Bobby Rush Interview
Doug Burke:
Bobby Rush is an American and international musical treasure. He's a member of the Blues Hall of Fame, the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame, the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, and is the winner of 12 blues music awards. At the age of 83, he won his first Grammy for best traditional blues album for Porcupine Meat. He's in his seventh decade of performing, beginning in 1947 in the Deep South local juke joints of the so-called Chitlin' Circuit. He played with the likes of Elmore James, Etta James, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Little Walter, and Jimmy Reed. He's performed all over the world and was the first bluesman to perform at the Great Wall of China. He has released 22 studio albums, several hundred recordings, and appeared in over six movies, including Eddie Murphy's Dolomite is My Name, which featured his song Ain't Studdin' You.
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host, Doug Burke, and today I am thrilled and honored, truly, truly honored, to have the international legendary bluesman Bobby Rush on our show. Welcome, Bobby, to our show.
Bobby Rush:
Well, thank you, Burke. I appreciate being with you, man. I'm just happy to be here with you, man. I thought, God, I haven't seen you in a while, man. You're getting younger, man.
Doug Burke:
So are you, Bobby. You are the biggest performing octogenarian sex symbol in the world, man. You put Tom Jones and Mick Jagger to shame. What's it like being up there, being an 80-year-old sex symbol with all those girls?
Bobby Rush:
I wasn't trying to be a sex symbol. I was just trying to survive, man, and make a little money to take home to my family. All of a sudden, some of the ladies say, "Hey, he looks pretty good." So I had my chest out there. But let me start off by telling you to thank you for what you're doing, what you have done and what you say about me, what people perceive me to be. First of all, I come from a little place called Homer, Louisiana. I left in 1947, went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with my father who was a minister and a preacher and pastor of a church. In 1951, when I met Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, Joe Turner, John Lee Hooker, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, I met all these guys within a year or two apart. I wanted to go to Chicago because I thought Chicago, Illinois, would give me a better life, better opportunity to do what I need to do as a black man. So I didn't have enough money to buy myself a bus ticket to Chicago. What I did, I worked at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, I went to Memphis, Tennessee, with Sonny Boy Williamson while I was working on Beale Street and then a few other guys. I worked on the street for four or five days, making $3 a night with Rufus Thomas and myself, and made enough money to go to St. Louis, where Chuck Berry was in East St. Louis. I worked in a little club over there for two or $3 a day until I got enough money to buy myself a ticket to Chicago in 1951. That's how I got to Chicago.
Doug Burke:
I never heard that actual story. What a bunch of legends. And were you playing as part of their bands or just your own actions?
Bobby Rush:
No. I had my own band, Willie Dixon and myself and Jimmy Reed were putting a band together. And I got Elmo James as part of my band for a hot minute. I called it Bobby Rush and the Four Jivers. So Elmo James said, "I'm not a jiver." And he called me one of the names. But anyway, he comes to be my friend and wasn't my friend then musically and that is history. Jimmy Reed was there and he had this old Cadillac car and he wanted to go get us some whiskey. He said, Bobby ... He talked out of his nose. He said, "Bobby Rush, I need some whiskey. Go buy me some whiskey." And I said, "Where are you going?" He said, "Take my Cadillac and go." He said, "In fact, I'm going with you." And he was in the car. Jimmy Reed couldn't hold his water. He had to go pee-pee pretty often and he said, "Bobby Rush, I want to go with you, but I need to go to the bathroom." I said, "I'm going through the alley and turn around. You can go to the bathroom in the alley Jimmy Reed." He said, "Oh, that's a good idea." And it took me so long to get across the street because cars were coming, by the time I got to the alley, I said, "Jimmy Reed, we're in the alley now and you can go." He said, "Bobby Rush, it's too late now." He went on himself. Jimmy Reed was an alcoholic. I think that was in 1952 or '53.
Doug Burke:
You've told me how you've made it so far so long, seven decades of performing by living clean. You stayed away from that.
Bobby Rush:
I never thought about living clean, I just didn't like the whiskey and didn't like the beer. But I did in 1957, I had my first drink in 1957. I had a beer with Muddy Waters. I had three of them. The first drink I had was in 1957, three beers and that was the last one I had in 1957. I never had a drink or smoke or get high. No cigarettes. No nothing in my life. Not because I was trying to be good, I just didn't like it. That wasn't my taste. I guess it comes from my grandad. My grandad lived to 108 and I remember my grandad was 93 years old. My daddy was having a revival in his church. So my grandad was outside the church selling moonshine.
Doug Burke:
He's not afraid to sell it, he just didn't use the stuff he was selling.
Bobby Rush:
He was using it, too.
Doug Burke:
Oh, he was using it, too.
Bobby Rush:
He would sell a lot and drink a little. But anyway, he was out. My daddy came out. It was just on the weekend, so someone else was running the revival for my dad in this church. So it was my daddy's church. My daddy wasn't preaching. He had another guest preacher, a preacher for my dad. So my daddy came out of the church and we were kids and kept looking at my grandaddy going outside the church, looking under the church, and taking his bottle out from under the church. Then he'd go back inside the church. My daddy would cry and clamp his hands. He'd be high. Then my daddy would come out and say ... He called my daddy, my daddy's name is Charlie. My daddy also called him Papa Charlie. We called him Papa Charlie, my granddad. He said, "Papa Charlie, you're out here keeping up all this noise. You should set an example for all these other guys out there. You're the oldest man on the church grounds. You should be setting an example." He said, "What boy?" He was talking to his son, my dad. He said, "What are you talking about boy?" He said, "We're trying to talk about Jesus in here, the resurrection." He said, "Resurrection?" He said, "Who died?" He's drunk now. He said, "Who died?" He said, "We're talking about Jesus." He said, "Oh God, I didn't know the boy was sick." Oh man, my granddad.
Doug Burke:
You guys must have had a laugh.
Bobby Rush:
But he died at 111 years old. My grandmother died at 110. And he had 36 children. Two grandmothers, 18 kids a piece.
Doug Burke:
I hope we get another 30 years of you performing. Then you'll be the biggest sex symbol who's over 100.
Bobby Rush:
Oh no.
Doug Burke:
Performing on the circuit. That'd be incredible to see you do that.
Bobby Rush:
Let me jump for a minute and tell you how happy I am. I didn't know who I was going to interview with. I couldn't put the name together, but when I saw your face, I thought oh no! This one is the best one. Oh God, this makes me feel so good, man. You know, having that relationship with someone who you Bible with. And I appreciate you.
Doug Burke:
Well, thank you. I think our listeners appreciate that. I'm grateful that we have this friendship that's really quickly formed. It is great to see you. I read in the trade press that maybe you had COVID and you survived it.
