![]() ![]() “The first song is, ‘I’m free, look at me. I don’t know if it hurts me, but my head just won’t let me be still.” You’ll find everything about me inside these songs-folk funk, traditional blues, ballads, love, a comedy and a shit-talking. “I put together all these songs when I was down with the COVID, thinking about where I was going to go from here. ![]() Rush, meanwhile, still remains steadfastly committed to the African American audiences who sustained him for decades, and on his new album he looks back from his current vantage point as a seasoned artist celebrated by an ever-growing fan base. In addition to his two Grammy wins (and six nominations), he’s in the Blues Hall of Fame, has won 16 Blues Music Awards (among 56 nominations), and there’s currently a musical in development called Slippin’ Through The Cracks with sights on Broadway, recently co-written by Rush and playwright Stephen Lloyd Helper, who co-wrote the 7x Tony-nominated musical Smokey Joe’s Café celebrating the songs of Lieber and Stoller. And the eternally youthful Rush was even able to play himself in the 1970s in Netflix's 2019 hit biopic Dolemite is My Name in a scene with Eddie Murphy. Through singles on labels including Chess, ABC and Philadelphia International and relentless touring Rush established an unparalleled reputation as an entertainer, which later led to him being crowned by Rolling Stone magazine as King of the Chitlin’ Circuit, the network of African American clubs that arose during the segregation era.īased in Jackson, Mississippi since the early ‘80s, Rush began “crossing over” to new audiences several decades ago, featured in the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary The Road to Memphis, appearing alongside Terrence Howard, Snoop Dogg and Mavis Staples in the documentary Take Me to the River, and performing on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon along with Dan Aykroyd. ![]() He left behind farm work to perform on the road with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and as “Bobby Rush”-a name he took on out of respect to his father, a minister-he toured the jukes and clubs of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi before settling in Chicago in the 1950s. You’d go out on Saturday night to the juke joints, but then on Monday morning you’d go back into the cotton fields to work for your bossman.” The blues, Rush recalls, provided “an escape from the cotton fields. He built his first guitar on the side of the family’s house out of broom wire, nails, bottles and bricks. That story began in rural Homer/Haynesville, Louisiana, where Rush-born Emmett Ellis, Jr.-grew up on his family’s farm picking cotton, tending to mules and chickens, and living in a home without electricity nor indoor plumbing. Over the last several years he’s won a second Grammy, re-recorded his 1971 hit Chicken Heads together with his old friend Buddy Guy and young blues star Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and written a critically acclaimed autobiography, I Ain’t Studdin’ You: My American Blues Story. Rush’s busy schedule includes headlining European festivals with his band and solo programs at venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, and he just recorded an album of brand new material, All My Love For You, coming out via his own label Deep Rush Records in collaboration with Nashville-based Thirty Tigers. I laugh about it, but I’m so blessed and I surely never thought I’d be making a living doing what I’m doing. “I was 83 years old before I won a Grammy, but it’s better late than never. “I never thought I would be here this long,” says Rush. It’s a move you might expect at a contemporary R&B show, but it’s downright shocking when you realize that Rush is in his late 80s. 2x GRAMMY winning legend, Blues Hall of Famer, six-time Grammy nominee, and 14-time Blues Music Award winner, with cameo in the Netflix original Dolemite Is My Name starring Eddie Murphy, and a recent Autobiographyĭuring his renowned stage show Bobby Rush frequently jumps high into the air, arms spread and legs tucked, only to land gracefully and return without a hitch to his dazzling routine. ![]()
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