Bendites know and appreciate good tunes when they hear them. They’ve proven that over and over again – with sold-out shows for live acts in literally every venue around town. Lucky for them, there’s just been another big name in music added to the already exciting auditory landscape: on Sunday, November 11, the Tower Theatre Foundation is bringing blues legend and five-time Grammy winner Robert Cray to its stage for the first time since 2007.

Considered to be one of the most expressive vocalists and guitarists on the contemporary rhythm and blues scene, Cray draws blues, rock, pop and jazz with equal insight and authority, and Rolling Stone Magazine credits him with reinventing the blues with his “distinct razor sharp guitar playing that introduces a new generation of mainstream rock fans to the language and form of the blues.” Over three decades, Cray has recorded fifteen Billboard-charting studio albums and played with some of the greatest musical talents of our time – Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Muddy Waters.

“Every time somebody asks me about where my music comes from, I give them five or six different directions – a little rock, soul, jazz, blues, a little gospel feel,” says Cray. “Then there are some other things that maybe fall in there every once in a while, like a little Caribbean flavor or something. You just never know. I always attribute it to the music we grew up listening to and the radio back in the ‘60s. It’s hard to put a tag on it.”

Crafting his sweet sculptural sound from all these varied influences has resulted in keeping Cray stubbornly beyond category, and has earned him the accolades of his peers who have lauded him with five little golden gramophones to date and inducted him into the Blues Hall of Fame. His latest album was released last August and is titled Nothin’ but Love.

541-317-0700 or TowerTheatre.org.