Otis Rush can communicate worlds of emotion in a few flicks of his fingers. The only thing sadder than Rush moaning “I’m so tired I could cry, I could just lay down and die” on his 1956 blues classic “I Can’t Quit You Baby” is the guitar solo that follows.
But what Rush doesn’t do, a few weeks after winning perhaps the highest-profile award of his career, is break down with effusive gratitude. “It was nice, man,” he says of winning his first Grammy last month in Hollywood.
How will it affect his life? “I think it’s a little bit too soon to tell. I’m hoping for all good.”
Longtime fans of Rush, the 65-year-old singer-guitarist who has lived in Chicago since 1948, will insist he doesn’t need validation from any shiny Grammy Award. But the visibility could be important for Rush, who remains a stellar singer and perhaps Chicago’s best guitarist despite his low profile outside the blues world.
Still best known for “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” “So Many Roads, So Many Trains” and the other ’50s R&B classics he recorded for Chicago’s Cobra Records, Rush has been toiling for decades on the international blues circuit. He has also been frustrated for decades when it comes to recording, rarely finding the right label or producer to accept his ideas (1978’s “So Many Roads,” on Chicago’s Delmark, is a fiery exception).
But now that’s changing. Rush says he is happy with new producer Willie Mitchell famous for his work with hitmakers Al Green, Ann Peebles and Syl Johnson in the ’70s – and the House of Blues label.
Last year’s “Any Place I’m Going,” which earned the Best Traditional Blues Album award at the Grammys, is impeccably played, as usual. It also sounds unusually clean, with horns politely augmenting Rush’s soloing on “I Got the Blues” and stepping back for his smooth soul voice on the title track. Mitchell’s influence is obvious – his production of Lew Herman’s standard “The Right Time” would have fit Green’s voice just as well – but Rush says he was the one giving the orders.
“I was very comfortable,” Rush says of working on the album. “I had a hand in producing it, matter of fact. I had a hand in producing all of my CDs, but I don’t get the credit for it. But this one, I got the credit. It’s beginning to come around.”
After arriving in Chicago from his home in Philadelphia, Miss., Rush picked up the guitar because of feeling “shaky and nervous,” he says. “And I figured, I want to do something, so instead of going out and playing ball I stood around and picked up my guitar and listened to the radio.” He slowed down 78-rpm records to imitate the solos, took lessons in the ’60s from a jazz session guitarist named Reggie Boyd and slowly built up his name on the West Side.
Since he recorded the Cobra classics four decades ago, blues guitarists from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Eric Clapton have played up Rush’s influence. It’s especially obvious in Clapton’s singing, which, throughout 1994’s “From the Cradle” and his other pure-blues material, is borderline mimicry. Rush, who recorded Clapton’s “Your Love” for an upcoming tribute album, laughs at a suggestion the “tribute” should actually be the other way around.
“Well, you know how it goes,” he says. “Sometimes you have to take the back seat. I got one, almost that same title – `All Your Love.’ But we’re not talking about mine.”
Rush sees the Clapton tribute, like the Grammy, as a marketing opportunity. A 1991 award in the same blues category helped Buddy Guy, who faced off against Rush in West Side “head-cutting” competitions in the 1950s, reinvigorate his career. Instead being a well-respected unknown, Guy was suddenly headlining major festivals and appearing on national Reebok commercials with White Sox slugger Frank Thomas.
Despite his distinctive tall cowboy hat, Rush doesn’t bother with Guy’s smiling, finger-flashing, polka-dot-displaying brand of showmanship. He barely talks to the audience when he’s on stage, letting his singing and his guitar speak for themselves. Asked if he’s still competitive with Guy, or any of his other onetime rivals, he sidesteps the question.
“You know, I don’t know what all of that’s about – West Side, South Side sound,” he says. “I just play.”