Otis Rush

Otis Rush
Rush in 1997
Background information
Birth name	Otis Rush Jr.
Also known as	Little Otis
Born	(1934-04-29)April 29, 1934 Philadelphia, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	September 29, 2018(2018-09-29) (aged 84) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Genres	Blues Chicago blues R&B
Occupations	Musician songwriter
Instruments	Guitar vocals
Years active	1956–2003
Labels	Cobra Chess Duke Vanguard Cotillion Bullfrog Black & Blue P-Vine Delmark Sonet Blind Pig
Website	www.otisrush.net

Otis Rush Jr. (April 29, 1934 – September 29, 2018) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. His distinctive guitar playing featured a slow burning sound and long bent notes, sometimes two and three at a time. Compared to other groups at the time where the sound of the band was the focus, he, along with Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, is credited with bringing the guitar to the forefront in what would became known as West Side, Chicago blues influencing a generation of blues and rock musicians including Michael Bloomfield, Peter Green, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, who named his band after Rush's 1958 hit "Double Trouble."

As a performer, Otis was unique. He had an intense and powerful tenor voice that grabbed your attention and he played his guitar backwards and upside down. He had the low strings adjusted very low, and the G, B,and high E strings adjusted for slightly higher action so that he could curl his left pinky under the low strings and pull them downward. Albert King and Jimi Hendrix played the same way though Otis' sound was other worldly.

Early life

Rush was born near Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1934, the son of sharecroppers Julia Campbell Boyd and Otis C. Rush,. He was one of seven children and worked on the farm throughout his childhood. He sang in local church choirs and at the age of eight taught himself how to play guitar.

Career

Rush moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1948 - 49 and, after being inspired by Muddy Waters, made a name for himself playing in blues clubs on the South and West Sides of the city. He formed his own group, initially using the name Little Otis. Willie Dixon caught his act and signed him to Cobra Records. From 1956 to 1958, he recorded for the independent label which released eight singles, some featuring Ike Turner or Jody Williams on guitar. His first single, from 1956, "I Can't Quit You Baby", was a national hit, reaching number six on the Billboard R&B chart. It stayed on the chart for six weeks. While with Cobra, he recorded other tunes that Dixon produced including some of his best known songs, such as "Double Trouble", "All Your Love (I Miss Loving) and Three Times a Fool"."

Otis Rush performs at the 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

On Otis' recommendation, Cobra recorded Magic Sam in 1957 and Buddy Guy in ’58 with Otis playing rhythm guitar on Guy’s first Chicago recording. In 1959, Cobra Records went bankrupt. Rush followed Dixon to Chess Records and signed a recording contract with them in 1960. He recorded eight tracks for the label, though they only released four, two singles, that year including the blistering So Many Roads, So Many Trains. Chess eventually released all eight tracks on the album Door to Door in 1969, a compilation that included their Albert King recordings. Rush went into the studio for Duke Records in 1962, though they only issued one single, "Homework" backed with "I Have to Laugh". Vocalion also released it in the UK in 1963.

In 1965, he recorded five tracks for Sam Charters’ project Chicago/ The Blues/ Today! for Vanguard These recordings are included on the label's compilation album Chicago/The Blues/Today! Vol. 2 which introduced him to new, white audiences. Rush began playing in other cities in the United States and in Europe during the 1960s, winning a place with the American Folk Blues Festival touring Europe and earning several years of bookings at the Ann Arbor Blues festival in Michigan. Unofficial recordings at this festival in 1967 and at the University of Chicago Folkfest in 1966 were later released together with recordings by Little Walter. In 1969, Cotillion Records released his album Mourning in the Morning. Michael Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites, then with the band Electric Flag, recorded and produced the album at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They incorporated soul music and rock, a new direction for Rush.

"Rush is a 'good singer' with a 'good instrument'—sweet, penetrating, slurred—but the words aren't where his soul goes. It goes into the form itself. Like B.B. King's, only less predictably by now, his solos expand upon the Chicago verities in almost jazzlike flights without ever transgressing against them."

—Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)

In 1971, Rush recorded the album Right Place, Wrong Time in San Francisco for Capitol Records though Capitol did not release it. Rush purchased the masters from them and the album was finally issued on P-Vine Records in Japan in 1976. Bullfrog Records released it in the United States soon after. The album has since gained a reputation as one of his best works. He also released some albums for Sonet Records in Europe and for Delmark Records during the 1970s though by the end of the decade, he had stopped performing and recording.

Rush made a comeback in 1985 with a U.S. tour and the release of a live album, Tops, recorded at the San Francisco Blues Festival.

