Tom Rush: Walking that Precarious Tightrope of Beauty
Happy Birthday Tom! A reprint from F-Roots from a few years back....
Tom Rush is a damn good storyteller. And if he didn’t happen to write the tale he’s singing he always knew where to find it, being one of the first to record soon-to-be classics by such young hopefuls as Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. Yet he has delved into an eclectic array of styles over his long career. His new album Voices kicks off with an update on the traditional “Elder Green,” featuring a punchy rhythm section behind him. Rush delivers the tale of a preacher man, complete with an amen corner punctuating each verse. Although branded as “a folky,” Tom always had a funky, bluesy style, and never shied away from rocking out when he felt the spirit.
“It may be a bit academic, but to me ‘folk’ means the traditional songs, ‘handed down by ear’ from generation to generation – ‘Barbara Allen,’ ‘The Water is Wide,’ ‘Yankee Doodle…’ stuff like that,” Tom pointed out. “If somebody wrote it, even if it was Woody Guthrie, it’s not folk although Woody did ‘borrow’ a lot of traditional melodies.
Tom Rush - Lone Star Cafe, NYC - Mid 1980s (photo by Kruth)
“I started out in the late ‘50s trying to play the rock ‘n’ roll songs I heard on the radio, then transitioned to folk when I heard my first Josh White record. When I got to Cambridge, (Massachusetts) in the early ‘60’s there was a lot of great music around and I soaked it up like the proverbial sponge,” Rush explained. “Most of my contemporaries were specialists, doing only Delta blues, only Irish/Scottish ballads, only Guthrie songs. I liked too many very different songs to go that route, and so became the generalist, picking a song from here, a song from there. The mix made my shows, and recordings, a bit schizophrenic and I’m not sure it led to a wider audience, but I think the variety kept me, and hopefully the listeners, interested.”
As Tom said about “Come See About Me” in the album’s liner notes… “I don’t think I wrote this one I think the guitar did.” The song possesses that rare relaxed groove that J.J. Cale was famous for. With plenty of Al Perkins slippery slide and bluesy harmonica chug, you can feel the music breathe. As Taj Mahal once tried to describe the mystery ingredient of his sound, “It has all the time in the world in it.” Now seventy-seven, Rush seems to embody the philosophy of the great bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who once famously remarked, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.”
When it comes to the craft of songwriting Tom takes a relaxed approach these days: “The songs just pop up out of the ether and I have very little control over the process,” he said marveling at the gift that each new tune brings. “I have noticed, however, that they pop up much more often when I sit down with the guitar and try to tune in to what’s out there in that ether.”
“I’ve known Tom since 1962,” his producer and old friend Jim Rooney said. “When you’re working with him, he’s with you 100%. been on the road since 1963. Yet he’s not worn out; he’s not jaded. He’s fully engaged, writing really good songs expressing a variety of emotions. Tom responds to the musicians I gathered together in Nashville and they respond to him. Voices is a fine collection of songs by a singer who knows who he is and can still deliver the goods. Give me an artist like Tom Rush any day!”
Jim Rooney (L) with old pal Eric von Schmidt - backstage at Boston Symphony Hall, December 1984 for Tom Rush’s club 47 Reunion concert (photo by Kruth)
Voices is another classic Rooney production, which has always been simple and supportive of the artist, thoughtfully framing the song with the right balance of instruments, in a live atmosphere.
“Jim also produced my previous album, What I Know, and that was so much fun I wanted to do it again. The way I look at it, I brought the raw material, and Jim, Fergie the engineer, and all the fabulous players fashioned it into something really enjoyable. Jim is the perfect producer for me,” Tom explained. “I have a tendency to want to fuss and fiddle and fix every little thing until the song dies on the operating table. Jim has no patience for that. If it feels good, it’s done. On to the next!”
“Recording is not as hard as everyone makes it out to be,” Rooney explained. “It doesn’t have to be no fun at all. It can be a good experience. I assume the technical. What I’m after is the emotional. I need people to go for broke, go out on a limb and feel comfortable about doing it, to just play without thinking, ‘we’re making a record, it’s gotta be perfect.”
“My Best Girl” is the kind of tune you’d probably play a few times in a row after discovering it on a Colorado or Tennessee jukebox. Like a kissing cousin of the Grateful Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia,” or the Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek” the lyric regales a seasoned woman who is both loveable and dependable when life’s knocks get a bit too hard. So, who is this indomitable spirit that has stood so faithfully by Tom’s side all these years and inspired such a loving ode?
“It’s actually a love song I wrote for my guitar, ‘the Naked Lady’ made by McKenzie & Marr in Montreal,” Rush explained. “She’s a re-creation/upgrade of a guitar I travelled with for years before she burned up in a housefire.”
The sweet and easy swing of “Life is Fine” is a much-needed antidote to the insane times we’ve found ourselves living through these days. From Tom’s lilting whistle in the introduction, to the cute retort of “I love ya moster…” the tune evokes old school American songsters like Hoagy Carmichael, from what seems to have been, in hindsight, a kinder, gentler time in this country.
