Blues Legend Larry McCray Exclusive Interview

Blues Legend Larry McCray Exclusive Interview

 So long blues, outside my window this morning, birds are singing their song. Larry McRae, a Rust Belt blues legend, was born in 1960 in Magnolia, Arkansas, and raised on a farm as the second youngest of nine siblings. Introduced to the guitar by his sister Clara, and inspired by the Three Kings, B.B., Freddie, and Albert, McRae moved to Saginaw, Michigan, in 1972, where he honed his searing guitar style and soulful vocals.

Signed as the first artist to Virgin's Point Blank Records, his 1990 debut, Ambition, Fuse Blues, Rock, and sold to critical acclaim. Over three decades, McRae has shared stages with icons like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Joe Bonamassa, releasing albums like Delta Hurricane and the 2022 Comeback Blues Without You. His latest, Heartbreak City, dropped in June 2025, solidifying his enduring impact on modern blues.

A Michigan rock and roll legends Hall of Fame inductee, Larry McRae continues to captivate with his heartfelt performances. Now here's The Trout with Larry, enjoy. Meet David Smith, your Edward Jones financial advisor.

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Reach out to David today at 469-372-1587, that's David Smith at 469-372-1587, your partner for financial possibilities. David Smith with Edward Jones, a proud supporter of The Trout Show. Now here's The Trout.

When I read about your bio, and I got a deep bio about you, you almost sound like a blues song. Well, it's been a blues life, let me tell you, that ain't no joke. And so I read about you and you have, what was it, nine, eight or nine of you in the family when you grew up? Yeah, yeah, and so I assume your dad wanted to move to Michigan to work in the car industry because people, that's probably what he, getting out of that little town in Arkansas.

Right, right. But actually, it was my mother who decided to make the move. You know how it is, but in my family back in them days, sometimes the mama would put on the pants if daddy was slacking, you know what I'm saying? And take care of business.

And my mother was a strong woman, a strong-willed woman, but by the same right, she was talking, you know, she was sweet and everything, you know, and she was a good wife to my father. But, you know, my mother was out with rock. You know, my dad was a musician and he would sometimes be gone spinning his wheels and we'd all have to be there and fend for ourselves.

Yeah, that wouldn't be fun, would it? No. And so when you wanted to go in the music business, they probably thought, no, come on, dude, come on, look at your dad. My big sister is what inspired me to play and her, and I know you remember Michael Burks, Iron Man Michael Burks.

Yeah. Well, my sister and his dad had a group together back when we was a little bitty. Mike is just two years older than me, but his dad and my sister, my sister had a group.

It was Clara and the Rockets and Michael Burks. Dad was on the bass. Brother Burks, Fred Burks was his name.

They got a Fred Junior, too, that plays bass. But all the people in the community call him Brother Burks. So Brother Burks, E.D. Mullins on keyboard, Bobby Joe Hendricks on drum and my sister on guitar.

And that was Clara and the Rockets. So when I see that as a four or five year, about about a five year old kid, six year old kid, man, that just lit a fire in me. And I want to be like her.

And also, my dad used to have guys that would come and sit and play music on the porch and they would drink, you know, they drank their booze and run all the kids off. But, you know, we'd be checking it out from a distance. My man, my old man was a was a heartblower.

And it's Louis who had his hair slicked back. He was a black man, had his hair slicked back. He had his glasses.

He always had a suit on. He was always clean and everything. And we thought the second coming of Jesus Christ would come when you and Louis would come to the house and play his electric guitar.

That was a big thing. Yeah. This this was around about 64, 65, somewhere along there.

Yeah. You were just you were just a little tyke at the time. So when you started, I noticed that there was a little talk about you were in high school, started playing sax, which was pretty normal back then.

You're you're so you're how much older is your sister than you? About 18 years. Oh, wow. She was like my she was like my mama, my second mama.

You know, my mother was one of those working mothers, you know, she worked and took care of other kids. Yeah. She was gone doing what she had to do.

My big sister cooked and cleaned and took care of us with my family separated into two units. It was the first five. And then it's a 12 year gap and it was four more.

I'm on the second half. Yeah. You know, so the older kids, the older kids were like second parents to my big brother was like, oh, yeah, sure.