Rush performing in 2002

In 1994, Mercury released Ain't Enough Comin' In, his first studio album in 16 years, which introduced him to a new generation of fans and topped many blues critics' year end lists. Any Place I'm Goin' followed in 1998 and he earned a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 1999. Rush did not record a new studio album after 1998 but he continued to tour and perform until 2003 when he suffered a stroke. In 2002, he was featured on the Bo Diddley tribute album Hey Bo Diddley – A Tribute!, performing the song "I'm a Man", produced by Carla Olson. His album Live...and in Concert from San Francisco from 1999 was released by Blues Express Records in 2006 . Video footage of the same show was released on the DVD Live Part 1 in 2003.

In June 2016, Rush made a rare appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival in Grant Park. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel honored him by declaring June 12 as Otis Rush Day in Chicago. Rush was unable to play because of ongoing health problems but was there with his family.

Awards

Otis Rush was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984.

In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked him number 53 on its 100 Greatest Guitarists list.

The Jazz Foundation of America honored Rush with a Lifetime Achievement Award on April 20, 2018 "for a lifetime of genius and leaving an indelible mark in the world of blues and the universal language of music."

Death

Rush died on September 29, 2018 from complications of a stroke. He was 83 years old. His wife, Masaki, announced his death on his website.

Gregg Parker, CEO and a founder of the Chicago Blues Museum said of him: "He was one of the last great blues guitar heroes. He was an electric god". Writing in The New York Times, Bill Friskics-Warren said, "A richly emotive singer and a guitarist of great skill and imagination, Mr. Rush was in the vanguard of a small circle of late 1950s innovators, including Buddy Guy and Magic Sam, whose music, steeped in R&B, heralded a new era for Chicago blues."

Selected discography

Singles

• 1956 "I Can't Quit You Baby" / "Sit Down Baby" (Cobra 5000)
• 1956 "My Love Will Never Die" / "Violent Love" (Cobra 5005)
• 1957 "Groaning the Blues" / "If You Were Mine" (Cobra 5010)
• 1957 "Jump Sister Bessie" / "Love That Woman" (Cobra 5015)
• 1957 "She's a Good 'Un" / "Three Times a Fool" (Cobra 5023)
• 1958 "Checking on My Baby" / "It Takes Time" (Cobra 5027)
• 1958 "Double Trouble" / "Keep On Loving Me Baby" (Cobra 5030)
• 1958 "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" / "My Baby's a Good 'Un" (Cobra 5032)
• 1960 "So Many Roads So Many Trains" / "I'm Satisfied" (Chess 1751)
• 1960 "You Know My Love" / "I Can't Stop Baby" (Chess 1775)
• 1962 "Homework" / "I Have to Laugh" (Duke 356 and Vocalion VP 92600
• 1969 "Gambler's Blues" / "You're Killing My Love" (Cotillion 44032)

Compilation albums

• 1965 Chicago/The Blues/Today! Vol. 2 (Vanguard)
• 1969 Door to Door, with Albert King (Chess)
• 1989 I Can't Quit You Baby: The Cobra Sessions 1956–1958 (P-Vine)
• 2000 Good 'Uns: The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956–1958 (Westside)
• 2000 The Essential Otis Rush: The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956–1958 (Fuel 2000)
• 2002 Blue on Blues: Buddy Guy & Otis Rush (Fuel 2000)
• 2006 Live at Montreux 1986 (Eagle Rock Entertainment) (joint performance with Eric Clapton and Luther Allison)

Albums Under His Own Name

• 1968 This One's a Good One (Blue Horizon)
• 1969 Mourning in the Morning (Cotillion)
• 1972 Blues Masters, Vol. 2
• 1975 Screamin' and Cryin' (Black & Blue)
• 1975 Cold Day in Hell (Delmark)
• 1976 So Many Roads (Delmark)
• 1976 All Your Love I Miss Loving: Live at the Wise Fools Pub, Chicago (, Delmark, released, 2005)
• 1976 Right Place, Wrong Time (Bullfrog)
• 1978 Troubles Troubles (Sonet)
• 1988 Tops (Blind Pig)
• 1989 Blues Interaction – Live in Japan 1986 (P-Vine)
• 1991 Lost in the Blues (Alligator ALCD4797)
• 1993 Live in Europe (Evidence Music ECD 26034-2)
• 1994 Ain't Enough Comin' In (This Way Up/Mercury)
• 1998 Any Place I'm Going (House of Blues)
• 2006 Live...and in Concert from San Francisco (Blues Express)
• 2009 Chicago Blues Festival 2001 (P-Vine)
• 2015 Double Trouble LIVE Cambridge 1973 (RockBeat Records)

DVDs

• 2003 Live Part One (Blues Express)
• 2006 Live at Montreux 1986 (Eagle Rock Entertainment)

Further reading

• Carlo Rotello, "Otis Rush," New York Times Magazine, December 27, 2018.

External links

• Official website
• Otis Rush at AllMusic
• Otis Rush at setlist.fm
• Obituary at Rolling Stone
• Obituary at ultimateclassicrock.com