Description

Tom Rush has been touring steadily for decades, bringing that voice and those songs to devoted audiences across the country. There have been a few live albums as welcome reminders of Tom’s relaxed, expressive baritone, skilled guitar-playing, droll humor and infallible taste in writing and choosing material (after all, he was virtually the first to record songs by then-unknowns Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and James Taylor). Now there’s a new Tom Rush studio CD, What I Know, his first since 1974 and his debut for Appleseed, a musical quilt of original and carefully selected compositions that fully deserve “the Rush treatment.”

Tom’s voice and phrasing are what make every song he sings his own. He writes or selects songs shorn of elaborate metaphors, choosing graceful, evocative, straightforward emotional settings. Then his warm baritone, tanned by experience, humor and melancholy, shines right through the lyrics, illuminating them from within.

Emerging from the early-1960s Boston/Cambridge folk scene as a folk-blues singer and guitarist, Rush helped link folk to rock with his 1966 Elektra album, Take a Little Walk with Me, which included a side of electric cover versions of songs by Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, as well as Tom’s first self-penned song, “On the Road Again.” His next album, 1968’s The Circle Game, was singled out by Rolling Stone as the record that ushered in the singer-songwriter era with its debut of songs by Mitchell, Browne and Taylor before they had released any albums themselves also featured what has become Tom’s best known song, “No Regrets,” which has been a hit for seemingly everyone (including Emmylou Harris and The Walker Brothers) except Tom; even U2 dropped in a few lines from the song in a televised 1994 Grammy Awards performance. Subsequent albums for Elektra and Columbia became showcases for other deserving songs by the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Guy Clark, Eric Kaz, and Richard Dean, who is also represented on What I Know by “All a Man Can Do,” which gives voice to a war veteran’s return to what’s left of his life.

Produced in Nashville by longtime Cambridge friend and musician Jim Rooney and his subtle crew of country-folk musicians, What I Know contains five Rush originals, his arrangement of the traditional “Casey Jones” (with guest vocalist Nanci Griffith) and nine renditions of mostly unfamiliar songs that become instant friends. Tom’s compositions range from toe-tappers (“Hot Tonight,” with guest Bonnie Bramlett on harmony vocals, “Silly Little Diddle,” “One Good Man” and the exuberant title song) to the wearily peaceful “River Song” (with Robin Batteau on violin). There are gorgeously regret-filled songs by Steven Bruton (“Too Many Memories,” with Emmylou Harris on harmony, A.J. Swearingen’s “You’re Not Here with Me,” Jamaican singer Mishka’s “Lonely”), the wonderfully tender “What an Old Lover Knows,” by Melanie Dyer and Kim Beard Day, and a velvety song of seduction – “Fall into the Night” – by Eliza Gilkyson. “East of Eden,” co-written by Jack Tempchin (“Peaceful Easy Feeling”) doubles as a frustrated love song and a commentary on US immigration policies. The best-known song covered is a reflective take on Mentor Williams’ “Drift Away,” a hit for Dobie Gray, Rod Stewart, and uncountable others, performed here minus the “horn section, backup singers, smoke machines and pole dancers” Tom has heard in previous arrangements.

Tom Rush – the man with the golden ear, the comforting voice, the supple guitar, and the craftsman’s pen – has given us a gift worth waiting for.

tracklist

1. Hot Tonight
2. East of Eden
3. River Song
4. Too Many Memories
5. What I Know
6. All a Man Can Do
7. Fall into the Night
8. Casey Jones
9. You’re Not Here with Me
10. What an Old Lover Knows
11. Silly Little Diddle
12. Lonely
13. No One Else but You
14. One Good Man
15. Drift Away