Customer Reviews

No Regrets: The Very Best Of Tom Rush

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's hard to concieve of anyone improving on Joni Mitchell's performance of any of her songs, but Tom Rush's "Urge For Going" is the definitive version of this classic. "No Regrets", even in it's overdone form included here, is one of the best songs of any era, and Rush's voice is a miracle. If you know his work, buy this for the new song and the old favorites included here. If you don't know Tom Rush, this is a great intorduction to a performer without peer. I hope he and John Leventhal soon do an entire album. That's a match made in heaven!

For those of us who have been die-hard Tom Rush fans for decades, the release of this retrospective album is a God-send, a literal treasure-trove of most of his wonderful gems gone missing these last few years and now available again. Of course, for someone who has had a number of albums and dozens of songs an avid listener comes to treasure, there are bound to be some missing numbers that one wishes were included here. I regret he didn't include two of my favorites from one of his albums that's no longer available, namely "Wind On The Water" and "Seems The Songs" from his terrific though underrated "Merrimack County" album. I also really like "Gypsy Boy", also from the same album. Most of his other mainstays are here, from "Urge For Going" to "No Regrets". The one sour note I would sound is that the version of "No Regrets" is not the widely played early interpretation from his still available "Shadow Dream Song" album, but a later, and in my opinion over-produced and much more heavily orchestrated version recorded for a Columbia release. But this is a small gripe, and the inclusion of a new recording, "River Song" shows Rush still has the magic, and leaves this fan hoping for an entire album of new songs from this venerable master of American folk music. Hey, one can always hope, right? Enjoy.

If you even think you like folk music, give this one a listen. As other reviewers have said, Tom Rush has a gorgeous voice -- did in the '60s, does today. The songs span much of his career, although (as mentioned) the Elektra tunes are mostly missing (Elektra, it's time for at least one re-release!). For me, though, any collection that has "Urge for Going" (one of my songs for a desert island) and "No Regrets" (another one) can't be passed up.

Like most people, I haven't heard Tom Rush in more years than I can remember. This new retrospective should serve to remind all of us just how good he was ... well, is, since the recent and previously unrecorded "River Song" lets us know he hasn't lost his chops: vocal, instrumental, or compositional. Rush himself put this collection together, interesting if for no other reason than that it tells us what an artist deems his best work -- as opposed, say, to what the rest of us might judge it to be. I am sure I'm not the only one wondering what in the world "San Francisco Bay Blues" -- a song long overdue for deep-sixing -- is doing here; much worse is the inexplicable inclusion of Lee Clayton's brain-dead, witless "Ladies Love Outlaws," which not even a superior interpreter like Rush can redeem. Eric Kaz's hippyish "Mother Earth" -- not to be confused with Memphis Slim's grown-up song of the same name -- has not aged well. And why, oh why, is Ed Holstein's classic "Jazzman" not here? Fortunately, that's it for the complaints. A few weird missteps aside, the rest of this is sheer beauty, from gorgeous explorations into the tradition ("Mobile-Texas Line," "Galveston Flood") to brilliant takes on modern folk-accented songs (Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going," David Wiffen's "Lost My Drivin' Wheel") and on to Rush's melancholic, melodic originals ("No Regrets," "Merrimac County"). It makes you hope that the first decade of the new century finds Rush back in action and in the studio. This old world could use some fresh Tom Rush music. I guess this splendid collection will have to do -- at least for the time being.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

When Joni Mitchell showed those lyrics to Tom Rush, she was a 23-year-old nobody. He was the most famous folk singer ever to graduate from Harvard --- the king of a category of one. But he had a record deal, and she was two years away from one. And so, when it came time for him to go into the studio again, he not only used three of Mitchell's songs, he took "The Circle Game" as the title of that 1968 record.

1968. If you're of a certain age, that year sparks so many memories. But if you're younger, just the opposite --- you're almost surely sick of hearing about "The Sixties". Well, here's a surprise. I'm of a certain age, and I published a book about my generation in 1968 --- Notes from the New Underground, if you must know --- and, believe me, I too am way over that terrible/wonderful year.

Or was, until I started listening to Tom Rush again. "The Circle Game", his first record to get a big label push, was released late in 1968, and it sure fit the mood of my gang. Rush was a baritone, his voice reassuring as oatmeal. He was as unhurried and relaxed as Leonard Cohen. But he was a folkie who was only gently electric; this was no Dylan, rocking your world at every turn. And Rush had an ear for talent. In addition to Joni Mitchell, he more or less discovered the as yet unrecorded James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

But there was something more. Tom Rush was just 27, but he seemed to... know stuff. For "The Circle Game" was a song cycle. Not trippy like "Sgt. Pepper" but oddly mature, charting the enthusiasms of youth --- love and energy and what Joni Mitchell calls the "urge for going" --- and then moving on to breaking up with a lover and leaving your parents and being okay about being alone. And maybe, given the title song, even looking down the road a few years. Or decades.