Bobby Rush:
I was one of the first ones who had it in Mississippi. February 29th, I was in Nashville, Tennessee. I felt bad doing this show. I just left Chicago a few days before that time, came to Nashville to do a big show at a theater and I didn't feel good and didn't think too much about it. I thought maybe I was just coming down with a cold. But three days later, I came home. My son takes me to the emergency room and they quickly gathered maybe I had COVID. Maybe I didn't have. No way to know exactly what it was. But I heard them say, "Put him in room number three." I didn't know at the time room number three was a room where they give you up. I didn't know that until after the fact. They say, "Oh, this is a black man. He's over 80 years old. Just put him in room three." And they put me in the room. So I gathered and went up in a big chair. And I was sitting back in a big chair, no bed, no anything. I just stayed there. I finally was so sick, I laid on the floor and the lady brought me a little blanket and I covered myself on the floor. No bed. So they said, "Well hell with me," I suppose, and just left me there. And about three, four hours later, my fever broke. But when I first went into the room, I had a 105. It finally got down to 103. I could see it coming down. A couple of hours later I was down to 101. So my doctor didn't know I was there because I checked in under Emmet Ellis, my real name. Once they found out my professional name, then my doctor called, the people started to call. "Yeah, that's Bobby Rush." Because when you check in with any of the others, it doesn't ring a bell to them. But anyway, he said, "We've got to get you out of this hospital, man. You feel like going home?" I said, "Well, whatever you want me to do." He said, "Get you out of the hospital because everything's happening in the hospital." I didn't know that. So he took me home and my family nursed me back to health and God has embraced me. And they didn't do anything for me, but give me some Anacin or Tylenol. But God embraced me, brought me back. And I stayed sick for about four or five weeks, man, with the ventilator. When they went back to test me again, I couldn't tell why I had it, got rid of it. I never had it. I was just so sick. I don't know what it was. So apparently, when you look back at it now, I definitely had it.
Doug Burke:
Well, we're really glad that you made it through that. We're really, really grateful.
Bobby Rush:
But I'm through it and I feel really good. I looked out last night about 12 o'clock at night. It was cloudy. I couldn't see the moon because I wanted to find a moon, so I went and jump over it. That's how good I feel. I went to jump over the moon.
Doug Burke:
Did you ever write a song about jumping over the moon?
Bobby Rush:
I think I will, man. But I looked at the realness of it was in the book about the cow jumped over the moon, but I don't think the cow really jumped over the moon. It was in his mind. I've got a lot of places in my mind to do at 87 years old, but I can't do them. But I still think about them.
Doug Burke:
So, Bobby, you make your way at two and $3 a day to Chicago and you get your first chart-topping song, Chicken Heads, right? Were there songs that led up to this?
Bobby Rush:
That wasn't the first record, that was the first charting record.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Charting record. According to Wikipedia, there are 23 studio release albums, but total albums that you've cut it larger than that, right? How many total albums have you released? Do you know? Have you lost count?
Bobby Rush:
I'd have to count them, but I know the records. I got 397 records.
Doug Burke:
397 records, recordings out there. Yeah.
Bobby Rush:
A lot of them were 45s and 78s and 33-1/3 back in the day.
Doug Burke:
I had a hard time counting them up on the BMI and ASCAP sites because some are under Emmett Ellis and some are under Bobby Rush.
Bobby Rush:
There are 397 to be exact.
Doug Burke:
So let's talk about Chicken Heads.
Bobby Rush:
Do you know why I laugh? I laugh because Calvin Carter was a guy who had Vee-Jay Records. Calvin Carter and Vivian Carter, two brothers and sister at Vee-Jay Records. It wasn't Vee-Jay when they first started, it was Cee-Jay. There was Calvin and Vivian. In 1954, she got married to a guy, Vivian got married, which was Calvin's sister, got married to Jimmy who was at Jimmy Record Shop in Gary now. When they got married, then it was Vee-Jay Records, Vivian, and Jimmy. I came to Calvin Carter during that time and you had Jimmy Reed was hot, the Beatles had been over trying to get on the label and I was just too small, I guess, for him to think about doing something for Bobby Rush. So in 1965, he said, "Bobby Rush, I'm going to give you a shot." It took him a couple of years. In 1968, he said, "Bobby Rush, get you a song together. I'm going to record you." So I said, "All right. That's cool." So he had a business partner with him named Leo Ostel. He was a Jehovah's Witness preacher. He said, "Bobby Rush, Calvin told me you're going to record a record with us." I said, "Yeah." He said, "What record you have?" I said, "I got a record called Chick Heads." He said, "Chick Heads? We can't cut no record named Chick Heads. We can't straddle the fence like that, man. We're a clean record company. No Chick Heads." I said, "I mean Chicken Heads." He said, "Oh, Chicken Heads." He said, "Yeah. You're from the South, right?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "You all used to eat chicken heads down there, you black guys." I said, "Sure did." He said, "Calvin, come here. We've got a guy who's got a record called Chicken Heads." He laughed. He said, "How's the song go Bobby Rush?" I took my little guitar and said, "Daddy told me on his dying bed, give up your heart, but don't lose your head. You came along, girl, what did I do? I lost my heart and my head, too." Which didn't have nothing to do with a chicken. Calvin said, "Man, that's great, man." Nothing to do with a chicken. He said, "Well we've got to have a B side." At that time you cut A's and B's. He said, "We've got to have a B side." I said, "I've got the song." He said, "What's the name of it?" I said, "Mary Jane." He said, "Oh yeah, man. That was a good one because I had a girl who did me wrong. Her name was Mary Jane." And I wasn't talking about a girl at all. I was talking about reefer. I was talking about getting high with reefer, smoking reefer. That Chicken Heads I got over the head. Now Mary Jane was over the head. They don't know what I'm talking about. I said to myself, "Now I got me two cats here they don't know what I'm doing. I can do what the hell I want to do." So I went in as a credit. Let me tell you something about when I recorded this record. I had Jones on the drum, I had a bass player, Cleve Eaton was his name, played with the Fats Domino band for a while and he was with Count Basie then. I needed somebody who could play a little jazz so it wouldn't sound so bluesy. And the blues guy wasn't playing like that. So I got this guy from Count Basie's orchestra who was a jazz player named Cleve Eaton. I said, "Cleve, I want you to play a song for me." I took the guitar by his house and showed him. We created the bass line and the guitar line. We go to the studio with three other musicians. I had about two hours to cut this record. Calvin Carter had used my time up to 45 minutes and I only got about 45 minutes to cut this song. We were messing around rehearsing on the song and now I don't have but 30 minutes to cut the song. Later on, I had 20 minutes to cut the song. So Ralph Bass was working for Chess. He was the engineer for this recording company. I said, "Let me try it one time." I kept showing the guitar player how to do the record. He kept missing it. I said, "Man, let me do it." He said, "Bobby Rush, why don't you show him how to do it?" Tyrone Davis was in the studio with me. He said, "Show him how to do it, man." I said, "Okay. I'm going to show you guys how to do this one time." I took my guitar, bassman, drums. I said, "Come on fellas." I said hold up a minute. Put a microphone in front of me. Let me sing this song. He put the microphone in front of me. Let me sing in G. I'm going to play it down one time. And I went to sing the song and I sung it all and that's where we got to cut the record. Ralph Bass said, "Hey man, good cut." I didn't know he had the tape on. Record recorded one time and that was it.
