Otis Rush burst onto the Chicago blues recording scene in 1956 with one of the most powerful, agonized sounds ever captured on vinyl. With a saxophone groaning in the background and his splintered chording and jagged leads skittering beneath his tormented vocals, he created a music that was at once more sophisticated and more primal than anything else being done in Chicago at the time.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Rush also developed a reputation as a moody, unpredictable performer, as likely to sulk his way through an uninspired set of noodling as to galvanize a crowd. His trailblazing music, however, was not forgotten: both his vocal style and his unique arpeggio-laden guitar technique were major influences in the British blues “revival” of the 60s, even though Rush himself was languishing on the edge of obscurity.
These days Rush’s on-again, off-again career consists primarily of local gigs and an occasional nationwide or overseas tour. He’s as unpredictable as ever. Not long ago he showed up at a local club and proceeded to sing through the first set without touching his guitar. The next night he sat on the edge of the stage, his guitar out of tune, and meandered through “Wonder Why,” one of his instrumental signature pieces. Then he abruptly returned to his dressing room. A few weeks later he returned to the same venue and tore through an incendiary set of up-tempo house rockers interspersed with minor-key classics from the Cobra era.
Yet other times he’s far in front of anything anyone else is doing. He sang “Stormy Monday” in a satin-smooth croon with just a hint of the old terrified quiver, but his guitar solo brought an element of harshness to the classic ballad. His spidery chording and single-note punctuations built into a series of raw-toned chords toward the end, as if he were trying to evoke the desperation he’d only hinted at before. The tune’s sophisticated mellowness had given way to the declamatory intensity of Rush’s Chicago roots, but the transition was so subtle that you hardly knew what was happening until it was over.
These are not the tormented screams of the Otis Rush who took the bathetic Willie Dixon composition “My Love Will Never Die” and transformed it into perhaps the most harrowing portrayal of obsessional love ever recorded. Rather they’re the inspired inventions of a man at play, a man relaxing, if only temporarily. To use Percy Mayfield’s expression, Rush plays and sings like a man with memory pain. Demonic fires may smolder just beneath the surface, a harsh intensity may underlie the joy, but for now everything is all right.