Now the decades have passed, and Tom Rush is still at it. In his 60s, he has a young daughter --- "I thought I'd have my own grandchild and cut out the middle man" --- and gives a sane number of concerts a year. He has impressive restraint. He made ten albums in the first dozen years of his career, but either the stream dried out or he became allergic to recording. No matter. New material is unimportant when we're talking about Tom Rush; the old more than suffices.

You have only to watch the video of "Remember", the novelty song that is a winner when he performs and is closing in on four million viewers on YouTube, to grasp his appeal. The guy who more or less invented the persona of the laid back singer/songwriter --- the performer who was James Taylor before there was a James Taylor --- is an evergreen. His voice holds up. His guitar is still spare and evocative. He still has the wry wit that would go so well with a mug of coffee and a thin smoke around a campfire.

That Tom Rush still has it has to be reassuring to his aging audience. His confident survival sends the clearest possible message: "You're not getting older, you're getting better." But the coin has another face. We are, as the song says, "captive on the carousel of time." And so, when boomers consider who we were when we first heard certain songs and who we are now, we blink and ask ourselves: Why do I need glasses and wear relaxed-fit pants --- where did the years go? So every Rush concert is an irony; his fans are people who first heard his music when they were leaving home and are now the ones being left.

Tom Rush isn't flashy. He never had the hit song everyone can hum. But if you're looking for a Harvard man who knows how you feel and wouldn't mind singing your feelings for you... well, here's an overlooked boomer god tipping his hat and inviting you to settle in for a listen.

This fine collection gets penalized one star because the five cuts beginning with Kids These Days and ending with the over-exposed Jamaica Say You Will by the way over-praised Jackson Browne are very weak, overlong (The Dreamer), preachy (Mother Earth), or a bad try at doing Willie Nelson (Ladies Love Outlaws). And where, by the way, is Circle Game? Those quibbles aside, you get a dozen superb songs here, beginning with San Francisco Bay Blues which sounds like it was recorded in Tom's living room and is all the more refreshing for it in today's overproduced musical world. Panama Limited is, of course, perhaps THE classic train song, with one of folk's saddest final lines, "she's gone everywhere but home." Rush's version of Joshua Gone Barbados rivals Johnny Cash's in this story of a labor leader sellout. No Regrets is, well, No Regrets. You can't hear it often enough. Child's Song is bittersweet leaving home and was new to me. River Song proves contemporary Rush to be as strong a singer and writer as he was three decades ago. I play this CD a lot and so will you.

I recently saw Tom Rush perform, and he commented that one of the best things about this project is that he was able to go through all his past recordings and choose those songs that should appear on "No Regrets". My only wish is that he'd chosen one more song from his "Take a Walk with Me" album. That being Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?", which is the song that made me a Tom Rush fan. The CD is in chronological order, which gives you a taste of where he started, where he is today, and all phases in between. Perhaps, Elektra will dust off some of their old masters and reissue Tom's complete catalog, which is simply the artist's best work.

As a long-time Tom Rush fan, I bought the new No Regrets CD with shaking hands. Would his music and voice move me now as he had in the past? Would I be disappointed? To my joy, his voice was still powerful and growling and sweet and sexy. All the great memories of his music, the tears and moments of recognition were there--"Oh, yes, it's like that for me, too." He didn't include all my favorites in this album--where's "Jazzman"?-- and he could have/should have thrown out "San Francisco Bay Blues", but the new "River Song" stole my heart. This may be the new direction for him, and I hope we just get more of the old albums that need to be on CDs. So, Tom Rush, let's have more of the best singing, best song interpretations I've heard in 25 years. I can't get enough of quality like this.

I've been a fan of Tom Rush from way way back. His song "No Regrets" has to be one of the best folk songs written. It is hard to decide which version of the song I like better (the version included on this collection or the version on "The Cicle Game" album). The songs cover his entire career chronologically. This is a great introduction to one of the finest singer/songwiters in folk music. Tom Rush's versions of Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne songs often rival and surpass the originals. The styles range from blues to folk to rock. My only disappointment is the absence of "Who Do You Love" and "You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover" from his Elektra album "Take A Little Walk With Me" album. Perhaps Elektra or someone will reissue this album on CD someday soon. If you like folk, folk-rock this is a CD to own.

The merits of Tom Rush need no elaboration from me. Thirty five years on and the man is still producing gems like "River Song" (the one new song on the album), while the remastered versions of old favourites which fill this album are a joy. As an interpreter of others' work, he is one of a very select few, while as a songwriter he stands with the best. This album spans his career to date, and touches many of the highlights of that fabulous journey. Folk, rock, country, amalgams of all three are here. While the Walker Brothers may have done a degree of justice to "No Regrets", no one can surpass the original version here.

My only complaint is, that for a retrospective of this importance, Columbia might have used the CD capacity to its fullest, to include such gems as "Shadow Dream Song", and maybe a few other tracks from the Circle Game album. But that's carping. Listen to the majesty of "Drivin' Wheel", marvel at the accompanying dobro arrangement on that monumental song, and when you're finished, find everything you can by Tom Rush. Make him a belated overnight success.