Doug Burke:
By you, with you on the guitar.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, with me on the guitar.
Doug Burke:
Nice.
Bobby Rush:
But I had a guitar player sitting at the plate. I was going to show him the structure of it. Ralph Bass was smiling to have the tape on and he said, "Good cut, man." I'm singing on a microphone in the front of there and never recorded, never overdubbed, or anything on the record. I didn't know it was being recorded.
Doug Burke:
Was that your first recording session?
Bobby Rush:
No. No. That wasn't my first recording.
Doug Burke:
Oh. You had many recording sessions.
Bobby Rush:
That was my first one recorded with I called a big label. I was on Vee-Jay Records, man. And I wanted to make sure this was right because I wanted to get the guys right.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. I love that. So what is a Chicken Heads?
Bobby Rush:
You would ask me that. Man, when you were putting on the front line, the chicken head is a freaky lady, man, come on.
Doug Burke:
A freaky lady?
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. A freaky lady.
Doug Burke:
Freaky lady. Okay.
Bobby Rush:
Freaky lady is something like old freaky man like Bobby Rush.
Doug Burke:
Your shows, for the listeners who haven't seen your shows, are ribald or risque or would you say they're PG-13 or R rated?
Bobby Rush:
No. I wouldn't ... Maybe it was just life. They're not risque, just part of life because you and I, all men like the same kind of thing. If you see 100 ladies and I said, "Hey man, 85 of them ladies really look sexy." You can bet you, whether you're black, white, green or whatever, most men going to like the same kind of lady, a nice looking lady built nice, big legs, pretty face. I'm not saying every lady like that, to each his own. But most of the time, men pretty much like the same thing. And ladies, too. She may be with someone who may not look as good as the other guy, as handsome as the other guy, but at least he got potential or some money. They got something that the lady wants. And I write songs and I tell the truth about ... Well, let me retract that. I tell the truth about most of the things that I write about. Because I wrote this song about I Wouldn't Sleep With A Fat Woman No More. I lied about that. I lied about that. But I laugh about that in life. That's life.
Doug Burke:
Your songs, you write a lot about sex.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, because you and I, why we want to make money? Why do we want to have a nice house? It's about sex, man. It's about who we bring in the house, man. Hell, if it wasn't for the ladies’ man, I could live in my car. I wouldn't need a house. If I need a bed, I could sleep on the couch and get up and go. It's about impressing the ladies, man. It's about the downtime, not the uptown.
Doug Burke:
I find this really interesting that you grew up as a pastor's son and then you make your way to Chicago and you start writing all these songs about human relationships, especially with folks on sex. I just watched the Ma Rainey Netflix documentary and this goes back to the 1920s in this Chitlin' Circuit. There's nothing new about this. People were talking.
Bobby Rush:
No. When you see the girls on the side of me now, it comes all the way back from Africa, man. That's what we did. That's what we did. Come on. You shake your foot and get on the stage. You dress all the way up and whatever. I remember I believe it was 1954. Muddy Waters was having his 29th-year birthday party and he wanted me to come to his birthday party. Muddy Waters, 29 years old. Wasn't 30 years old. And I went to the birthday party and I forgot his birthday party. So I had gotten married when I was 17-1/2 years old early to my first wife. And she said, "I thought you were going to Muddy Waters' birthday party." I said, "Oh God, it's 10:30." I run down in Chicago and Muddy Waters was hanging out the window upstairs over the club. He said, "Bobby Rush," called me blood. He said, "Blood, you late. I told everybody you were going to be here and now you're late. But I got a lot of ladies upstairs. Come around to the back and knock on the door, I'll let you upstairs where the ladies are." I went upstairs and Muddy Waters had about whatever, 15 ladies upstairs, no men, all ladies. You know Muddy Waters. They all had these short dresses on and I could see everything but Chicago up under the dress. And he introduced me as his little brother. They were kissing all over me and I love that. I loved the brother thing. I asked one lady, "How old are you?" She was 26. Another lady said, "I'm 34." And one lady, I said, "How old are you?" She said, "I'm 39." Man, I sneaked out the back door and left them because 39 years old. All the old ladies. Oh man, I think about that now. I left Muddy Waters. Man, I should have been whooped with a stick for leaving Muddy Waters with the ladies because they too old. They were 30-something years old. At my age now, I wish you could have a party like that now with your 30 years old. I'm just showing you how dumb I was because I thought these ladies were too old and they had to dress all up.
Doug Burke:
So you wrote these risque songs that were rooted in this tradition of double entendres around sexual innuendo in many cases, like Chicken Heads. And you start performing in the Playboy club, the original one in Chicago. Hugh Hefner's in Chicago.
Bobby Rush:
I was the second black artist - I was the second one, then Redd Foxx. Redd Foxx was working for me as an MC for about three years.
Doug Burke:
So tell me about that and tell me about some of the songs you played there.
Bobby Rush:
First, let me tell you how I got to these songs. Do you know who gave me the idea of writing like how I write? My daddy. He never told me to sing the blues, but never told me not to sing the blues. My first cousin gave me a guitar when I was about 8 years old. I hid it from my dad. I thought your dad know everything. I hid it in the loft. So my daddy told me one day, he said, "Junior," I'm named after my father. I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Bring me that guitar here boy." I brought the guitar to him. He said, "Let me play it." He turned it up. I didn't know my daddy could play at all. I just knew he'd blow a little harp. He tuned my guitar up. I couldn't even tune it. He said, "Let me play a little song I used to play for a little girl when I was a little older than you." But I wanted to hear it because I thought it was going to be glory, glory hallelujah when I laid my burden down or even about my mom. So I got close to him. He said, "I'm thinking of singing this song to you boy." He started to sing. He said, "Me and my gal went hunting. She fell down and I saw something." I said, "Damn, a preacher." I said, "Sing it again." I really wanted my daddy to sing the second verse. I know the first verse, the woman fell down, he saw something. So I figured the next verse, he would explain what he saw. So I wanted him to get to the second verse. He said, "Me and my gal went hunting. She fell down and I saw something." My mother was in the kitchen cooking. She said, "We don't sing that kind of song to that boy." He went to sing it again. I said, "Daddy, how big was she?" "She was a big old woman, 350 pounds boy." I said, "What she had on?" He said, "Nothing but a dress." Then in my little mind, that lady falling down, nothing on but a dress, there wasn't no ... Nothing on under there and I said, "Wow. I wish I was there." 350 pounds. That's a lot to see, man. I said, "Sing it again Daddy." He went to sing it again. My mother walking out. He said, "Me and my dad went hunting, she fell down ..." He looks back and says, "And I kept running." Then I started writing those kind of songs. Double entendre, got two meanings to them. So I don't know what it was, man. So I write like that all the time.
Doug Burke:
How old were you when you wrote your first song?
