CHICAGO -- Even in a city teeming with blues guitar masters, Otis Rush towered above. His guitar tone -- corrosive, piercing, etched in darkness and anguish -- shaped the sound of Chicago blues and resonated around the world.
His death Saturday at age 84 was announced on his website by his wife, Masaki Rush. He was largely inactive the past 15 years, after a stroke in 2003. But his legacy remains assured as one of the architects of the West Side sound that was a cornerstone of Chicago blues in the 1950s and '60s.
Rush, a contemporary of such blues slingers as Buddy Guy and Magic Sam, carved out a distinctive sound. His impassioned, minor-key tone and keening vocals filtered into several generations of rock guitarists, including Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Carlos Santana and Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green.
Rush was born in Philadelphia, Miss., in 1934 and worked on a farm before moving to Chicago 14 years later with his family. After Rush's mother took him to see Muddy Waters perform, the self-taught left-hander started playing guitar, unaware that he was holding a conventionally tuned guitar upside down and backward. Almost instantly, he sounded like no one else.
The teenage Rush could soon be heard blasting his guitar out of his third-floor apartment window on Wentworth Avenue, and he began listening to records and hanging out in clubs along West Roosevelt Avenue. His omnivorous musical tastes influenced his style; soon he began injecting the jazzy inflections of Kenny Burrell and the organ chords of Jimmy Smith into his playing.
His distinctiveness was indelibly captured on "I Can't Quit You Baby," his first single for Cobra Record Corp. in 1956. He cut some of his greatest tracks over the next two years with Cobra, including "My Love Will Never Die," "Groanin' the Blues," "Three Times a Fool," "Double Trouble" and "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)." If he had done nothing else but his Cobra recordings in 1956-58, he would still be revered as a blues great.
As his reputation expanded beyond Chicago, a generation of young guitarists soaked up his influence. His '60s recordings included a session with a young up-and-comer named Duane Allman, co-founder of the Allman Brothers, and the airtight Muscle Shoals, Ala., rhythm section. In the '70s, Chicago-based Delmark Records began documenting his studio sessions, and Rush became a mainstay in the North Side clubs.
In the early '80s, Rush took a few years off from performing, but as an elder statesman he was again in demand. When Pearl Jam headlined Soldier Field in 1995, the Seattle band enlisted Rush as an opener.
A Section on 10/01/2018