"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less
traveled by, And that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost
It was the early '70s... both Muddy and Wolf found themselves in the company of British rock heavies on their respective London Sessions; Otis Rush and his West Side guitar had been in the studio cutting his Right Place, Wrong Time album; John Lee worked the boogie with Canned Heat on their collaborative Hooker & Heat; Hound Dog and his HouseRockers first unloosed on vinyl their raucous slide-boogies like "Give Me Back My Wig"; and King Albert laid down the maiden voyage of "I'll Play The Blues For You." But this was also the time when a Louisiana-born son of a preacher was experimenting and discovering his own sound through signature cuts like "Chicken Heads," "Gotta Be Funky," "Bow-legged Woman, Knock-kneed Man," and "Niki Hoeky." These pieces, with mile-deep undercurrents of funk running beneath the musical amalgam which includes blues, came from the same man, who decades earlier, had hired the likes of Eddie Boyd, Luther Allison, Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson, and Freddy King (among many other notables) to back his performances in Chicago clubs. Thankfully, Bobby Rush kept true to his own personal odyssey and has gone on (and seemingly will forever continue to go on) wowing audiences with his signature material and award-winning extravaganzas (earning him "best live performer" over several years). Show by show, he is no longer remaining one of the best-kept secrets on the South's chitlin' circuit; as the 150,000 miles that his tour bus' odometer clocks per year can attest.
I had the opportunity this Spring to speak by phone with the Jackson, Mississippi-based showman about past, and present, tidbits from his ever-busy career. Perhaps only the wealth of his well-articulated recollections and beliefs that easily roll from him was exceeded by the warm approachability which he radiates. For those searching for more than a cursory scan of his life in music, the in-detail interviews found in Living Blues (#84; Jan/Feb 1989) and Juke Blues (#36;1997) should go a longer way to providing insight.
This urban storyteller/ singer/ songwriter/
musician/ producer- master showman- was born Emmett Ellis Jr. (out of respect for his
father, a preacher, "Bobby Rush" later became his name) in 1940 near the rural
town of Homer, Louisiana. It was the tapping on a sugar-cane syrup-bucket and the twanging
of a broom-wire diddley bow that became his first home-made music, until a teenage Rush
received his first guitar. The sounds of his father's guitar and harp were in the air
while growing up, but it was the lure from records that seemed to carry great influence.
Wolf, Muddy, Reed, Big Joe Turner, Ivory Joe Hunter, and particularly Louis Jordan (whose
lyrics appealed to this lyric-phile) were among those that caught his young ear. Actually
much later in life, Rush was quoted as citing as his influences: "Muddy and Howlin'
Wolf influenced me from their stage presence. B.B. (King) influenced me as an artist.
Louis Jordan influenced me as a writer. Little Walter 
influenced me as a harmonica player and Ray
Charles influenced me as an entertainer." By the late '40s, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
became the new home. It was here that Rush would become friends with Elmore James,
slide-player Boyd Gilmore (Elmore's cousin), and piano-player Moose John Walker;
eventually forming a band to support his singing, as well as harp and guitar playing.
Among the joints that Rush and crew played was Nappy's, a little club at the back of a
sawmill, which would draw about one hundred people on the weekend. But to him, "at
that time, I thought it was about 2,000 because 100 people seemed like one million to
me!" Even back then, Bobby was the bandleader in control, since he "had contacts
and a place to play." In the early 1950s, Rush moved again- this time to Chicago with
his older brother where he would eventually settle down in the South Side. While in high
school, Rush soon would find himself fronting bands once again. It was during these times
that Freddie King, Luther Allison (who, like King, started with Rush while still a
"kid"), Cash McCall, Luther Johnson, and others would pass through the position
of guitar-player behind Rush. Back then, "I was only doing three or four songs a
night. I would hire musicians to even play bass (I was playing bass at that time) because
I wanted to be the little star-cat, who would come up and play the star role. I didn't
want to play music all night, but I wanted to be the one to come up at the peak of the
night." These were the days of gigs at clubs like The Squeeze Inn, The Castle Rock,
and Walton's Corner.