Bobby Rush:
Oh God, I must have been writing for 8 or 9 years old.
Doug Burke:
8 or 9 years old you wrote your first song?
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. My first song gave me some of yours, I'll give you some of mine.
Doug Burke:
And it was about ...
Bobby Rush:
That was a good trade-off.
Doug Burke:
It was about human relationships and sex at 8 or 9 years old.
Bobby Rush:
Give me some of yours, I'll give you some of mine. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Wow. So one of your songs was I Want To Do The Do. One of my favorite lines in this song turns this mother out.
Bobby Rush:
I put that in because when I did this song, I was ahead of my time. But guys saying that now and you know phrases of the mother thing and I was ahead of my time. Let's have a party. Don't worry about the police or nothing comes around. Let's turn this mother out. That was the kind of phrase. Do the do. Let's do whatever that is to you.
Bobby Rush:
Whatever the do the do is to you, let's do it. If you want to drink, let's drink. If you want to smoke, let's smoke. If you want to dance, let's dance. Whatever that is to you, let's do it and don't worry about the police coming around. We'll just tell them that your place is closed because we're going to turn this mother out.
Doug Burke:
Snoop Doggy Dog said, "Without Bobby Rush, there would be no Snoop Doggy Dog."
Bobby Rush:
He about right. I said about the 50 cent, it would be the 50 cent, it'd be a dime or quarter or something like that because I started it all. If it wasn't for me, there wouldn't be no 50 cent, be a dime or quarter, something like that.
Doug Burke:
Well, you're a dollar and a half, I guess.
Bobby Rush:
I like that better. I like that. Yeah, I like it.
Doug Burke:
If those guys are 50 cents. But you got to perform with Snoop Dog in Eddy Murphy's movie Dolemite.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. Before that time, I got to do some things with him with Take Me To The River. Didn't perform with him on the road, but I got to do a lot of things in the studio beside him and with him at the time. He's just a great guy, knows me very, very well. I know his mom. I know his auntie before she passed. Just a long history of me with his family before I knew him, even before he was born.
Doug Burke:
So the movie Dolemite by Eddy Murphy, which you're in, that soundtrack has your song Ain't Studdin' You. What's this song about?
Bobby Rush:
The song is about your peers, your friend guys, the dudes you hang out with try to tell you something about your woman. And most of the time, when a guy tell you something about your woman, he's the one trying to hit on your woman. So you yeah, he's the one trying to hit on the woman. So I ain't studding you, man. What you trying to tell me you saw my woman doing, you wouldn't be telling me nothing if she hadn't been doing it with you. So I ain't studdin you. A guy comes and says, "Hey Bobby Rush, I saw your old lady last night with such-and-such a guy." "Hey, hold up. If she had been with you, would you have told me? So I ain't studding your butt." I'm not thinking about you. I'm not hearing that.
Doug Burke:
I really like the style of this song, the way you have a talky intro and then go into the song.
Bobby Rush:
I do that because I set the song up because I talk so spacey in a lot of the songs, people don't know what I'm talking about. So I set it up so you can get the meaning of where I'm going with the song. Because if I don't set the song up, sometimes people will miss it. And when I talk up a song like I'm going night fishing. That's when the catfish love to bite. I live in Mississippi and I'm not talking about catfish really. I'm talking about going out and play at night with the ladies. That's a catfish. They seem to bite better at night. That's what I write about. That's what I write.
Doug Burke:
Is going night fishing.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, going night fishing. That's when the catfish love to bite.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. Not so much in the morning.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, but when daylight comes, it seems to be if you're tipping around, daylight come, you're just like a deer. You got to try to go and hide away until it gets dark. Because most of the time you're tipping around with the catfish, most of the time the catfish married and they're not married to the one who fishing.
Doug Burke:
Boy, that's life for you.
Bobby Rush:
That's life. That's life. I don't know about those kind of things what I'm talking about. I just read about them.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. And you write about them. You use your imagination, right? Exaggerated on stage. It's very much an exaggerated performance. And there's humor in it.
Bobby Rush:
You know when I won the Grammy with Porcupine Meat, when I told my producer about the Porcupine Meat, I was hesitant to tell him about the song because I had the experience when I did Calvin Carter with Chicken Heads, he didn't know where I was coming from. So I didn't know whether they were going to like Porcupine Meat or not. So I said, "I've got a song named Porcupine." And they laughed. They said, "What the song's about?" And I had to tell them what it's about. The song's about I'm in love with someone that really don't love me or I love them more than they love me. I want to leave, but I can't leave because I'm afraid someone will get what I have because what I have I like what she do to me and what she doing to me. But I know she doesn’t mean me no good because of the way she approach the things around me. So I want to leave, but I can't leave. Every time I leave, I come back for more. That's porcupine meat. It's too fat to eat and too lean to throw away. In other words, I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't. That's what I was talking about with Porcupine Meat.
Doug Burke:
About being in love and not being loved back.
Bobby Rush:
That's what I'm talking about. That's Porcupine Meat. In fact, you knew this. You know that's why. I know she won’t really love ... I knew I think she got somebody else. I can see it. I went to trail her last night in the car, but I'm afraid I might see what I was looking for. That's Porcupine Meat. Too fat to eat and too lean to throw away.
Doug Burke:
I've never eaten porcupine meat in my life. Do people do that?
Bobby Rush:
You got to try it. You'll like it.
Doug Burke:
How do you catch one of those things with all the prickers?
Bobby Rush:
You don't catch them because man, they'll stick your hand, man. All pretty and look good. The meat look good, they're pretty things, but you dare not to touch it, man. Come on.
Doug Burke:
You can't touch it. You have to shoot it or trap it, right?
Bobby Rush:
You got to trap it. You going to catch it, trap it. You got to make sure it's dead when you put your hand on it because if it ever moves, it'll stick you. I write those kind of things, talk about those kind of things. And most people want to say it and want to do it, but they're afraid to say it or afraid to do it, so they listen to my song and play my song so their girlfriend or boyfriend can grasp what they're talking about. Everybody wants to say it, but they take my song and play it for them so they get the drift.
Doug Burke:
So one of your songs seems somewhat autobiographical. It's called Sue. Correct me if I'm wrong, if it's not autobiographical, but you're in love with a 15-year-old girl in this song. I really like this song by the way. And you talk about what your dad and your mom said to you.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. That was a true song. This girl was 15 years old. Her name was Imogene Raney. I just changed the name to Sue because I didn't want to say Imogene Raney. Her dad was a preacher and my dad was a preacher. So my dad told me one day, he said, "Junior, I know you like Reverend Raney's daughter." Her name was Imogene. He said, "But you shouldn't mess with her." I said, "Why Dad?" He said, "Because that girl will do anything." Man, he said that for? She'll do anything. Oh man. I go back up to the house because I was thinking about they'll do anything, man.
Doug Burke:
That was not warning you off, that was ...
Bobby Rush:
No.
Doug Burke:
I've got to go see her if she's going to do anything.