I understand that because so was she when you were born, was she already playing the guitar by that time? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And what what drove her, though, to pick it up and start playing? Was she a blues person? I know I read about the fact that you kind of grew up on some blue stuff in the in the home, but was she a blues artist? Did she like the old stuff or what did she like? Most definitely. And she was passed the guitar from my grandmother, from my dad, his mom and his mother was an acoustic guitar player. And as the story goes, my sister's first guitar was what they call a cigar box guitar made on a King Edward cigar box.

And that's what she started. And later, you know, they got a guitar and stuff like that. But even that was before my time.

But I know of it. Yeah. So you grew up and then you affect us as listening to some of your music a while ago.

I hear a little bit of, of course, you've been playing a long time. People can't escape who they were influenced by. Right.

So I just I just saw Joanna Connor. I know, you know, Joanna, because she played on something for you. Yeah, I went down.

She was here in Dallas at the guitar show and I just interviewed her. So I wanted to meet her. And she got off stage.

And I said, I heard a little bit of something. She goes, what's that? I heard a little Johnny winner there. And when I was listening to you, I go, I hear a little Freddie King, a little Freddie King.

But that was my Bible. Freddie, Albert Collins, B.B. King and Albert King. You know, for my generation, you had to play some of all four of those guys if you're going to be electric blues.

Yeah. Second generation, you got for me, you know, after after the four came Buddy Guy, Luther Allison, Otis Rush, you know, all of that, you know, that that class of people from, you know, from that generation. So after I dug into all that, I went back a little further and I got into guitar slam.

I was a big fan of Mississippi Fred. Yeah. I like Booker T. Lowry.

You know, I like all the old stuff, but I tried to draw from the old and then modernize it just enough for the people who don't really know the blues can still have the feeling of the blues. But it's palatable because he's kind of recording on today's. Yeah.

Within today's parameters, if that make any sense. Yeah. And I think the thing is, though, when you talk to people about I try to explain to people about blues and try to explain the word space to them, you know, and it's like you know, like there's a lot of space.

What does that mean? I said, well, there is like a Hammond, a bass, a guitar and a singer. And when a lot of you know, there was a lot of fancy stuff going on and you've been doing this so long now that you've you're in a groove and all that stuff. Do you still think how you grew up still influences the way you play, in other words, songs about what happened to you when you were younger? It comes out in my mind that had I been raised different or had a different experience in my childhood, I know I wouldn't be the man that I am today.

I owe it all to my upbringing and to my surroundings and to my parents for caring enough to try to raise us in a way that we cared. I mean, you know, I love music and I have had a very tumultuous career and a lot of failures. But one thing that I haven't failed at, and that's the way that I carry myself out here amongst my peers and my socialization skills.

I know how to talk to people. And it's more important to me to be remembered as a good person and a good human being than it is, oh, man, that guy could really play, but he was such an asshole. Yeah.

You know, I don't I don't want that tag on me. Yeah. And I'm just talking to somebody not too long ago about that whole situation that's just said, if you're nice to people, they'll be nice back.

And there's no reason not to be nice to them. I mean, they're the ones paying for your tickets, paying for you to be there. My father used to say, if you want a friend, you got to be a friend.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a there is a there's a way I mean, you think about what you do for a living and touring is not easy.

It's hard. And but as many people have told me, you probably agree, when you're on stage, you forget all about the hard part. You're just enjoying yourself doing what you're doing.

Tell me a little bit about this new album, though, how did that come about with you had met Joe before you'd worked with Joe a few years back after the after Covid or what? After Covid, we put out a record and then, you know, we met the first time back in the early 90s. It must have been Joe. Joe was probably about 21 years old when I was two years old.

So, you know, I knew Joe, but I lived in Memphis for a while. Oh, OK. I was in Memphis.

Joe Bonamassa, Eric Gales was just getting started out. It was all kind of young people there that was playing this music. And I was right there to think of it, you know, I was kind of the big brother, you know, at the time, you know.

And so I'm out here trying to run with it. And I see all these young, young soul girls come burning my ass down, you know what I'm saying? So it was good. And it always makes you try to reinvent to try to keep up with the time.

