Photo Credit: Rick Olivier
If any blues lovers only know singer Bobby Rush from seeing the bold and bawdy act he’s taken to stages around the world for more than 60 years, they might be surprised at his soft- spoken humility when he’s not entertaining.
Speaking on his cellphone en route to a Midwestern date on the “Take Me To The River Memphis Soul and Rhythm & Blues Revue” tour he is co-headlining with fellow bluesman Charlie Musselwhite and old-school R&B crooner William Bell, the first thing he wants to discuss is his Grammy Award. He won one earlier this year in the Best Traditional Blues Album category for Porcupine Meat. “Winning a Grammy has energized me,” the 83-year-old enthuses. “It’s given me new levels in life. I’m grateful to God I’m able and healthy enough to be doing what I’ve been doing all these years.”
Though he may be playing to bigger crowds than ever, he doesn’t want that greater adulation to distract him from the remembering the grounding he experienced coming from gigging on the “chitlin’ circuit” of clubs in African American neighborhoods for so long. “I’ve crossed over, but I’ve not sold out,” he says. “I don’t want to forget the bridge that brought me across.”
Some of the steps on his way to becoming an elder statesmen of a genre that has influenced much of the nation’s popular music come from a long history of Milwaukee dates. He recalls that his first show in the city occurred at a venue that has long since shuttered, but, also, “I’ve played every little club on Fond du Lac [Avenue]; I’ve played Summerfest; I’ve been on many side streets. I’ve played joints, joints, joints!”And, if one of his most recent appearances in the city—at the Blues Fest concert a few years ago, where he shared a bill with other lifers in music, including Denise LaSalle and the late Bobby “Blue” Bland, among others—is at all indicative, Rush still comes off as a supreme player, flanked by two curvaceous female dancers shaking away and deflecting from their employer’s craggier handsomeness. His persona and act have made an impact upon the sexual frankness currently prevalent in commercial radio and R&B—even if blues is virtually nonexistent on current youth-oriented urban radio.
Passing on the Torch
But don’t try insinuating that his sound is irrelevant. Not only does the size of the audiences he continues to attract contradict that sentiment, but, Rush adds, “If you don’t like the blues, you don’t like your mama! Everyone has a story, so everyone has the blues. When folks understand that they are not the only ones who go through ups and downs in life, it’s easier to get past it, to keep going.”
Rush keeps going, too. “It’s about passing the torch on,” he says of the continued attention he pays to hitting the road and maintaining friendships with younger people who appreciate his artistry. The latter objective may be a practical one, too, however. “I hang out with younger people because there aren’t any people my age to hang out with!” Among those no longer among the living are many of the peers with whom he has shared performance dates and who’ve been in his band. “There have been thousands of musicians and solo artists who have played in my band,” Rush reflects, if, perhaps, with a bit of hyperbole in the number, adding, “They have all been special to me; it saddens me that many of them are no longer here.”
Though he also continues to play the majority African American venues that built the foundation of his popularity, his current tour—playing this Friday at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts’ Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall—Rush notes, “has been about 80% white audiences.” What is it about his music that draws folks across ethnic groups who often have different tastes in what they want from blues? “I think it’s the energy of the music,” he says. “The soulful parts ... the funk stuff going on.”
Rush has been around long enough—and with sufficient success—to pretty well call the shots in his career. Listening to his latest album (he’s due to return to the studio again early next year as well) and Omnivore Recordings’ 2015 four-CD retrospective of his life’s work, Chicken Heads, one can easily get the impression that he has always had the philosophy he shares here: “I record what I feel and hope everyone likes it. The truth is the truth.” And the truth is that Bobby Rush is a blues survivor and musical treasure.The Take Me To The River tour, featuring Bobby Rush, Charlie Musselwhite, William Bell, Frayser Boy and more, stops at Vogel Hall’s Wilson Theater, 929 N. Water St., on Friday, Nov. 10 at 7:30 p.m. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org/show/take-me-to-the-river.
