Strong Persuader is the fifth studio album by American blues singer and guitarist Robert Cray.

[9] In a review for Rolling Stone, Jon Pareles said Cray delivered intriguing stories about sex and infidelity with disciplined singing, songwriting, and "a version of blues and soul that doesn't come from any one region, building an idiom for songs that tell with conversational directness the stories of ordinary folks".

[10] Robert Christgau from The Village Voice praised Cray's sophisticated blues aesthetic and the songwriting of his supporting studio team, hailing Strong Persuader as "the best blues record in many, many years, so fervently crafted that it may even get what it deserves and become the first album to break out of the genre's sales ghetto since B.B.

"[11] At the end of 1986, Strong Persuader was voted the third best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by The Village Voice.

[13] In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Bill Dahl said "it was [Cray's] innovative expansion of the genre itself that makes this album a genuine 1980s classic.