Bobby Rush:
I couldn't wait to get back up to the house, man. She was this girl 15, but with a girl 15, she 20 years old in her head compared to a man. So she's 15 and I'm 15, she was way over my head in what she was doing, what she wanted to do and how she could do it. She probably was dating guys 20 and 25 years old and that's what my daddy probably knew that. He didn't want me to get trapped up in that. But I wanted to get trapped up in that doing anything. So that's where that come from.
Doug Burke:
So in the song you said that was your dad's advice and then you talked to your mom. Did you talk to your mom about her?
Bobby Rush:
My momma told me, said, "Leave that girl alone because she don't mean you no good." But Momma didn't know what she was putting down. They didn't know what she was doing to me because she doing what my daddy said, some anything, some everything. As a country boy, hey man, I hadn't had those kind of things on me. This girl was way ahead of her time. She was really tickling me. I hope you understand where I'm coming from.
Doug Burke:
I do. I do. I think. A little bit. The line I like in the song a lot is that she pulled off my shoes.
Bobby Rush:
Oh yeah. I led them up to that. I know what she did. I know what she did. Let me tell you what she did and I tease it with you. I can't tell you. Let me tell you what she did. Come on with it Bobby Rush. She pulled my shoes off.
Doug Burke:
I had never heard that expression and I really just loved the lyric because I never thought about it, but if a woman pulls your shoes off ...
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, she got to be -
Doug Burke:
Where is this going? Right?
Bobby Rush:
Here's your line. How does she get down and pull your shoes off? She's in the front of this guy and she pulled my shoes off. Guess where she is?
Doug Burke:
Oh yeah.
Bobby Rush:
Finally got it.
Doug Burke:
Use your imagination. That's a good song.
Bobby Rush:
If she just tying my shoes, she's in a nice position. All depends on what you're looking for. You got the message.
Doug Burke:
Hey Bobby, one of your songs, Funk O' De Funk ...
Bobby Rush:
Funk O' De Funk. I talked about myself born to make love and I want you to know, I'm a November child. I'm a Scorpio. Bobby Rush is my name, funk and music is my game. Making love to my woman is my favorite thing. But whatever I do, I got to be funky and whatever I do, I got to be sexy. If you're a funky man, you get down. You're too ashamed to get down, whatever that is. You follow me? I'm not the first, but James Brown and myself a few other people like that were one of the first rappers, man. I was one of the first rappers. Even down to a song like that, you can tell the rappers kind of thing in it. And even when I did Dog Named Bo, Get Out of Here. The song was really Dog Named Bo, but I changed it Dog Named Bo and put Get Out Of Here because I didn't want the animal lovers getting mad at me by I'm talking about a dog. And I'm a dog lover. My son's in K9. He's a policeman. He is a K9 where you keep the dogs around. I didn't want people to get a mismeaning about what I was talking about a Dog Named Bo. Showing you how rapper I am and I'm an old man, God has blessed me to be around, doing what I'm doing a long time and I remember pretty well. It said, "In a little shack down by the bay, not far from New Orleans, I met this pretty woman down there when I was about 19. She went and told her daddy she wanted to marry me. The look on her daddy's face really was a sight to see. He said, 'Get out of here and don't you come back no more.'" "Well I wanted to meet her daddy like a young man out to, but he didn't want no blues singer like Bobby Rush to be married to his daughter. So when I went by the house, the day he met me at the door, dad, mom, big brother John, the damn dog named Bo. When I went to get married to the woman, the judge said, 'Do you solemnly swear to take this woman for your lawful wife and not a one-night love affair?' Before I could open my mouth to say, 'I do,' guess who walked through the door, dad, mom, big brother John, that damn dog named Bo." "Well I thought if I wanted to get married to the woman anyway, I had to find a way to elope. We decided to go to Last Vegas, to get away from nosey folks. Soon as I got to Las Vegas, the same day we walked in, there were all her kin, all her friends and that damn dog again." So I'm one of the first rappers. That's why Snoop Dog doesn't like what I do. I do them in a blues way, but they're really this rap kind of thing, but modification, though. When I was a kid at my age and time where I come from, we didn't have no inside toilets. We had the outside toilet, go outside to the toilet. They smelled bad. Now in my house, I got seven bathrooms in my house, they all smell good, but everything we do in them is the same. They haven't changed at all. Whatever you did then, you're doing it now. That hasn't changed, just the bathroom changed.
Doug Burke:
You went from one outhouse to seven inhouses.
Bobby Rush:
That's it, one outhouse to seven inhouses. Because I had to go outside to go to the bathroom. Then sometimes, there were 10 sisters and brothers, sometimes you had to wait until your turn. Well, it's seven full and two halves, so it's really nine bathrooms. In my house, I've got nine bathrooms.
Doug Burke:
You got enough bathrooms now?
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. Maybe one more.
Doug Burke:
You need a 10th bathroom?
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, I'll get 10 bathrooms. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
This band SMLE recorded Funk O' De Funk. Have you heard that song? Have you heard their version?
Bobby Rush:
I heard their version. They did a good job. I like anybody who'll do something to me and give me credit for what I've done. It's a plus. I'm just glad someone likes what I do or respect what I do enough to do it. And they did a good job at it, especially when you do a good job at it.
Doug Burke:
You write a lot of songs with your own name, which is actually a rap tradition to brag about yourself in songs. Hey, Hey Bobby Rush and Me, Myself and I with Joe Bonamassa on that. Tell me about some of these songs.
Bobby Rush:
I didn't start writing like that until I found out the political side of record plays and radio station wasn't giving black men the shots. Because when they put in the thing you have to play 10 records in a row to come on there, I said, "Well just double. We're going to play 10 records in a row and no advertising or nothing." That wasn't really put in to help the artist because a lot of times, you play 10 artists, you wouldn't know who's song, the artist, who's song was it that played? I started to put my name in a lot of my records so if either one of those records got played in that 10 records in a row, you would know who played the record. You would hear my voice and I will call my name inside the record. That's where that started from and then the other guys started putting their names in the record because I was the leader of this stuff. I did it because politically, there was a thing with a white and black issue with radio play, with program directors. There were a lot of black program directors, but they couldn't program what they wanted to. They had the people who owned the station, a white manager who managed the station was telling the black programmer what to play and not to play. So 10 records in a row, if you didn't know the song, you wouldn't know who's song it was, who was singing the song. So when you play a Bobby Rush song, I started calling my name in the records so you would know it was my record. That's the reason why I did it. Now I don't put my name in as much as I did then because now people know me a little bit and plus, I've got my style. When I open my mouth, you can tell it's Bobby Rush. I don't sound like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, none of those guys. No disrespect to none of these guys. I love all of them, but I've got my own style.
Doug Burke:
You sound like Bobby Rush.
Bobby Rush:
That's right.
Doug Burke:
And no one else sounds like Bobby Rush.
Bobby Rush:
No one. No one sounds like Bobby.
Doug Burke:
That's right. Hey, hey Bobby Rush.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
So tell me about Me, Myself and I.
