Customer Reviews

Tom Rush

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I've been hoping for this reissue of Tom Rush's initial release for Elektra for a long time because it is one of my favorite albums. I bought the vinyl when it came out in 1965 and played it to death. Tom Rush was among that group of educated urban folk/blues musicians in the '60s--a group that included John Hammond Jr., Dave Van Ronk, Eric Von Schmidt, Geoff Muldaur, Danny Kalb, John Sebastian, etc. in the East and Jorma Kaukonen and John Fahey in the West. (Loosely arranged around Cambridge and Berkeley.) Rush is faithful to the traditions on this album which features excellent acoustic guitar work and vocals that are uniformly convincing. Half of the songs on the record are traditional songs. He treats these with reverence and interprets them originally. There is nothing fake or posed in the way Rush presents folk music and blues songs. Further, the collection is eclectic--not just blues or just folk songs but a delightful mix. The first song "Long John" combines the title song with "Another Man done Gone." On "If Your Man Gets Busted," Rush combines elements of Robert Johnson blues songs accompanied by fine bottleneck work in a convincing performance. The line about the big city women: "Got both hands full of gimme / Got a mouth full of 'much obliged'" has been my mental description of a particular behavior for years. From this blues classic, Rush shifts to some clean country picking on Woody Guthrie's Okie anthem "Do-Re-Me" where he is accompanied by Rambling Jack Elliot. This version is among the best recordings of the classic. Kokomo Arnold's "Milk Cow Blues" features fine guitar accompanied by Fritz Richmond's jug and John Sebastian's blues harp. Indeed, Sebastian's harp is brilliant on this track. Sebastian, the heart of the Lovin' Spoonful, is on half the tracks on the album--including "Black Mountain Blues" originally a Bessie Smith song; "When She Wants Good Lovin'," a Coasters song written by Leiber and Stoller; and "Solid Gone" (aka "The Cannonball"). The record is worth buying for his harp--"Solid Gone" is exquisite. Virtuoso hardly describes his command of blues harp idiom. But there's even more here. The record has three songs by Woody Guthrie. I've mentioned "Do-Re-Mi." There are two other Guthrie songs. Rush's treatment of "Poor Man," the model for Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown," is sensitive and persuasive, and "I'd Like to Know" was as current a protest in 1965 as when it was written (and now, too, I suppose). Rush includes a gambler's song, "The Cuckoo"; "Windy Bill," a cautionary cowboy song; and a train song--Bukka White's bottleneck classic "Panama Limited." This last song is effectively a workshop for playing bottleneck train songs and a fine conclusion for the disc. While Rush was eventually eclipsed by some of his contemporaries, he was true to tradition and the idioms of American music. Moreover, his virtuoso acoustic guitar playing was fresh and authentic. This disc is particularly valuable because of the music it contains and the high level of musicianship.

For as high as the pedestal that I put this LP on, it somehow has the ability to take itself down and then sit down next to you and be your friend.

Before internet and computers and the current trend of disposable music, I used to seek out LP's of Tom Rush "Tom Rush" to pass out to friends. This LP has brought tremendous enthusiasm to many individuals for regenerating interest in American music. As a friend of mine who recently purchased the cd e-mailed me (I gave him a copy of the LP a while back) and he said "side two is fantastic! side one was so good I never even flipped it over. And now, with the CD, I can play it straight through over and over, which I do. You wouldn't think it could get better than side one but it does!"

Tom Rush "Tom Rush" continually sparks the ears -- as if it was a brand new recording. This LP is truly timeless.

And for the diehards? It is really worth finding a MONO copy on LP because the straightforward mix of MONO will give you far more clarity of the voice and instruments. There are no left/right panning effects here to dilute the music.

So as I sit here in front of the old five-and-dime waiting for the Norfolk & Western to rattle into station, I can always wonder about a simpler day. And for that whistle that won't blow anymore, there is always Tom Rush to bring it a little bit closer.

The cover-photo tells you precisely what the record sounds like -- depression-era classics (and a few more things) presented with flinty integrity and urbane polish at the same time. The song choice is a tasteful mixture of white and black sources, but Rush never has to indulge himself in vocal "impressions" to get to the meaning of a song -- he lets the interplay between his voice and his brilliantly unflashy guitar-lines do the job.

