10,000 years from now, when the re-excavate the La Brea Tar Pits, they’re going to find the bones of Bobby Rush firmly grasping on to his harmonica, and they’ll make a display of him in the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles for people to see and tell their children, “This is what a bluesman from the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit’ looked like” as the child stares on, licking his snow-cone.
Bobby Rush’s albums usually include one or two “down home” songs, but this entire album is like you’re sitting on his back porch as he picks and grins over his guitar, blows ominous gasps on the harmonica and sings in a harrowing and sage’d style. You don’t get any more blue than “Down in Mississippi” while his voice veers between Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Howlin Wolf as he hushes through the Chicago streets as he confides in you on “Don’t Start Me Talkin’” . His tapping foot provides the pulse as you hear the wind wafting through the honeysuckle and he attacks the strings on “Let Me In Your House” and makes them cry on the coy “Hard Times”. His picking digs a groove like a chain ganger on “Shake It For Me” and “Dust My Broom” while he street preaches on the stomping “Garbage Man”. You don’t learn this style in school or on the streets, but only on the red clay dirt roads.