In looking back, "I think that the success of a band-leader was the worst that could happen to me because I was so successful as a band-leader that it made me comfortable financially, and I didn't need to concentrate on playin' the instruments. At that time I used to go to work at Walton's Corner and on the weekend I would do other gigs- between the gigs. So I would make like $35 a night at Walton's Corner and I would make $35-$40 doing two shows. So sometimes I would make $100 a night doing two shows a night, between shows, because I hired this bass man to play bass while I was away. And I would come back and forward running between gigs!... I was the mainstream, man." As for his "sound" at this time, rather than describing it as "traditional" Chicago blues for those years, "I was more like Louis Jordan. More jumpy.
And as the harp thing, I was rather than more like a Little Walter, I was more like a Junior Parker with the swing kind of a thing." Chi Town is where he would also become an alumnus of Chess Records, cutting songs like "Sock Boogaloo" (some of which did come out as singles), as well as working as a comedian, from which the influences still reside at several levels in Rush's on-stage performances today. Aside from the good-natured clowning and "jokey songs" which can be found in his routine, the roots of the notorious costume changes can be traced back to those days in the '50s.
Those quick changes actually started back at a club in Rock Island, Illinois where Rush would duck behind the stage curtain, change clothes within seconds, and double as both the MC and star of the show (collecting both salaries, of course). Always the showman.
As his recording career started to take off in the late '50s-early '60s (initially with cuts like "Someday" on Jerry-O and 1968's "Gotta Have Money" on ABC), it soon developed (at least to an outsider) into a blur, with a swarm of sessions and a laundry list of labels all the way through the '70s; but, the bottom line was the birth of cuts like "Chicken Heads" (Galaxy Records; 1971), "Gotta Be Funky" (Top; 1972); "Bow-legged Woman, Knock-kneed Man" (Top; 1973), "Niki Hoeky" (Jewel), and "I Wanna Do The Do" (from the album Rush Hour with Philadelphia International Records in 1979).
By the 1980s, Rush was on the road again- this time to Jackson, Mississippi. From there, with JaJam Records, would come the "Chicken Heads"-remake single called "Chicken Heads 82"; but, the year of 1983 brought two albums, the defining Sue and Wearing It Out, only to be followed by Gotta Have Money (1984), What's Good For The Goose Is Good For The Gander (1985), and A Man Can Give It But He Sure Can't Take It (1988).
After leaving James Bennett's LaJam, and with works like I Ain't Studdin' You and Handy Man in between, the productive Rush eventually settled down at his current home with Waldoxy/Malaco Records. One Monkey Don't Stop No Show (1995) was his maiden voyage with the label. Here, "Hen Pecked," "Dangerous," and "I Wanna Get Close To Ya" can be found alongside of the title track. The follow-up release was 1997's Lovin' A Big Fat Woman, which packaged "Booga Bear," "Buttermilk Bottom," the title cut, and "Feel Like Gettin' It On" into the latest dose of Bobby Rush.
As for how his "sound" evolved?
"It's nothing that I'd taken on. It was in my bones. See one thing about what I do,
you can take a musician and an entertainer, which are two different things all together.
Not that one is better than the other, but they are just two different things. You can
teach a man to play a guitar, but you can't teach a man to do what I do. You can teach
someone to play a harp like Little Walter, but you can't teach Elvis Presley to do what he
do. What Elvis did, he was born to do. What a Bobby Rush do, I was born to do. When you
talk about Ray Charles, you say now here's an entertainer that plays piano. That's unlike
hearing a piano-player who sings... If people want to hear your music, they buy your
record, take it home and play it. When they come out to see you, it should be something
more than just the singing. And that's where entertainers come in at. I did what I know to
do and I love what I am doing."