“I believe in America,” Tom said. “But I fear some of the damage Trump is doing may be irreparable - to the environment, to our relationships with the rest of the world, to the way our government used to work. And, hitting a new low, the damage being done to the 2,500 children separated from their families on the Mexican border. This is government has sanctioned child abuse, and the traumas will haunt these kids for the rest of their lives. But on a lighter note, I would have loved to hear what Hoagy or Fred [Astaire] might have done with it!”
The perplexed protagonist of “Heaven Knows” is hoping he won’t have to choose between Jesus and his baby. There’s plenty of spirited picking and the natural fuzz bass of a jug (echoes of Tom and Jim’s long departed pal jug master Fritz Richmond of the Jim Kweskin jug band) propelling the rhythm of this country ramble.
“I’m told this album was #6 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart a few weeks ago,” Rush said quizzically. “I can’t imagine why, unless it was the fiddle and mandolin parts by Sam Bush.
“There’s a bit of jug band in this one. The jug takes me back to Mr. Fritz Richmond, my very first accompanist back in the day. He was a great musician on tub [washtub bass] and jug, but even more important, he was a major ‘Character’ and tons of fun. I recall that at one stage he would display a toothbrush in his front pocket, indicating his willingness to spend the night.”
Over the years, everyone from Bo Carter to Cab Calloway to Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Mississippi John Hurt, Steppenwolf, Dean Martin and Joni Mitchell have sung the praises of that enchanting gal named, “Corrine,” “Corrina,” or “Corina,” No matter how you spell her name you could learn something about love from this song and Rush puts in a warm-hearted reading that transports the listener back to the days of folk clubs, before such glaring distractions as large screen TV’s and cell phones robbed the audience of its attention span. There’s a warm glow to this music, that offers temporary shelter from a world that making less and less sense. A gentle reacquainting with one’s own spirit takes place in the contemplative tambour of Tom’s delivery. A tune like “Corina, Corina” puts you in touch with what’s good about life. It has a cathartic effect. After 3:27 you come out of it feeling whole again.
“I can’t recall where I first heard it,” Tom replied. “But it’s the only other song on the album, besides [the opening track] ‘Elder Green’ that I didn’t write. ‘Corina’ has longevity the way all traditional songs do. Each generation and each singer remembers the most memorable parts and makes up something new to fill in the gaps. After a few generations, it’s all pretty memorable… I guess that’s what you might call ‘Musical Darwinism!” he mused.
“A gig gone wrong way back at the dawn of time, a gig that taught me never to play in bars that had a mechanical bull,” was the inspiration for ‘If I Never Get Back,’ in which Rush pays tribute to the long list of New Jersey’s oddly named towns, many of them of Native-American origin, while the sweet, gently rolling “Going Down to Nashville” portrays a roving troubadour who is both optimistic - “looking for a reason, hoping for a rhyme,” and nostalgic for what he’s left behind. There’s a powerful sense of melancholy as Tom sings, “I’ve come to say hello and I’ve come to say goodbye.” “It’s the one age-appropriate song on the album,” Tom points out. “The rest are written from the perspective of a 35-year-old, or younger. And though I can relate to the protagonist, it is made-up. I never had a Nashville girlfriend and I have no sense that “my end is nigh,” though you never know, do you?”
A moment later “How Can She Dance Like That?” kicks off as his band throws down a solid groove augmented by grungy guitar, raspy tenor sax and a pair of oohing angels. Rush has always seemed at home both as a solo performer or with a group. Either way, the music seems to happen naturally. “I’m quite happy these day working just with Matt Nakoa on keyboards and harmony vocal, or, when Matt’s doing his own thing, which is happening more and more, going out solo,” Tom explained. “I’ve loved working with bands, but bands unfortunately want to get paid on a regular basis, and I had to work twice as much to make sure all the mouths were fed. I no longer want to spend my life on the road; one or two long weekends a month are plenty!”
The title (and final) track, “Voices,” reveals the perfect blend of gentleness and gravel in Tom’s voice. He sounds weathered and weary but not beaten as he invites you to listen closely to the voices “from way beyond the stars…” “They sing a song of wonder that’s too much for the mind,” Tom intones, as he walks that precarious tightrope of beauty.
“Fergie, the engineer, took me aside and solemnly told me, ‘Tom, Autotune don’t work on your voice.’ It’s because I’m narrating half the time, singing the other half. Fergie did a lot of engineering for Johnny Cash. ‘Autotune,’ he told me, didn’t work for Johnny either, so I took it as a compliment. As for the song, I’m not sure where it came from but the basic idea is that there’s an awful lot going on around us, right under our noses, that we miss because we’re too busy to pay attention to the important things.
Although we didn’t cover every song, this is a must-have album. Rush really got the perfect blend of emotions on this one - from pure yearning to pure silliness.
“I’m very pleased with the way this project came together,” he said. “I think it’s my best work, so far. I’ve gotten complaints from people who say they can’t stop listening to it. We will be adding a Surgeon General’s Warning to the packaging. ‘If Your Whatever Lasts More Than 5 Hours … Don’t Come Whining To Me.’”