and outright Texas legend) Albert Collins, young Strat hero Robert Cray, and Mr. Texas Twister (and big-time Peavey T60 fan), Johnny Copeland.

The two Texans – Collins and Copeland – had known each other since the Fifties; meanwhile, Cray had known Collins since the Seventies. So, in some ways, though not entirely directly, the three were connected prior to the sessions, leading to Alligator dubbing Showdown! an album “thirty years in the making.”

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According to Cray, Showdown! took a day or two to assemble, and they felt good about the finished product, though none of the three could have predicted the results. Showdown! became one of Alligator’s best-selling albums, even netting a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording.

“We just had fun,” Cray says. “One thing that cracked me up was for the [Grammy] ceremony, when they called our names, as we were walking to the stage, there were [stairs], and as the three of us walked up, we did the Three Stooges thing, where we all bumped into each other. It just reminded me of all the fun we had in the studio. It was still with us.”

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Did you know Albert and Johnny all that well going into the sessions?

“I’d known Albert for a while because we used to work with him quite a bit. Whenever he was on the West Coast, we were his backup band. That started in about ’76 or ’77, long before we did Showdown! But I didn’t know Johnny Copeland. I only met Johnny when he was coming into the studio.

The idea had actually come about, I guess, with Bruce Iglauer and Bruce Bromberg, who I worked with, wanting to have Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown

“When we got to the studio, Albert and I were standing outside talking because we’d arrived at the same time, and while we were talking, Johnny pulled up in a car, and he was hunched over. Albert went over and spoke to Johnny – they went way back to the Fifties in Houston – and he asked Johnny what was going on. Johnny said he was fasting.

“Albert was like, ‘What are you doing that for?’ and just started making fun of him. [Laughs] I watched this go down, and we took all of that ribbing, so to speak, into the studio.”

So the vibe going in was nice and light.

“Yeah, it was pretty cool. The idea had actually come about, I guess, with [co-producers] Bruce Iglauer and Bruce Bromberg, who I worked with, wanting to have Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown on the album so that there would be three guys from Texas. I don’t know why Gatemouth didn’t do it, but I was invited.”

It was pretty easy for us to get along. Albert is a great comper. When he comes in, he’s like a jazz organist.

Do you remember putting together the set of tracks?

“We went in, did some of those songs and the ones they had in mind, met the rhythm section and started messing around. Then we started laying down tracks.

“Bruce Bromberg and I wrote The Dream [Bromberg used a pen name, David Amy, for his writing credit]. I think Bruce came up with the lyrics, and I put the music together on the spot.

“The idea was for Albert to play the solo in the middle because in all the years I’d played with him, I’d always wanted to hear him play something in a minor key – and he smoked it!”

How did you blend your three styles?

“It was pretty easy for us to get along. Albert is a great comper. When he comes in, he’s like a jazz organist. When you go back and listen to some of those instrumentals he did, that was Albert’s thing. So, with that in mind, I did the counter to that; Johnny just did what he did. There was no stepping on anybody’s toes or anything like that.”

A lot of people are familiar with you and Albert, but not as many people know Johnny’s work. What made him special as a player?

“Johnny is a great singer and a great songwriter, and he has his own thing. I mean… he’s really well-versed in all those things I mentioned, like being a songwriter and performer; it was cool.”

What did you learn from Albert and Johnny?

“I’d been a fan of Albert’s for a long time, and I’d worked with him. With Albert, he just needed great support, and he’d take it to another level from there. The thing with Albert was, you know, one of the great things we were able to do was to be in a position to be in a backup band and watch somebody like Albert, who had some years on us, knew how to work an audience, [and] knew what to do with a guitar and bring out the best.

“It was just killer, man. He was a take-no-prisoners guitar player. There are very few of those around these days.”

What sort of gear did you three bring into the studio?

“We each just brought in one guitar, I think. [Laughs] I think Johnny was playing a Peavey; that’s where he was at. Albert had his Tele, and I had a Strat. It was very simple. We flew in from L.A., Bruce Bromberg and I – or I might have come in from San Francisco – and we all met in Chicago. I only took one guitar as far as I can remember.

“The amps were in the studio, I think. I probably played through a [Fender] Super Reverb, and Albert – I’m not sure what he played through. He might have played through a Super Reverb, but at one point, he had a Quad Reverb, and that was a pretty powerful amp. I don’t know what Johnny played through.”

Did you cut the record live and in the same room for the most part?

“We played together. We might have done some overdubs, but I think it was all done in a day, maybe two. Yeah… it was a short, little thing; it was so much fun that it just happened fast.”

Showdown! was a considerable success, taking home a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording. That must have been rewarding.

“Oh, it was great. It was the first [Grammy] for all of us. But Albert and Johnny – especially Albert – were all teared up. It was just really heartfelt. After all the years he’d been around, it was really touching to feel his emotion, you know? It was really cool.”

Looking back on Showdown! 40 years later, what does it mean to you?

“I look at the cover, and I go, ‘Who’s that guy?’ [Laughs] It cracks me up! But also, at the same time, it puts a smile on my face.

“I’m really proud of having had the opportunity to record with Albert [who passed away in 1993] and Johnny [who passed away in 1997] – and to have the opportunity to meet Johnny. Having the record be recognized still means a lot.”

Showdown! is available via Alligator.This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Andrew Daly is an iced-coffee-addicted, oddball Telecaster-playing, alfredo pasta-loving journalist from Long Island, NY, who, in addition to being a contributing writer for Guitar World, scribes for Bass Player, Guitar Player, Guitarist, and MusicRadar. Andrew has interviewed favorites like Ace Frehley, Johnny Marr, Vito Bratta, Bruce Kulick, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Morello, Rich Robinson, and Paul Stanley, while his all-time favorite (rhythm player), Keith Richards, continues to elude him.