{"id":657,"date":"2012-06-27T14:11:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T13:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/?p=657"},"modified":"2012-06-27T14:11:16","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T13:11:16","slug":"otis-rush-the-unlucky-lefty-of-the-chicago-blues-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"Otis Rush \u2013 The Unlucky Lefty of the Chicago Blues Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite influencing blues-rock legends in waiting like Eric Clapton and Michael Bloomfield, Otis Rush hasn\u2019t gotten the accolades and success many other \u201850s-\u201860s Chicago blues mainstays have.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>That hasn\u2019t made him any less influential, though.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He recorded some definite blues classics in the \u201850s, such as \u201cI Can\u2019t Quit You, Baby\u201d and \u201cDouble Trouble\u201d, and is still known for his vibrato-rich left-handed guitar playing style and his passionate vocal work.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately, he has occasionally been known as a difficult person to work with, and bad luck seems to follow him in his numerous jumps from label to label.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike other Mississippi Delta-born bluesmen who moved to Chicago as adults, Otis Rush (b. April 29, 1935) arrived in Chicago at the age of 13, in 1948.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>As a young man, Rush was a regular in Chicago\u2019s South Side and West Side blues clubs, and after being discovered by Willie Dixon, he signed with Cobra Records in 1956.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This is where he recorded the two aforementioned classics, songs that reached the Top 10 of Billboard\u2019s R&B charts and more or less guaranteed the young bluesman stardom outside of the Windy City.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Cobra would fold in 1959, but Rush wasn\u2019t without a label for long.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In 1960, he signed with Chess Records, where he recorded eight songs, including another all-time favorite, \u201cSo Many Roads, So Many Trains.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Following those eight tracks with Chess, Rush bounced from label to label for the rest of the \u201860s.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>By 1971, he was on a major label (Capitol), where he recorded the prophetically-titled album <\/span><\/span>Right Place, Wrong Time<\/span><\/em>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Capitol would ignore the record completely, and it would be four years before the album finally surfaced, this time on an independent Japanese label, P-Vine.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>After a few live albums on even more record labels, Rush would stop recording and touring for a few years.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rush seemed to be on the comeback trail in 1986, recording an album on Rooster Blues with some esteemed session musicians.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Unfortunately, Rush would abandon the project in the middle of recording sessions, <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>apparently unsatisfied with how the amplifiers made his guitar sound.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The project would be scrapped, and it would be eight years before Rush would finally record a studio album again.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The result was another aptly-titled release, <\/span><\/span>Ain\u2019t Enough Comin\u2019 In<\/span><\/em>, an album which received critical acclaim despite purely consisting of cover material.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This was followed in 1998 by <\/span><\/span>Any Place I\u2019m Goin\u2019<\/span><\/em>, an album that won the Best Traditional Blues Album Grammy the year after.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bad luck continued to stand in Rush\u2019s way despite the success of his last two albums.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In 2004, Rush was forced into retirement from live performances after suffering a stroke.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And it\u2019s been 14 years since <\/span><\/span>Any Place I\u2019m Goin\u2019<\/span><\/em>, and still no new studio releases.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s been a quiet 21<\/span>st<\/span><\/sup> century for Otis Rush, but it is every blues fan\u2019s hope that the venerable southpaw would return with a vengeance, hopefully without the bad luck that h<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite influencing blues-rock legends in waiting like Eric Clapton and Michael Bloomfield, Otis Rush hasn\u2019t gotten the accolades and success many other \u201850s-\u201860s Chicago blues mainstays have.\u00a0 That hasn\u2019t made him any less influential, though.\u00a0 He recorded some definite blues classics in the \u201850s, such as \u201cI Can\u2019t Quit You, Baby\u201d and \u201cDouble Trouble\u201d, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thebluesguitarplayer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}