(press release) The Robert Cray Band’s forthcoming album Twenty is set for release on a week
bookended by the May 24 birthday of one of this generation’s most eloquent protest songwriters, Bob Dylan,
and by Memorial Day, May 30. The dates are significant when one considers the subject matter which defines
the album’s title track, “Twenty.”
“The song is about an innocent young guy, who, after the events of 9/11, wants to do his part for his country,”
Cray explains. “He doesn’t know he’s going to end up in Iraq, watching the horror that’s going on there…and
he ends up losing his life. It’s a subject that needs to be spoken about and is in some ways, a continuation of
one of the songs we did on the last album.”
While Cray has generally focused his writing on personal relationships, his song "Survivor" as well as
co-producer and bandmate Jim Pugh's "Distant Shore," both on Cray's 2003 CD Time Will Tell, were also
inspired by concerns about what was, at the time of their writing, an impending war in Iraq.
Robert Cray is a five time Grammy winner who grew up on military bases in the U.S. and abroad. His father
served in Vietnam so Robert has personal knowledge of the effect on a family when one of it’s members is
serving abroad.
On May 24 – the album’s street date -- TrueMajority.org, a non partisan, non-profit, grassroots education and
advocacy project founded by Ben Cohen (Ben & Jerry's), plans to offer the song a streaming audio to its entire
online community of 575,000 Americans who are committed to getting government to reflect our values of
justice, compassion and sustainability.
The May 24 release of Twenty, Cray’s fourteenth album, will be backed by an extensive worldwide tour by The
Robert Cray Band beginning on the week of release with a May 26 San Francisco benefit for Music In Schools
Today. The tour will continue across the U.S. and Europe throughout the summer. Click here for dates