Bobby Rush:
I was talking about something I'm doing on myself. Early in my career, I never had a manager until about five years ago, five years ago. I have a good manager now. My friend, he's my manager, Jeff DeLia. Jeff is a friend. Jeff DeLia is one of the best guys that I ever met and I trust him. He's only about 31 or 2 years old. If I met him about five, six years ago, he wasn't nothing but a baby. But I was managing myself, I was booking myself, driving for myself, writing for myself and producing myself. So everything you saw was by me. So I wrote this song about Me, Myself and I. But now, I grew that, so I got to get other people to do some things for me, which there's nothing wrong with that, either, because I can't be at three places in one time or four places, five places one time. So I was this guy doing it all for myself because I was going to do this until I find somebody to do it for me. So Me, Myself and I. I'm all of it.
Doug Burke:
So you got Joe Bonamassa on the guitar on that one?
Bobby Rush:
Yes. Yes.
Doug Burke:
Are people reaching out to you, saying I want to play on your songs? You have played with this incredible roster of an encyclopedia of amazing people. When you go back to Jimmy Reed and Little Walter and Elmore James and Chuck Berry and ...
Bobby Rush:
I guess Muddy Waters really, I think about them all the time. In 1951 or '52, they invited me to Illinois, which is Blue Island to play in a club that we played behind a curtain, but you want to hear the music, but didn't want to see all the faces. Day and night out because it was a white audience. And I remember going to Argo, Illinois, where they were paying me $5.50 a night to be a bandleader. They finally gave me $7.50 a night. And I hired Muddy Waters as a guest for $5 a night in 1952. $15 he would charge me to come out and be a guest. If he was working, he would come out and be my guest. $5. I remember paying Elmo James the first time in the 1950s in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Elmo James wanted $15 for the weekend. I couldn't pay him but 12. He said there was a lady in Belzoni, Mississippi, and he lived in Canton, Mississippi. I said, "Elmo James, I need you to play for me in Arkansas." He said, "I'll do it, but you give me $15. $5 a night and I'll go there to be your guest and play a couple songs with you." I said, "I can't. I don't have that, man, but I can pay you $3 a night, which is $9 guarantee you, but I can give you $12." And by that time, my friend was getting married to a lady in Belzoni. His name was Lee Robert. And he walked by the lady, he said, "Wow, Bobby Rush. Who is that lady there?" That's my friend, but they was getting married. I said, "That's by buddy's old lady. They're getting married." He said, "Man, I'd do anything if I can just, you know use the word, if I can just talk to her." Use that and get of shot of that what he said. I said, "You'd do anything?" He said, "Yeah man, anything." And I walked away and I walked back, said, "What'd you say? You'd do anything?" I said, "If I fix it up, will you play for me in Pine Bluff?" He said, "Man, I'd play free for that." I went and talked to my friend ... Now this is wrong on my part. I went and talked to my friend, he had a funeral home. I said, "What you doing this weekend?" "I've got a funeral this weekend." He would take my to my gig the night he didn't have no funeral in his hearse, but I wouldn't let him take me to the front of the club. I would let him stop me about a block and a half or two blocks from the club because I didn't want nobody to see me getting out this hearse.
Doug Burke:
Showing up to a show in a hearse is bad luck.
Bobby Rush:
It was a new Cadillac, the hearse. Every other week. So he stayed with ... Lee Robert would go with me to Pine Bluff. At the meantime, Elmo James would stay at his house. I shouldn't tell this. The next weekend he had a funeral, Elmo James would go with him and play with me for free because I was swapping the deal out with him. Oh, that's wrong. That's wrong, but that's the way I got Elmo James to play for me with my partner's ... That's wrong. That's wrong on my part, but I had to do what I had to do. I needed Elmo James to play in my band.
Doug Burke:
So back to Me, Myself and I, how did you get Joe to play guitar on your song?
Bobby Rush:
Oh God, Joe is a fan. I didn't know him on a personal basis, but Jeff DeLia did and some of the guys in the studio knew him. This would be a song that Joe would like to play. I didn't know what Joe would like to play or not. When they ran it by Joe I was told that when he said for Bobby, he said, "For Bobby Rush, I'd do anything." And that's the kind of fan he was of mine. You follow me? I said, "Find out what kind of money he wants," because I was paying for this stuff. Joe said, "For Bobby Rush, money is out." That's how it came back. So saying that he wouldn't take no money from me, just a friendship and a good fan and like what I do. And that's how he got to play on it because he wanted to and I wanted him to. I did several things that we do it ourselves with Zoom with him - some fundraiser for the underprivileged musicians. I did some things with him a couple weeks ago.
Doug Burke:
Oh cool.
Bobby Rush:
And we taking up a lot of money for musicians who can't help themselves and I'm a part of that. We come to be good friends and musical friends.
Doug Burke:
So you haven't written or maybe recorded and put out there a ton of politically charged songs, but one of them is really moving and it's called Another Murder In New Orleans. Talk to me about this song and where it comes from and your co-write.
Bobby Rush:
That song came up because Carl Gustofson, he was in New Orleans. So many things was going on around the country at that time and still going on now and so many things was happening politically among the Black Lives Matter kind of a thing. I opened then, but there was a lot of things happening in the hood, we call it. When someone got killed in a big city like Chicago, New Orleans, New York, it was just another life lost. When you talk about a small town like Tucker, Arkansas, I'm just using an example, when a person gets killed in this town, it's all over the news because it's a small town. It don't happen often. But when it happens in New York or New Orleans, just another murder. You look at the paper, another murder. It's just a thing they do. One day you don't have a murder, you say, "Nobody get killed today." Because it's a normal thing to big towns and big cities, especially among the ghetto-ish kind of thing. Just another murder. That's what he was coming from, so I could relate to it. And being from Louisiana, too, I could really relate, too. It's a home state and not my home city, but it's your home state and I wanted to talk about these things happening in my home state.
Doug Burke:
So this was a co-write.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah, with Carl Gustofson, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Otherwise known as?
Bobby Rush:
Carl Gustofson is his name and he has a relationship with the record company. He's a part of the record company, so he wanted me to do this. It starts off just me doing a couple songs on the CD, but it winds up me being the biggest part of the CD. But it wasn't aimed for that. I was going to be a guest on the cover song, but it wound up he being a guest with me on the CD. So it just grew into a friendship and grew into a project.
Doug Burke:
So in your lifetime, you've seen quite an evolution, which is not complete in the treatment of African American musical performers from 1947 when you started to today.
Bobby Rush:
I saw enough of the treatment of where I come from to let you know now today it has came a long way, but not far enough and everything have changed really remains the same. That's the sad part about it. And I try to dwell and keep uplifted by the good things because the good things do overshadow the bad things, but there's so many rough and bad points in my life that I went through as a black man, as a blues man. I've been buried in the ground in 1963, where I had an accident where 10 trucks hit the back of my station wagon and threw me in the ditch, but each truck hit each truck, so 10 of these trucks and every 10 men in the truck got burned up and I was thrown in a ditch. And I had to dig myself in the ground, myself and a guy called Robert Plunkett and to save our lives. When the sheriff's department or the people who was coming there to rescue us, they walked by and someone said, "Did you see anybody living?" One guy says, "No, just two ..." N words. "They already buried. Leave them ...," so-and-so, "in the ground." And they left us there, man. I can't tell it. They just left us there. I have so many things.
