Obituary - Otis Rush, blues singer-guitarist

Died: September 28, 2018.

OTIS Rush, who has died aged 84, was a guitarist who influenced Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, among many others, and one of the key figures in the development of Chicago blues during the 1950s and 1960s.

Although Rush did not record as much as someone of his stature should have done, he created a lasting hit with his very first single, I Can’t Quit You, which Led Zeppelin went on to cover on their first album. He also wrote classic songs including Double Trouble, after which the late guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan named his band, and All Your Love, a favourite in British blues veteran John Mayall’s repertoire.

One of seven children, Rush was born near Philadelphia, Mississippi and grew up in a single parent family. His mother struggled to make ends meet and as a schoolboy Rush contributed to the family’s income by working in the surrounding fields.

At the age of eight he picked up a guitar his older brother had acquired. Rush was left-handed, the guitar was strung right-handed and with nobody around to show him how to restring it, he taught himself to play it upside down.

In his mid-teens he visited his sister who had joined the Mississippi diaspora in Chicago and she took him to see Muddy Waters. As they approached the club, Rush was convinced he was hearing a record being played very loudly and, once inside, was amazed to discover that this was Waters’ band actually playing. He was immediately both inspired to stay on in Chicago and was shown how good he would have to become to make it as a blues musician.

He worked on his guitar playing, still playing upside down, much to the neighbours’ disenchantment. When they complained he told them he was trying to get as good as Muddy Waters. Guitarist Mike Bloomfield, who co-produced Rush’s first full-length album, Mourning in the Morning in 1969, later said that the white blues bands of the 1960s all felt they had to try and be as good as Rush.

By his late teens Rush was leading his own band around Chicago. At the 708 Club in 1956 he met songwriter and Chess Records in-house producer Willie Dixon. Dixon introduced Rush to Cobra Records and suggested Rush record Dixon’s I Can’t Quit You. A major recording career seemed assured and several other singles followed, some recorded with Ike Turner. Then Cobra went out of business and Rush became dogged by record company problems. Tracks recorded for Chess and then Vanguard ended up on compilation albums. One album, Right Place, Wrong Time, was recorded then shelved and released only after Rush bought the masters.

Strong live performances and recordings for Blue Horizon, Delmark and Sonet enhanced Rush’s reputation as a distinctive guitar stylist and a passionate singer and after a period of absence, he won a Grammy in 1998 for Any Place I’m Going. He suffered a stroke in 2003 but continued performing and was named as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s top 100 all-time guitarists in 2015.

He is survived by his wife, Masaki, eight children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

ROB ADAMS