You know, now I don't want to be anything other than a blues player and everything I do has to have a strong blues content to it. But I have always had to try to adapt because I come up in a time when funk music was king. I come up with Barry Graham, Fatback Band, War, you know, all brass construction, you know, all these big funky bands, you know, heavy bass and all this stuff.

But, you know, the songs that they were putting out was funk music, but it was heavy gospel driven. So it had a real, you know, it was funk, but they were still singing and playing their butts off, you know. So it was a good thing just that you said about the space.

I come up in a time when that space was very important and each person had a assignment. You know, if you rhythm guitar, you might just be plucking. You got a man with a chord, he's swinging, he's answering you.

You got a bass player that's, you know, laying it down for us all to jump onto and the drummer just holding it together. You know, like you said, everybody had a space and everybody was expected to do a job. And if you got off your beat or put a hiccup in there, you done ruined the groove.

You know, so it taught us to work together and not to be separate. There's a lot of separatism on stage now and guys want to just come on stage and show off their chops and play over the top of your thing and don't nobody want to work together. And one of the advantages you have, you probably realize this as being the older guy, people have respect for you.

Right. Right. I mean, when I see a person in our age group walk on stage, you've been playing for decades.

I got respect for them because I know that they've been making their living. I mean, I've been the best thing in the world that happened to them, but they're still up there doing their thing. And I mean, yeah, so I that's the one thing.

And I think that people like yourself and keeping the blues alive, quoting Joe Bottom, but. As you grew up, I was looking at some of the some of the music that you've done, like years ago, you did, I guess, for somebody's song, you did All Along the Watchtower for somebody. I forgot who that was for.

It was one of them compilations, you know, during that time, John Schneider was producing a lot of records. Oh, wow. And they had Verve, they had Indigo, and it was two or three other labels that were going at that time.

And so I think it was Point Blank that put out these compilations. They did an Eric Clapton, they did a Bob Dylan, they did Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan. Who else was it? Rolling Stones.

And it was four compilations. So I got a chance to be part of all four compilations. Well, I think it's funny because the motto of Point Blank is that this ain't no tribute.

So it was all these different artists doing that interpretation of these other artists' music. So, you know, I did Bob Dylan's Watchtower and I kind of did it my own way, you know. You were probably too young.

Did you ever get to see Freddie? You know, Freddie come to Flint, Michigan, when I was 16 years old. And my mother, you know, I told you about my mama, she was real religious and all. And I was only 35 minutes away and she wouldn't let me go.

She wouldn't let me go to the Fred Adman dude. I cried. I wanted to see him.

And then it wasn't months later that he passed. It was in 76. I was born in 60.

I was 16 years old in 76, the year he passed. So I missed him. So did you.

So here's my question. Did you bring this up to your mother years later when you were blues, your well-known blues guide? You say, Mom, remember when you let me go see Freddie King? You know what? I didn't. I wish I had her, though.

I really do. I wish I had her. You know, I had my mom all the way till I was about 34.

So that was, you know, that was 16, 18 years after that incident, you know. But, you know, I grew up in such a pro-religious situation and was so used to hearing the word no that it didn't, you know, it didn't phase me. I'm like, OK, well, I missed this one, but I guess the next one, you know.

Well, that's if you're born in the South, what you were. Yeah. There's very few people I talk to that don't say you ask them, where did they start learning how to sing? I was in church.

I was in church, started playing in church. And that's where it all comes in. But what you do is gospel related.

So, you know, the music for me, you know, I told you about my big sister. She played in the blues band, but also played in the church band. So when the ladies would come over, it used to be four ladies that used to come over to rehearse to sing.

And so, you know, when they would come over for the church rehearsal, I caught all that, too, you know. So the gospel music really had a big influence on me. And I started singing for people when I was about nine or 10 years old.

You know, they found out that I could sing. And, you know, the people would come over. They'd come in, sing, sing something, you know, and you'd come out all shy.

So it started there. But, you know, what gospel really gave me was a very inspired feeling from the inside. It really, you know, touched me emotionally.

And that's what I tried to emulate with my guitar. I'm a baritone. I'm limited range with my voice.

But where my voice don't go, I try to go with the guitar. It's going to say your guitar sings for you. I want my guitar to speak and sing.