But the photo also tells you as much about what it felt like to live in the 60's --at least a significant sector of it that the media tended to ignore -- as a twenty-page essay. There's Rush, with his Jack Kerouac haircut, his James Agee cigarette, his Woody work-jacket. It isn't difficult to imagine that when he finishes his smoke he'll put his hard-shell in the back of an appropriate car -- a dark-teal GTO hardtop, maybe -- and head west to see how much of the America his artistic predecessors described is still there; the America where people couldn't afford to delude themselves that you could stay young and pretty forever by buying fashionable stuff, and where "hipness" meant keeping your senses aware of what was really going on under surface appearances and drawing appropriate conclusions. He'll probably stop by Jack Eliot's place, or Ian Tyson's, to see if they want to share the gas expenses; if not, well, there'll be plenty of great tunes on the radio to accompany all those earthy smells coming in the window. That photo contains an ethic, an esthetic, and a "foundation" myth.

Some years ago while I was driving at night I caught an interview with Rush on NPR. He brought out his guitar and sent off into "Panama Limited," note-for-note as it sounded on the record. Two things struck me. 1) "This man is the Tony Bennett of folk-music; he never picks a tune unless he knows he can do it perfectly, then he never changes a thing." 2) "Somewhere in this country there's a college student listening to this who'll suddenly realize that this old geezer has been making train-noises with his guitar for ten minutes without boring anyone -- then the student will go out to a music-store next morning and find a vocation." As Charlie Parker once said, if the music's good enough somebody's gonna find out about it.

I've loved this album since it first came out; I was introduced to it by a close friend and it's as great today as it was then.

His slide guitar is worth the price of the album. And his version of "Do Re Mi" with John Herald and Ramblin' Jack Elliot is a classic.

And then there is the brilliant "Panama Limited." If you love blues and folk and Americana, this one's for you.

In the early sixties music was in the doldrums (sound familiar?) Elvis was in the army, Chuck Berry was in jail after bring caught with Sweet Little (white) Sixteen, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash (the Day the Music Died), Jerry Lee Lewis was in disgrace after marrying his fourteen year old cousin, Little Richard found religion. The innovators were gone. Into this gap jumped the Mafia, pushing Payola, forcing DJ's to play Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and let's not forget the fabulously talented Fabian Forte.

More sophisticated listeners were turned off. The Next Big Thing was Folk Music, especially with the college crowd! There were two movements here, the "authentic" group, where a song had to be old, traditional, to be "folk" , Joan Baez, Ian and Silvia, Kingston Trio, early Judy Collins were of this group and the new "relevant protestors" like Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, et al, writing new music in a traditional folk idiom. Tom Rush was from the Cambridge authentic group. His songs are black blues, chain gang songs, Woody Guthrie, cowboy songs, gathering eclectically from the best available. Even a Leiber/Stroller Coasters song!

What makes Rush so great is his tart delivery and his deep baritone voice (too many wimpy high tenors out there). He sings with a twinkle in his eye. He sings likes he has stones. He takes that line "these Big City women they sure do make me tired / They got two hands full of gimme/ And a mouth full of much obliged" and uses it in three different songs on three different albums. And why not, great line. That's how blues/folk was, Robert Johnson wrote a line and if you liked it, you stole it and put it in your song. So many of these songs and lyrics overlap. None of these songs are Rush originals, but for years I thought they were, his was the first and best versions I heard.

He sings Woody Guthrie's advice to Tom Joad Oakies trying to get into California "If you ain't got the Do-Ra-Mi/ If you ain't got that Do-Ra-Mi/ You'd better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.." Some old folk music sounds stale, some old folksongs are downright embarrassing or preachy now, but Tom Rush is a fresh as ever!

In the "Panama Limited", Rush does this virtuoso job of simulating various train sounds using only a bottleneck slide. It was this song that first drew me to his incredible ability on guitar. (On his later albums, sadly, he leaves the guitar lead to others.)

Eventually the fashion or zeitgeist went to singer-songwriters, the new original folkies like Dylan or John Fahey. Tom Rush was less effective in later albums singing ballads from Joni Mitchell. He was a classic but, now he's pretty much forgotten, a footnote. The best of Rush is early, this album, his first on Elektra ('65) and earlier ('62-'63) Prestige/Fantasy "Got a Mind to Ramble" and "Blues, Songs and Ballads". Elektra (where The Doors recorded) was originally a folk label! Here Rush does a damn fine job of playing guitar with authority. That's Tom Rush, singing with authority. There isn't a bad song here, highly entertaining!

Recording quality on this version is quite good.

This stuff came out on Elektra originally, who has not seen fit to reissue, so get it while you can in this edition.
Highly Recommended.