By Laurie Heuston

Guitarist Dave Day has never met Robert Cray, but Cray's music has helped him discover that he is a bluesman himself. "I was pretty much just a rock 'n' roller before then," Day says. "I started listening to Cray, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn around 1989. I've been hooked on blues ever since.

"It was nice because then I could give up wearing Spandex and put on regular clothes," he says.

Day will open the Robert Cray Band's show to be held at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, at the Rogue Theatre, 143 S.E. H St., Grants Pass.

Day is a music instructor by day and a guitarist for roots and blues band Broadway Phil and the Shouters by night.

"I spend most of my time playing with the Shouters," he says. "Another guitarist, Jake Thompson, and I joined the Shouters about a year and a half ago."

Harp player Phil Newton and drummer Dave Mathieu formed the Shouters in 1994. The band also features bassist Gary Davis.

Day also backs up recording artist and international touring act Darell Mansfield whenever he performs in the region.

"He's like the Eddie Van Halen of harmonica," Day says. "Two other local musicians, Jim Sitter and John Lingafelter, and I sit in with him."

Day says that he'll present an acoustic set of four or five songs to open Cray's show.

"I'll be doing one that I wrote, an instrumental on slide guitar call 'Slide Slippin' ' and some cover songs," Day says.

Day appears on the Shouters' new album, titled "Shout Back." The CD is available at theshouters.org. The group has two other albums to its credit, "Rock Bottom" (1996) and "Rhythm and Dues" (2002). The Shouters' performing credits include shows with Curtis Salgado, Roomful of Blues, the Paul deLay Band and Lloyd Jones of the Lloyd Jones Struggle — all of whom have performed with bluesman Cray during the late '70s early '80s while touring up and down the West Coast.

Cray started his band with members Tom Murphy, Rocky Manzanares and Richard Cousins in 1974 in Eugene. In 1978 Cray and his band appeared in "National Lampoon's Animal House" as the fictional Otis Day and the Knights. In 1980 Cray's band lineup changed to include Curtis Salgado. The lineup changed again in 1992 when keyboardist and saxophonist Michael Vannice joined the band. The group set out on an overseas tour with John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and Charlie Musselwhite that wound up at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Cray and his band continue to tour and record, as well as pick up a few Grammy Awards along the way.

Day says he hopes to meet Cray when the two perform at the Rogue Theatre.

"The real question is will he be able to meet me?" he laughs.

Tickets cost $45 in advance, $50 at the door and are available at roguetheatre.com; The Oregon Outpost, Music Shop and Larry's Music in Grants Pass; Larry's Music in Medford; Music Coop in Ashland; or by calling 471-1316.