I don't care so much about having a whole lot of chops, but I want it to be vocal and I want my guitar to sing. And what are you playing now? What is it you're holding? I'm playing a Gil Polaro. OK, it's like an S.G., looks like it kind of like an S.G. It's an S.G. copy.

And the reason that I really started playing these, I played Gibson guitar my whole career. And I just got to the point that right after I had that divorce, I was depressed. And the only thing that made me feel better, I found out about the Armand guitar from a Polish musician.

And I went over there and I played. And he said to me, he said, you really like your Les Paul, did I play 57 Goldtop? Yeah, yeah. I like my Les Paul.

He said, well, why don't you play the Armand? It's better. Man, I looked at that guy like he was crazy. But I come home and I found me one of them, the Armand with the gold foil TV Jones pickup is the Armand original pickup.

But he reissued the pickup. And when I found that sound, man, shit, I put my Les Paul down for a long time and played them TV Jones. I really did.

So I played the Armand for probably about 10 or 15 years just to get off of it. Then I found out that the Armand was made by Gil and I wanted to go to the Gil classic sound. And when they put out the Newark Street, they reissued them with the old Gil, I forget what they call it, but it's just Gil version of a humbucker.

Right. And this has a splitter on it also. Oh, it does.

Yeah. Tell me how. Tell us.

Tell me how the splitter works. I got it. It's on the both volume knobs.

OK, so you pull it up. It's a yes. Push, pull, pull, pull from.

And so do you play which pickup to usually leave it in? Do you like the top or you like the bottom? I'm a switcher. I am with that toggle switch. I'm always, you know, not really fitting it.

But you go so far with one side, if you want to spontaneously go to a different thing, then I'd like to flip my toggle switch. And sometimes I play all three positions. But if it's something really rocking and stuff like that, I use my down pickup and I usually roll a little bit of the treble off, but I run my volume parts wide open.

And on the top pickup, I leave it fully bright and fully wide open. I keep, you know, you know, Lee sounds up top, you know. Do you because I used to I used to you see what I played right there, that's an eighty seven.

That's my favorite right there. Right. Right.

Right. There's a gold top right next to it. Anyway, I always I was kind of in the middle.

And then when I played, I would take that bottom pickup, the bridge pickup and push it up to get that treble. So when you're playing and you know, you're playing and you're singing and you're doing rhythm parts and then it's time to hit it. What do you do? Do you just kind of mess with your pot or whatever to get some boost on your lead? No, no, no, no.

I use pedals. That's what I'm going to ask you. So do you use like a presser or what do you do to get? I use a con.

OK, I'll send her. But, you know, I have I have a call center. Now, Joe, bless me with a call center.

But before that, I was playing the Ace Effects clan call. A real good effect is really close. So in other words, when I try to get my lead tone, I want to have more drive and saturation so I don't set my levels very far over when it comes to the game.

I bring it about 12 o'clock. But then I get my volume right, which I said it, you know, over my my rhythm guitar setting and I tune everything in and make sure I've got a good solid lead guitar tone. And it's just off and on.

Now, I set my clone the way I set it for regular game. And when I want to put it over the top, I use Joe B's FET driver. He has a FET driver, you know, the one I'm talking about.

Tell me about it. It's a I think it's a MXR FET, you know, as. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I have seen the MXR. Yeah, yeah. I have seen that FET driver.

And it's a it's a heavy drive pedal. But I said it would hardly any gain at all. I put it in about nine o'clock and bring the treble up and bring the bass.

It's got a real bottom end, big, broad bottom end. So I bring that up and bring the volume to where the tips just over the top of my clone. When I put both of them on together, that FET driver take it and muscle up like like I'm rock guitar and, you know, with the two together.

Did you you and I grew up in the same generation, basically. Were you hesitant to jump on using pedals? I was because I didn't know I didn't know nothing about him. I still don't really know a lot about him, but I know that less is more in the settings.

And I'm always tinkering around. But I found like I said, I found that that Ace Effect is good and that that Bonamassa is good together, that FET driver. But before then, I have used stuff like the Boss Blues driver.

I use stuff like Maxon 808 Tubes, Tube Screamer, Tube Screamer. Yeah, I had Rocktron, Rocktron. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I remember that. Austin Gold. Yeah, Austin Gold Rocktron is a very transparent pedal.

