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Remaining teachable says a lot about a man’s ability to grow — as an artist and as a human being.

Take bluesman Robert Cray, for instance. Any more Grammy wins and he’ll need to start counting them with his left hand. He’s a friend to and collaborator with Eric Clapton, the man that graffiti in 1960s London proclaimed was God because of his ability with a guitar. He’s sold millions of records and influenced a legion of guitar players.

But the moments he remembers most are the ones in which he found himself as the student. Those unexpected moments when he was caught off guard, thrown for a loop, sent back to the drawing board ... maybe it’s because they’re so infrequent due to his own prowess, but you can almost hear the joy in Cray’s voice as he talks about them.

“We did a lot of shows with John Lee Hooker, and I remember one when our band opened, and as we finished doing our set, John came out and joined us,” Cray told The Daily Times this week. “He didn’t tell us what key he was in, and we figured every blues song was 12 bars. No sir! John did his blues his own way, and that was a lesson to be learned.

“That’s what you do. The blues is primal — man at his most vulnerable. You write songs about life and all facets of it; love and hard times and good times. Going back to Howlin’ Wolf and the just the rhythms that he took from the Delta and brought to the big city and how he kept that real, earthy, Delta sound — to me, that’s just super-deep.

“Another thing I dug about Howlin’ Wolf? He wrote his own songs, and certain lines didn’t have to rhyme,” Cray added. “I love that. That’s what it’s all about to me.”

To hear a man with such a long and intimate association with an American art form like the blues speak of it with such passion and reverence is a testament to that man’s artistry. A native of Georgia, Cray started playing guitar in his early teens, and by the time he was 20, Cray had decided to pursue a life of music.

In 1974, he decided to form a musical unit with his friend Richard Cousins; the two had been acquainted since the late 1960s, Cray said, and when they parted ways in 1991, they remained close. Prior to the recording of his most recent album — last year’s “This Time” — the Robert Cray Band went through a few lineup changes, and Cray brought Cousins back into the fold.

“After he left in 1991, I’d run across him when we toured and think that it would be great to work with him again,” Cray said. “It was like a different person I was working with in the studio. He hadn’t been in one making a record for the longest time, and he hadn’t toured on the same kind of level that we had in the past, so all of it was brand new to him again, in a way.

“Bringing him up to speed and calming him down so he wouldn’t be too nervous, that was all fun and exciting.”

It didn’t take Cousins long, however, to get back that old magic — after all, as much of a guitar monster as Cray was when they first started playing together, Cousins had to be able to hold his own in order to get recruited into the backing band of blues legend Albert Collins. The two young men played with Collins for a few years before striking out on their own, launching the Robert Cray Band in 1980.

Mercury Records signed the band a couple of years later, and in 1986, Cray’s breakthrough album was released — “Strong Persuader,” which featured the hit “Smoking Gun.” It reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart, the first blues album to do so since 1972, and went on to sell more than a million copies. It also elevated Cray’s status in the music world, putting him on the same stage as Clapton and other luminaries who recognized his prodigy on the six-string.

The album also brought Cray the first of his five Grammys, the third coming in 1988 for the title track to his album “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.” Two years later, he was tapped for an even greater honor — presenting Howlin’ Wolf’s induction trophy to his widow at the sixth annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards.

“For me to be asked to do the induction was like, wow,” Cray said. “Howlin’ Wolf was one of my heroes, and I do a little homage to him in a certain way on all the records. To see people like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters get honored in that way, it’s fantastic.

“Their music such an integral part of what American music is, and a lot of people don’t realize it. American music is revered around the world, and sometimes we forget here in America because our society is such a throw-away society. But people around the world, they know. And they play our music.”

Last year, Cray and a reconfigured band released “This Time,” an album that snaps, crackles and pops with effervescence and blues electricity. It’s the sound of a man who’s found joy in reuniting with an old friend and raw power in making a definitive statement that, at 56, he still has the ability to tap into that primal musical force flowing through his veins ... that he can still remember the lessons taught to him by the masters ... and that he can still play American music at its finest.

“Bringing the new band up to speed to get out on the road started rejuvenating everything, so I think the overall idea of ‘This Time’ was to have it be something that’s ours with this new lineup,” he said. “It was fun to make, and that’s what keeps me going — fun. It’s a very simple word, but with everything that goes on in the music business, it’s still fun.

“All of us are getting older, and we don’t always like getting out on the road, but once we hit the stage, it’s all forgotten. That’s when it becomes fun again.”