While Robert Cray's music has always paid a debt to the masters that came before, his unique sound has the ability to melt blues and make it accessible to the MTV generation.

Despite five Grammy awards, record sales well into seven figures, and an investiture into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011, he’s been accused of watering down the blues tradition. To the contrary, I believe he’s actually preserved the attitudes and atmosphere of traditional blues whilst modernising the instrumentation and phrasing.

In his 40th anniversary gig at Cardiff's St David's Hall, he opened the set with the atmospheric, 'Shiver' delighting a crowd already eager with anticipation.

The band has just released a new album, In My Soul, but, refreshingly, with only about half of the night's programme dedicated to it, he felt no need to plug it.

There was a mixture of love songs alongside his more domestic themes, such as “Poor Johnny”, “Chicken in the Kitchen” and the instrumental piece “Hip Tight Onions”, which cleverly alluded to Booker T’s “Green Onions”.

There was familiar intimacy with his band even though barefooted bassist Richard Cousins and keys player Dover Weinberg who had both played with Cray in the 1970s, left after a few years and re-joined much later, whilst drummer Les Falconer joined only last year.

Successfully mixing the old with the new, this was a concert to please the generations.