And I use that for a long time. I use the Austin Gold. I used to be the number one.

I gave away, I bet you, three or four of those pedals to guys that I was trying to help and want them to improve their tone. I give them an Austin Gold. And so what the Austin Gold does, you can you can use any pedal you want for your game.

All that Austin Gold do is going to just make it broader. It's not a real gainy pedal by itself, but it's a very good boost pedal for something that's already got good tone. Have you changed your amps as you've gone through your career? Oh, most definitely.

I used to play big amps and that loud ass. No, I used to play. You remember when Gibson put out them Red Bears and them Soviet amplifiers? Oh, yes.

Yes. I hit two of them on stage, two 120 Class A's. And what do they have in a 412s or what do they have? 412s.

I used to I used to use a Saldana 150. Yeah. I used to use a Randall that was a Bruzec Native put out this thing that had all these different modules.

You could get multiple amps in one one brain. Do you remember that? The REM4? I remember the Randall stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. They had those the pull out modules. They had about 12 different modules, but you could hold four at a time.

And what the what the modules were, were preamps built on a slide and saw the board, you know, they had everything, the whole preamp. Oh, I'll put it so you could take this preamp out. You could put a blackface.

You could put a SL lead in there. You could do what is a Mesa boogie. Oh, Mesa, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A rectifier, you know, a rectifier sound. It had a module so you could choose four at a time to run in this in this one head and it had a selector. What do you select? Which, you know, I used to fool around with that.

But you know what I stuck with the longest? Now what? A 71 Deluxe Reverb, one of his speakers. That's my amp. And once I figured out that I could get and get the same, I can.

I know my Deluxe Reverb so well. It has an eminent speaker in it. I did change the speaker.

Yeah, I have an eminence Redco Redfang 12 inch in there. It's just got 112 in it, isn't it? Yeah, 112. Yeah, I changed I changed the rectifier to a solid state and I put six L6s in the power section.

Yeah. Familiar with those. I picked up probably about 10 watts out of that on that Deluxe Reverb.

Which the person that's listening to this probably didn't think that's much. But on a Fender amp, that was a lot. I mean, when you put 10 watts, I mean, they weren't that big.

I mean, and of course, the thing, too, with the way it is now, you don't need a big amp. No sound. The sound reinforcement is so good now.

Right. Right. You don't need to run now right behind me.

You know what? That's what I've heard with the modifications that I have is louder than anything loud is in any way. I don't go nowhere that I need a louder amp than that. When when I go on the big stage and, you know, get lost on the stage, I haven't put it in there and put it in the wedges, put it in the wedges, put it in front where it's usually.

And if that ain't enough, put it on the side. But with all what they got, it fills up. It fills up.

It is an amazing thing to see how things have changed from everybody having big amps that are taller than them to now everybody has small because of just the way that the sound reinforcement is gone. And and and I think it's great because you don't have to carry a lot of big equipment like you used to, you know, you said, let's just push it. It saved my life.

And my other go to is a modified Blues Junior, which has a little bit more power and in what I do to my amps, I make them cleaner in the preamp state. They still they still break up. But, you know, just like with my Deluxe Reverb, it used to break up around three, you know, three.

You'd be breaking up already. Now I can push it all the way around to five before, you know, five, six before I start getting that break up. So it's louder and a more more clarity, a cleaner tone.

And if I want to break it up, then I got the stuff on the floor to break it up. And and last thing about your equipment, what kind of strings do you use? I use GHS burnished nickel. OK, and what size? 10 to 48.

OK, 10 to 46, 10 to 46. Well, that's it for this episode of The Trout Show. Thanks so much for stopping by and listening to the great Blues legend, Larry McRae.

Appreciate his time taking that. He was literally in a green room getting ready to go in to do a concert. And so we had to cut the interview short because of that reason.

I apologize for that. But sometimes that's what happens in the music industry. Another band had to come in and rehearse.

And so we had to cut the interview short. But I want to tell Larry, thanks for his time. And I hope you enjoyed it.

For more information about Larry, you can go to his website, Larry McRae official dot com, Larry McRae official dot com. Talk to you about his new album he just released and where he's going to be on tour in the near future. Also, a big shout out to our guy that keeps the lights on here at The Trout Show, Mr. David Smith with Edward Jones.