Seeing Rush perform is like nothing else. At possibly 90 years old, there is some mystery surrounding his age as he used to lie to be able to get into places, he continues to put on shows that keep the audience entranced and instantly addicted to his charm.
As soon as he left the stage that cold December night in 2023, after leaving it all on there, the crowd’s chatter quickly turned to questions about when he would return and how we could possibly experience something so wonderful again.
“I want people to know that I do what I do because I want to do all I can while I can cause when it come the time I can’t do, I won't regret what I did not do,” says Rush in his trademark way of speaking that lands somewhere between a joke and the deepest thing you’ve ever heard.
“I want people to know that I do what I do because I want to do all I can while I can cause when it come the time I can’t do, I won't regret what I did not do.”
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Thankfully, Rush just don’t stop. He will be returning to Houston this Friday, March 22 for a special and intimate performance at The Continental Club where he will go raw and return to his roots for his Houston audience as he performs solo.
“I’ve been in and out of Houston for probably 65 years off and on, different places, little and big clubs, all around. Houston has been my stomping ground,” says Rush whose long career takes him back to working with famed Duke Peacock owner Don Robey.
“I’ve got a lot of history with The Continental Club and Houston period. Just a lot of things that I've done through my younger years, my middle aged years and now I’m an old man still doing this, still enjoying myself and still enjoying coming to Houston.”
Rush seems to be able to do anything. The magnetic showman just nabbed his third Grammy for his 2023 album All My Love For You taking home the award for Best Traditional Blues Album.
In his acceptance speech he was quick to not only thank his small team, but many of his old bluesman friends. “It’s a good thing to talk about old friends but the saddest thing is my old friends are not around with me no more but I have happy days because I think about what it used to be. I look at myself and although I may not feel as good as I used to feel, I’m so thankful for what it is.”
All My Love For You is a beautiful collection of Rush at his finest and doing what he does best combining being gritty, sexy, raunchy and soulful all at once. The album kicks off with “I’m Free” a wonderful track that tells his life story from cotton fields to big stages.
“I was so pleased about the song because it's so true about me and my life, it’s about a lot of other people's lives too and they can relate to it. I’m talking about being free and I'm a blues man who couldn't do things because I was a blues man but also because I'm a black blues man. Some things have changed, most things remain the same but I’m free enough to look through it and move above it. I’m free enough to get up off of the ground when I fall, dust myself and don’t give up.”
Rush also pokes fun with the track “One Monkey Can Stop A Show”, his rebuttal to King George’s “One Monkey Can’t Stop A Show” a la “Hound Dog” versus “Bear Cat", Rufus Thomas's response to the hit song which also became a hit until Robey nipped it in the bud with legal action.
Where King George boasts about needing many women to be satisfied, Rush warns of the dangers of temptation and instead advises men to treat their women right down not only for moral reasons but also for the myriad of vengeful things a woman scorned could do to a cold hearted man, including shifting his anatomy to make him pee sitting down.
In comparison to the full band and studio sound on All My Love For You, in 2020 Rush received the same Grammy honor for his album Rawer Than Raw which saw the frontman go from full band, way back down to his foot stomping roots.
Comparing these two albums is a great way to see his range as an artist and performer and though his most recent album is a full band approach, his Houston show will be a stripped down and raw performance.
“I’m the whole band. I’m everybody in the band. I put a microphone on my feet so I can tell whoever has the PA system to bring me a big board to put my big feet on, that's my drum. Then I got my thumb for my bass and my fingers for my guitar and my harmonica for my lead harmonica player and I’m gone. That's all I need.”
Rush likens this style of solo show to the old saying “Once a man, twice as child” as taking the stage on his own taps into the very mindset of the same little boy who built his own guitar on the side of the exterior wall of the outdoor bathroom in his childhood home in Louisiana.“I’m the whole band. I’m everybody in the band. I put a microphone on my feet so I can tell whoever has the PA system to bring me a big board to put my big feet on, that's my drum. Then I got my thumb for my bass and my fingers for my guitar and my harmonica for my lead harmonica player and I’m gone. That's all I need.”
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“I had a brick at the top and a bottle at the bottom so I sounded like Elmore James,” says Rush, imitating his former bandmates thumping guitar style. “Finally the brick fell out and hit me in the head and knocked me everywhere so then I got smart and I put the bottle at the top and the brick at the bottom so I changed my sound a little bit.”
Having no money or resources to buy a real guitar yet, with his first one being purchased in 1949 for a whopping nine dollars with the help of his father, Rush went on to explore how to make other instruments that weren’t attached to the family home using broomsticks and wash tubs.
“It sounded like a big bass,” says Rush of his homemade washtub bass. “Oh God we created everything! We didn't have no money to buy a guitar, you had to make you one.”
Rush’s harmonica style is one of a kind as he blows the harp with the force of a thousand tornadoes. “I’ve been around Little Walter, Junior Parker and Sonny Boy Williamson, all the blues players, I was around the guys who played harmonica.”
Though right handed, due to learning how to play from his father during a bout of chicken pox which forced Rush to reverse the instrument and play with the left side of his mouth, he plays the little yet mighty harmonica upside down to this day.
“I reversed the harp so now I play upside down. I’m a right handed person that does everything left-handed. The guitar I play right handed but I tune my guitar strings down,” he says before stopping himself. “I don't wanna give my tricks away,” he says somewhere between a joke and the truth.
Though Rush went on to perform with The Rabbit Foot Minstrels and learn from the best of the best in the blues alongside Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and a seemingly endless list of who's who in the blues, he enjoys getting back to basics.
“I’m coming back to Houston from where I started from by myself telling my stories and just doing what I do. I feel we will have a good time because I'm going to tell stories, sing the blues and make you happy.”
Shifting from band leader to one man band is a rare treat that not all performers can pull off, but Rush seems to be able to do anything while always coming across as being whole heartedly, sincerely himself.
“I think people looked at me and said this is the real deal because what happens is you have so many black guys my age and younger, they sing the blues but they try to sound like a white guy who's trying to sound like a black guy and I'm just me and here I am.”
Bobby Rush will perform with opener Goldie Pipes 3 on Friday, March 22 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main, 8 p.m, $25-40.
