HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST #12 - Otis Rush, "Me"

Muscle Shoals perfection in under three minutes.

Between 1910 and 1918, three men were born in Mississippi who would eventually move to Chicago and change the world. They were Chester Burnett (aka Howlin’ Wolf), McKinley Morganfield (aka Muddy Waters) and Elmore James. To make a fourth for that Mount Rushmore, I would probably wait about 20 years for the birth of Otis Rush—another Mississippian who would plug in and go up North.

Rush is nowhere near as famous as the others I’ve mentioned, and I’m not sure why. He was a phenomenal singer as well as a guitar player.

Though he had a significant touring career and was under Willie Dixon’s wing at Chess Records—indeed, he was the first to record “I Can’t Quit You Babe” in 1956, later to be ripped off by Led Zeppelin—he didn’t actually release a full album of his own until 1969. By this point blues acts like B.B. and Albert and Freddie King (no relation!) were appearing on bills with hippie acts at the Fillmores East and West, much to the embarrassment of some of the white performers that were vastly inferior but making more money.

One person who always tried to do right in these matters was Mike Bloomfield—the incredibly influential guitar player associated with Bob Dylan and Al Kooper and other haymishe boys of the era. (You can see a facsimile of him appear briefly in A Complete Unknown.) Nothing speaks better to his character than a scene in Murray Lerner’s film Festival! when he’s asked to compare himself to Son House. “Hell, man, I’m not Son House. I haven’t been pissed on and stepped on and shitted on like he has. I haven’t gone through that. My father’s a multi-millionaire, you know? I’ve lived a rich, fat, happy life. I had a big bar mitzvah.”

Anyway, in 1969 Bloomfield, who had significant industry juice at the time, produced Mourning in the Morning for Otis Rush with Nick Gravenites, who formed the Electric Flag with Bloomfield and also played in groups with Janis Joplin. They recorded it down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama at FAME Studios with much of the classic in-house guys, plus Duane Allman (!) helping out on guitar, not that Otis Rush really needed it.

The lead-off track, “Me,” written by Bloomfield and Gravenites and only recorded by Rush, is not really indicative of Rush’s earlier rich blues style. It is a deliberate attempt to get some R&B radio play, maybe in the mold of another Otis, Redding. But it really exploits Rush’s singing powers, from his deep baritone to some genuine hollerin’. It’s a cooker!

At some point in the late 1990s or maybe even early 2000s I saw Otis Rush perform at Chicago B.L.U.E.S., a since-closed club on West 14th Street in Manhattan. It was absolutely packed and I somehow ended up seated on a couch behind the stage. He was wearing a black leather cowboy hat and vest and I remember it being extremely hot. He absolutely tore up the joint—one of the most charismatic performers I ever saw, even from behind. I distinctly recall, during set break, an extremely thin, blonde, young gay man (a “twink” is the technical term, I believe) coming up to Otis and just gushing gushing gushing about how fabulous he was. It was all smiles and hugs, which was awesome.

Bonus track: If you like the peppy track “Me,” but want to hear Otis in a deep blues mode, check out his recording of Willie Dixon’s “You Know My Love” from 1960. This was the first tune of his I ever heard and it certainly made a mark!