Iconic Blues Musician Otis Rush Passes Away at Age 84

Otis Rush, a legendary soloist and tenor iconic to Chicago blues, has passed away. Rush had been struggling with the rigors of recovering from a stroke he suffered back in 2003, costing him his music career in the process.

While Rush may not come to mind as quickly as B.B. King or Albert King, his guitar and voice work were a huge source of inspiration for guitarists like Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and even Stevie Ray Vaughn. The last of whom named his band after Rush’s hit song “Double Trouble.” Clapton admitted that he saw Rush in the same light as many of the other blues greats who helped inspired his style of playing blues, mentioning names like Magic Sam and Freddie King in the same sentence.

Rush was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi but soon moved to Chicago, seeking to earn a reputation from playing music in clubs. Rush was instrumental in shaping the unique sound of West Side Chicago blues, noted for being more fluid and jazzier than Chicago’s South Side blues. Rush was a left-handed guitarist who strung his guitar upside down, with the low E string at the bottom and the high E string on top, sometimes even slipping his pinkie under the low E to bend notes in ways few blues musicians ever considered.

Buddy Guy, another Chicago blues musician, attributes Rush’s work as the ignition for his own career. Rush asked Guy to come on stage to perform some blues with no idea who Guy was. Rush never reached the levels of fame as Guy, preferring to just head out, perform and then sleep at home; Rush’s manager, Rick Bates, said that Rush simply did not care for show business. Rush once admitted regrets at not making it big, possibly unaware of how much he sound would serve as the foundation of other blues musicians, as well as rock musicians.

Rush’s name was added to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984. Fifteen years later, his “Any Place I’m Going” won him a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording. One particular song, “I Can’t Quit You, Baby,” a collaboration between Rush and his friend Willie Dixon, charted up to sixth place on Billboard’s R&B chart in ’56. While that particular song has been covered by many musicians, Led Zeppelin’s reinterpretation of it in their 1969 debut album helped bring Rush’s sound to new ears.

Ref: http://celebrityinsider.org/iconic-blues-musician-otis-rush-passes-away-at-age-84-197389/