Strong Persuader was a breakthrough album both for Robert Cray and the blues, and its success is often cited as one of the key forces in reviving interest in the blues in the 1980s. The album hit high on four different Billboard Charts–the Billboard Hot 200, R&B Albums, Top Jazz Albums, and Top Contemporary Jazz Albums–and helped Cray win a Grammy and six Blues Music Awards; the album’s opening track, ‘Smoking Gun,’ was also Blues Single of the Year (and reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock singles chart) and ‘Right Next Door (Because of Me)’ was Blues Song of the Year. Cray’s talents had been well captured by the production team of Bruce Bromberg and Dennis Walker on two earlier albums on the independent HighTone label, showing enough promise for HighTone to secure a major label deal with PolyGram’s Mercury imprint. Strong Persuader, their first Mercury effort, made pop stars of the Robert Cray Band (Cray, Richard Cousins, Peter Boe, and David Olson).