Doug Burke:
I can't handle it.
Bobby Rush:
But they had so many things.
Doug Burke:
I can't handle it. How did you get out of there?
Bobby Rush:
Someone come and got me eight hours later and took us to the hospital. Myself and Ike Turner had played a gig. He was in front of me. Myself and Robert Plunkett were the only two living out of it and he died later. I'm the only survivor out of all of that. But I don't want to stretch on those kind of things because there's so many good things that people do and say about me. But I've been through so much in my life. I was the first black man who worked on Bourbon Street in Chicago. I worked in a place that said, "No colored allowed." I was the only black man in the club. There was a guy who hired me. I did my audition with four white guys. He said, "This is going to be good because we can integrate this place. Well a country boy like me, I didn't know what integrate was. I'd never heard integrate in 1951 and '52. I wondered what integrate was. So I called my wife who was an educator. I said, "Listen, I've got to find what integrate was." Then she went on to tell me. And I went to audition there and found out what integrate was. I thought in my heart that I was a young black man, pretty good-looking. I thought integrate was putting me in a room with a bunch of ladies and make good… I thought in my heart oh, well this isn't too bad. I could make a good integrator because I didn't know what integrate was. But when I got the job, I took four black guys with me out to the audition with the white guys. Nine o'clock I was supposed to go in and at 10 minutes to 9:00, I'm sitting in the car. So the black guys said, "Let's go in Bobby Rush. We're going to work in this new place, man." They were rearing to go because they never worked in a place like this. But I walked in the door. Cal, the guy who hired me said, "Hey man, the band is ready." He said, "Oh no, you can't bring them black guys in here. Man, you're going to get us killed." So he said, "Well come on in and play the first set, you play the first set, but go get them white guys you just auditioned." So I came in. So this white girl, it was a go-go place, four white girls were dancing. They danced 15 minutes a piece. We played in a den. You could see the top of our heads only because there wasn't nobody in the club but white people. So the lady come to me. She said, "Bobby Rush, I heard what they said about you. We're going to integrate this place tonight." So I'm going to get you on the stage. I said, "How you going to get me on the stage?" She said, "We have 15 minutes a piece. I'm going to do seven or eight minutes and call you on the stage." I said, "How you going to do that." She said, "Because I'm going to get sick." I said, "How you going to get sick?" She said, "Fool, I'm going to get you on the stage." And I followed her lead. She worked about seven or eight minutes. And she cramped like she was cramping in the stomach. She walked off the stage. I jumped up on stage with my guitar like I'm Chuck Berry and the crowd went wild. So there was a big fat man and he laughed. I said, "Well, I got one fan." So when I went back in the room, someone called loud speaker and said, "Bobby Rush, Bobby Rush, come to my office. But I never been in this office before. So when I walked to the office, the guy was sitting there in the office, looked like that same guy that was laughing at me or laughing with me. He turned around. He said, "Hey boy. You integrate my place." I said, "What you mean integrate your place." He pushed a button and the wall fell back. So that's in his office in the club. The wall was there, so he's watching me all the time. He said, "Hey kid." He called, the guy who hired me. He said, "Come here.” This is my boy. He work for me, okay? I pay him. You don't pay him. He work for me." He said, "Hey boy." I said, "Yes, sir." "You want to make a lot of money, boy?" I said, "All depends on what I got to do." "Say, don't you ever tell me what you want to do. You do whatever the hell I tell you to do." He said, "Hey, you're okay boy. You got nerve to integrate my place. Anybody with that kind of nerve can make a lot of money." He stuck a card in my pocket and I goes home. I trying to buy me a house. I wasn't 21 years old, trying to buy a house. I needed $1200 and I had about $800. So my wife told me, said, "Well what about that guy you work for? He told you he'd help you out if you need some help." I said, "Oh yeah. He left a card in my pocket. What shirt did I have on that night?" She said, "My plaid shirt. I washed that shirt last week." I went and got that shirt and the card was still in the pocket. So we took it out. It was all wrinkled. Ironed it out. It says, "Cesar Capone." So I goes down to my lawyer, said, "I think I can get this money and get this house." My lawyer is a black lawyer. I said, "I think I can get this house now, man. This guy going to help me." He said, "Get out of here with that card, man. I'm not messing with no Capone." I didn't know who he was. So now I go, but he says, "Boy, tell me what you need." I said, "I'm trying to buy this house." "Give me the paper, boy." So I was trying to raise this $400. So about a week later, my wife said, "You got all the money?" I said, "I got all of it but $100." She said, "You didn't ask the man." I said, "I asked him about it, but he didn't come back to me." So I finally got the money a couple weeks later, went down to buy this house. I walked in the door. My real name is Ellis. She said, "Ellis, we've been waiting on you, man." I said, "I've been trying to get the money." He said, "What money? It's been signed in paper." I said, "What?" She said, "We've been waiting on you." The man had went down and got the house. So I went back to thank him for what he'd done. I said, "I want to thank you for doing what you done." I said, "I got the money." He said, "Don't want no money, boy. You take my girlfriend. He said, "Let me let you meet her." He called her in. It was my auntie, black lady. I didn't even know. We're talking about Al Capone's brother. So I will protect him. So when I went to record for Chess, here come the little Capone boy. Little man, what do you want? If you notice, three years ago now, I had the box set of the year. Google it. How can you have a box set and you don't own the masters? So I was the only man walking in and out of Chess and taking the masters with me.
Doug Burke:
You had a business sense back then.
Bobby Rush:
Plus they thought I knew Al Capone. I didn't know nothing about it, but I used it to my advantage. Because they thought I was -
Doug Burke:
Wow Bobby Rush. That's all I can say. Unbelievable.
Bobby Rush:
Part of it's in the book that's coming out.
Doug Burke:
We got a book coming out.
Bobby Rush:
Yeah. I got a book coming out called I Ain't Studding You, coming out June 22nd. You're going to hear a lot of reach out. I can't tell you what we're doing now, but you're going to have a lot of people, hopefully, like open ... You're going to hear a lot about this book.
Doug Burke:
I can't wait to read it. It will be available. If it's on Amazon, I'll put a link up on my website so you can buy it.