In speaking further about the evolution of his revues, Rush has been quoted as
saying in Offbeat: "I started that way back in the late '50s. I remember like in '58,
'59, I had two ladies with me, and at that time we called 'em shake dancers. They're there
to dance, but they shake, you know what I'm talkin' about? For all purposes, they would do
solo in front of me, but most of the time they'd be on the side. Then later on, James
Brown come out with it, and James beat me to the point because he was bigger."
"I've been doin' this 48 years and I think that I'm the only guy that ever did it
this long, and is still fairly a young man- and was overlooked this long. I don't think it
was done intentionally. I think it was the role I played. I'm so independent and sometimes
being independent, I missed out on some things 'cause the way I carried myself. I think
that some club-owners thought that I cost too much money, rather than them asking me. Once
they see what I have to offer because my show has always been like the Tina Turner-bit,
when they see this and right away they say 'I'd like to have him but I can't afford him.'
They see me workin' the kind of clubs I was working- the polished clubs and they figured
they couldn't afford me. To be honest with you, I wasn't making any more money than the
cats playing down at Theresa's or the Checkerboard or what have you. And another thing
that I think makes people shy away from me is because I was so 'business' about what I do.
I think that that hurt me, but it helped me too. I think that I was so 'business' about
what I do that the club-owners and record companies were looking for guys who wanted a
Cadillac car or a bottle of whiskey."
Seeing the potential for cross-over, while most assuredly remaining active in the
Southern chitlin circuit, Rush has been expanding his circle of influence. "This
gives me another side, another audience, and it makes me bigger. I don't care if it's
North, South, East, or West. It's not about no black or white issue. No color, man. I want
to work for everybody. I want to be a people-man. I want my music to cross over to
everybody. It's got to be about togetherness... I think that Bobby Rush is gonna bring
about a lot of change. I think what I've done, I have established a foundation for myself
before I made this move. Not like some of the blues singers who cannot do anything but
work the white clubs, and white clubs only 'cause they can't go to a black club in Pine
Bluff, Arkansas and draw anyone. I can name you guys that's big in bubblegum, but could
not come to a black club in Memphis and draw anyone. But I can. But now I'm beginnin' to
draw as well to the white clubs. And I just love it to death, man... And I just don't want
it to be another trip- Luther Allison was a personal friend and he just didn't get his
dues until the last minute. Now he gets more dues than he ever got and he's gone and he'll
never know about this. I just want to do this while I live and to bring this to a head
while I live. I think I'm one of the few guys who can carry the ball that stopped with a
lot of guys who were rollin' it... I'm kinda like Muhammad Ali when he was fightin': If I
saw I'm gonna knock you out, I'm gonna knock you out. And so far, so good. And I'm gonna
be around for another 100 years."
And what about an index of his success, as judged through those who perform his
material? Bobby quickly replies laughingly, "I heard through the grapevine that ZZ
Top for years did a song called "Gotta Be Funky" on their show. Whether they
knew me or just liked the song. I also heard that for years that there were other groups
doing songs like "Gotta Be Funky" and "Niki Hoeky." I know that people
have come to me and ask, "Hey Bobby Rush, could you do this Buddy Guy song called
"Chicken Heads."' I guess that Buddy did the song so much that he claimed the
song and people thought he did "Chicken Heads." The Grateful Dead, I learned
later that for years they did my song: "Gotta Be Funky/ Mary." They were doing
things from that album. Someone told me that." "I'll tell you, I am so thankful
that people accepted me for what I am and for what I do... And I don't ask people to like
me, just respect the goodness of what I do." But it was for Juke Blues that Rush
summed it all up so succinctly: "I think I'll see it in my lifetime that I'll go down
in history as being what I am." And that has made all the difference.
Special thanks to Bobby Rush and to his "right hand," Keith Federman, who is the walking expert on the man that he whole-heartedly represents.
