Today in 2018 blues great Otis Rush died from a complication of a stroke at 84. He was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter renowned for his distinctive slow-burning guitar style with its long bent notes. He was born in 1935.
His guitars were strung with the low E string at the bottom, upside-down from typical guitarists. He often played with the little finger of his pick hand curled under the low E for positioning. It is widely believed that this contributed to his distinctive sound. He had a wide-ranging, powerful tenor voice. (source: Wikipedia)
His first single, ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’, in 1956 reached No.6 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Two of his other well-known songs are ‘Double Trouble’ and ‘All Your Love (I Miss Loving).’ He won a Grammy® award in 1998 for the album Any Place I’s Going.
Them pains, when blues pains grab you, you’ll sing the blues right.
‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’ produced by Willie Dixon on the Cobra label became a national rhythm & blues hit. The song was later covered by Led Zeppelin and Little Milton Campbell. The depth and intensity of the track set the tone for the music Rush trademarked. His heartrending blues brought audiences to tears.
Otis’s troubled childhood found a voice in his music, taking the blues form to artistic and emotional peaks in his published works.
From the 50s he was an influence on the Chicago music scene, influencing blues and rock musicians. His contributions to the genres affected the music of Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
With his passionate vocals and brilliant guitar skills, he rose to international fame in the blues world. Rush’s musical beginnings began singing in a church choir with him playing the harmonica.
Self-taught on his brother Leroy Boyd’s guitar, he developed an unorthodox approach of playing left-handed with the guitar upside down. He had the ability to generate sounds into notes on the guitar, one of which was a childhood memory of Leroy’s whistle.
I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.
A trip to Chicago to visit his sister changed his perspective on life. She took him to a Muddy Waters performance. He knew that music was for him. He recalled, “I flipped out, man. I said, Damn. This is for me”. He left the fields where he was sharecropping cotton and corn on a local farm and moved to Chicago.
With influences from Water’s music, Rush created a modern and original method that has given him international acclaim in the blues world. He has devoted fan bases in Europe and Japan. Otis Rush has performed with Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The industry elected him to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1984.