Bobby Rush:
You can pre-order it now, but there's going to be a lot of publicity on this book, big writers. Same people who do Earth, Wind and Fire and all them guys, Elton John, same people, big writers. But I think this books' going to open a lot of doors. I'm telling on myself. I'm telling on other people and I'm questioning about putting myself on the line for what I've done and what I've said and who I've said about. I'm trying to let people read between the lines. I haven't been this rosy kind of a guy in my life. I had to do a lot of things to survive the rat race. I was able to stay clean with the whiskey and all the drugs and the whole bit, but I've got so many other things wrong with me. I'm still looking at the big ladies. I've been in a position at a lot of places in time where it was bad, but when I thought about what it could have been, I was so thankful for what it is. And my motto is now to do all I can while I can. I know there will come a time I can't do, but I won't regret what I did not do.
Doug Burke:
Bobby, we are so thankful that you are with us, that you are still performing. We can't wait to see you back on the road. We're grateful you survived COVID. And I can't wait to see you again.
Bobby Rush:
Man, I'm so blessed. How blessed I am to have people like you want to interview me? I'm talking about good people who want to talk about what I've done in a way that is not scornful to me because I hadn't did everything just right, man. I didn't know to do everything just right. I'm like Paul. I don't want to push just on my - I am a blues singer, but I'm a Biblical study and I think it comes from my father being a pastor and a preacher. I'm not a religion nut, just a Biblical study. And I think that my life is like writing a book. You can only write about what you know about. And I'm steady learning and I'm steady appreciating where God has put me in my life, my physical body and my mind and my thoughts. And I'm hoping that I could display a few things I haven't done to the people I should have did it to before I leave this land.
Doug Burke:
Well that's a powerful message. None of us are perfect and this show has really made me think a lot about my own imperfections. I think you as a bluesman, R&B, funk musician have explored the human imperfections, but also, the joy of life. There's sadness and happiness in life. You can't have one without the other sometimes.
Bobby Rush:
I'm glad you said that. I was with a writer just a couple days ago. Same thing made you laugh, same thing made you cry. Let me say to you personally ... Can I say something to you personally? Thank you for what you're doing and what you plan to do because what you say about me, what people perceive me to be, thank you for your heart and for your soul and for your thoughts about the music and people who do it and I'm one of them. So thank you so much.
Doug Burke:
Absolutely. You're welcome, Bobby Rush. Well my show wouldn't work without people like you who open up their heart and soul to our listeners. It is a personal thing, what's the back story of the songs? And we're grateful to you. So thank you for coming on our show, Bobby.
Bobby Rush:
Thank you. And I apologize because I get wet-eyed when I talk about ... That's just one of the things happened. There's so many things happened to me. But I have to think about all the good things and all the people who reached out to me. I'm so thankful to have Jeff DeLia as my manager now, who's my friend first, he does a good job. He doesn't know everything. I don't know everything. But on this trip together, the things we don't know, we learn. When we learn better, we do better and we learn so many things. I think so many opportunities is my favorite now, it's my favorite because this record that I have out now called Rawer Than Raw, that was something I had cut in the can and I've got many things like that. I can put out many records, but I have to go back to the studio. Just recording them, you know? Golly, I was in the studio two days about and recorded about eight songs. I'm going to record probably three more tomorrow, this on a new direction. It's not a new direction for me, kind of a new direction for what the public expects from Bobby Rush. And I'm talking about things ... I woke up this morning, looking for some action. I walked down to the bus stop trying to find me some satisfaction. Called up my doctor, sick as I could be. I said, "Doctor, will you please tell me what's wrong with me?" He said, "Bobby Rush, ain't nothing wrong with you that a little loving won't cure." "You go home and get in bed, let your woman rub you from your feet to your head. Take a little loving, mix it with some hugging. Take a little teasing, mix it with some squeezing and I swear you'll be all right in the morning."
Doug Burke:
That's good medicine for all of us, I think. In this day and age, I think that's a real good prescription from Dr. Bobby Rush there.
Bobby Rush:
That's right. That's right.
Doug Burke:
Now you're going to become a physician to us all, a musical physician, healing our pain, Bobby Rush. I've got to thank you, Bobby. Is there anyone else you want to thank on the show?
Bobby Rush:
I just thank everybody for being who they are to me. All of my band members, and all the dancers with me. For the last past year, four or five months, nobody work and I wanted to get back to work so I can pass something down to the people who can't do for themselves now. I'm not thinking about Bobby Rush. I'm thinking about the people who are around who make Bobby Rush who he is. I'm thinking about my producer. I'm thinking about the agents. I'm thinking about all these people that - the Kurland Agency really done a great job for me. Just been with them for a couple years and half of that time, haven't been able to go out. So I'm just hoping this thing will get over and we'll be out. I'm still wearing my mask, although I had my second shot two weeks ago. I feel pretty good. I walked out last night about midnight looking for the moon because I felt like jumping over it, but I didn't see the moon. It was cloudy. I'm a blessed man. I've been able to cross over to a white audience and never cross out. I don't know many people who did this, black men who crossed over. And I can call your names because I remember when I worked the last show, B.B. King worked in Indianola, Mississippi. He said, "Bobby Rush, I need you." I said, "What you need, B.B.?" "I'm working my last show on June 12, one year before he passed. He said, "But I can't get black people to come see me and I want black people to come see me. If I've got you on my ticket, I can get black people to come see me, pass the torch." Because I'm a man who's a black man who you can go any black neighborhood and they knew who I am. And I can name you guys that you know that black people don't know and they're black people, black people don't know who they are.
Doug Burke:
You have your feet in both worlds.
Bobby Rush:
I'm the king of the Chitlin' Circuit and never crossed people out.
Doug Burke:
You appeal to everybody. Everybody loves you. You appeal to everybody all over the world, Bobby. You played at the Great Wall of China. First bluesman to play there. You played all over Europe. Have you played in every continent but Antarctica?
Bobby Rush:
There aren't many places I haven't played. I think China was the challenge of me of all places. Nobody knew me there, but a guy called me up. Frank called me. He said, "Listen, I want you to do China with me, represent the US bluesman." I said, "I'll do it." So I gave him a figure. He said, "Well I ain't got that kind of money." I said, "Tell you what. Here's what I'll do. You pay the band, I'll play it free if they give me all the footage to me and I own it." The guy said, "Oh yeah. I'll do it. You can have the footage." I'll play for you free, but I want all the footage and when I get back, I had all this footage. I took a cameraman with me, took all the footage of everything I'd done. When I got back home, I was offered so much money for that footage.
Doug Burke:
We're going to get you on the show. We're starting a TV show. I've got to thank you, Bobby Rush.
Bobby Rush:
Thank you again for having me on and I can call you now my soul friend.
Doug Burke:
That is quite an honor. It means a lot to me. I've got to say I'm really blown away by this hour I've had to spend with you. It's just been amazing. And I thank you. Thanks to all my listeners. Thanks to our patrons especially for keeping us alive. We look forward to seeing Bobby on tour soon now that he's got his second vaccination shot and the band will get vaccinated and we'll see him out there because you never stop working and we're blessed to have you on Earth, doing what you do. Thank you, Bobby.
Bobby Rush:
Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Love you to death and to all your fans and friends out there, stay safe, wash your hands, keep wearing your mask regardless of the shot you get because hey, the life you save could be mine.
