Otis Rush - Essential Collection: Classic Cobra Recordings

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Music reviews of Essential Collection: Classic Cobra Recordings

Music Review: Not Even Rush Could Top These Cuts
Rating: 5 Stars

It begins with "I Can't Quit You, Baby," the first hit for both Rush himself and for the Cobra operation. After all these years (and no few rather questionable covers, from a too-reverent turn by the original Savoy Brown Blues Band to a too-irreverent turn by Led Zeppelin) the gospel lacing in Rush's vocal and the supply-shaded phrasing in his guitar lines cut deep and true over that thundercrack rhythm section and through that striking minor-key (at the time a grand step forward for Chicago blues, as was the employment of an actual electric bass, as opposed to a guitarist playing the bass lines on the low strings or an upright bassist).

It continues with music that runs a pretty thick swath between gospel-inspired blues, jump blues shifted to a chunky backbeat, a dash of swamp blues (give a careful listen to "It Takes Time" and you might think Rush would have been just as much at home among the Louisiana swamp bluesmen then beginning their striking run of recordings with the Excello operation and its deep-and-booming reverb), and even a little Latinesque ("All Your Love (I Miss Loving)," whose effect on one Eric Clapton would become apparent in due enough course). But Rush is so powerful a blues presence and guitar phraser - and a very strong songwriter - even at this early point of his recording career that he just about wrings all those elements out into his own and leaves them all but wondering what hit them. Small wonder such of his Cobra cuts like "Three Times A Fool," "It Takes Time," "Double Trouble," "Keep On Loving Me, Baby" and "All Your Love (I Miss Lovin')" have become as enduring a round of blues classics as the Willie Dixon compositions which usually went on his singles ("I Can't Quit You, Baby," "Groanin' the Blues," "If You Were Mine").

His influence speaks for itself, and it only begins with Eric Clapton (whose scorching cover of "All Your Love" on the seminal "Blues Breakers" album speaks likewise), Elvin Bishop (who blistered on a soaring cover of "Double Trouble" on the third Butterfield Blues Band album), Mike Bloomfield (who liked to play "It Takes Time" in his live solo gigs and who was said to have jammed on occasion with Rush in Chicago), Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix (whose more unadorned blues outings owed more than a little to Rush's supple phrasing style), and his junior contemporary Buddy Guy. Bur for whatever reason - perhaps because it was just too overwhelming a job to try, even for its creator - Rush has never since equaled the deep immediacy of these two years' worth of sides. Don't hold it against him, though. You, too, would have an impossible time of it trying to top a beginning like this.

Description of Essential Collection: Classic Cobra Recordings

Blues CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop