Bobby Rush:

A per fect master

Like the Great Wall, has stood the test of time.

By Al McFarlane and B.P. Ford, The Editors

T he perfectly manicured blades

of his stiletto mustache frame
the perfect smile, which in turn
parades glisteningly beautiful per-
fect teeth. His hair is black and
curled. At 75, he doesn’t wear eye-
glasses. His penetrating gaze at
once examines and invites. His
frame is lean and muscular. He has
the energy of a 25-year-old.

His voice, what a voice it is, wells up

from the gut, commanding baritone
registers and tenor vibratos. His
lyrics surf the waves of emotion he
conjures in every phrase.

Continued on next page

Photos: Beaty Four Entertainment

Click to watch the interview

Bobby Rush Live:

"Crazy 'Bout You"
VIDEOS OF MUSICIANS THAT INFORM HIS GIFT
Click to watch Chuck Berry Click to watch BB King
In interview, he credits the legacy which informs
his gift --BB King, Muddy Waters, the Howling
Wolf, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Louis Jordan.
“You hear them all in me. You can hear a lot of
people in me. When you put them altogether, you
get Bobby Rush,” he said in an exclusive interview
in Minneapolis recently.
And when Bobby Rush performed two sets at
a downtown nightclub, it was clear that he was in
total command of his art and his audience. The vir-
tuoso bluesman performed solo. Bobby Rush with
his voice, his guitar and his harmonica delivered
the blues with authenticity and intensity rarely seen
in today’s performance world.
We first saw Bobby Rush in live performance
a few years ago at a historic Farris Street Black
music venue in Jackson, MS called The Alamo. He
headlined a stellar lineup of blues and Southern
Soul artists who were performing a benefit concert
for The Alamo.
“We were trying to save the Alamo, and we
saved it,” he said. “Long ago, The Alamo was
about the only place we could play in downtown
Jackson. And when we played there, we lived at
the equally historic Edward Lee Hotel. It was the
only place we could stay because of the color line.”
Asked how life is for him as a performer today,
“ ”
You have to understand the culture of China. They bow
to you, but they don’t embrace. But they embraced me
and called me ‘little brother.’
he said, “We are almost there.” He said his career
isn’t what he dreamed it would be, “but we are
almost there.”
Bobby Rush was part of one of the great
migrations of Black people abandoning the share-
cropper South in search of opportunity in the
North. He arrived in Chicago in 1951. “Little
Walter and I played in Jew Town, with a shoe shine
box to collect tips. Five dollars a day was big
money back then. When I made $15 a day I
thought I was rich.
Bobby Rush said he’s been making records for
51 years now. “I made 259 recordings…some
good and some bad. There were some ups and
there were some downs. The good has always out-
weighed the bad,” he said.
Page 2
Click to watch Howling Wolf
Fifty to sixty years of performing is huge by
anybody’s measure. “How do you do it?” we
asked.
“It comes from what I believe,” he said. “I am
a blues singer. But I am a Biblical study. My father
influenced me more than anybody. He was a
Baptist preacher. He didn’t tell me to go out and
sing the blues, but he didn’t say not to. As a preach-
er, as a pastor of a church, he influenced me so
much.”
“What happens to you as a performer when
you are on stage? What’s happening in your mind
and in your body?” we asked.
“I can’t tell you exactly what it is. But when I
see the audience is into what I am doing, whether
they are clapping their hands are stomping their
feet, or, they don’t even have to be doing anything
but just looking at me and I can tell when they are
grasping what I am saying. That’s what makes me
click. When I write my songs I write about the
things I know about -- the things I have experi-
enced. I write about what I think people can relate
to. What songs did I like the best? The one that
sold the most,” he said with a smile. He listed “
Chickenhead,”, “I Ain’t Studying (Stuttin) You”,
and “Sue” as his top selling records.
He said some songs he wrote didn’t become
commercial hits, but still are among his favorites.
“Making a Decision” was one such song:
Making a decision about a juvenile’s cry
is different when it’s your own child
Making a decision about an old woman’s cry
is different when it’s your own mama’s cry
Making a decision about a rabbit that sits on a log
What’s fun for a 5 year old boy
Could be death for slow toad frog.
“I write songs like that because there’s a double
meaning to them. I laugh and joke about them
because life is something to laugh and joke about.
And although life is something to laugh about, it
isn’t always a joke,” he said.
Click to watch Bo Diddley Click to watch Louis Jordan
“If anybody had told me that 50 some odd
years later I would be any further along than I am
now, I probably wouldn’t have quit the business. I
would have given up. But, here I am, still running
this race. Still enthused. My prayer on a daily basis
is: Lord, Keep me enthused. Because If I am
enthused about what I do, I can survive the game.
A man can live a long time without water or food.
But he can’t live very long without hope,” said
Rush.
In China… It was just me. They accepted and
embraced me. In China they embraced me. You
have to understand the culture of China. They bow
to you, but they don’t embrace. But they embraced
me and called me “little brother.” They found out
my age, and how long I have been performing.
They said “hey, you have stood the test of time like
China. You are like the great wall of China.” They
compared me with the Great Wall of China.
We asked Rush what it was like to perform at
the Great Wall before 40,000 people. “It was love-
ly because I know some of the history of the Great
Wall and of China. Chinese culture has experi-
enced a lot of ups and downs, turmoil and chal-
lenge. And so have I as a Black man and as a blues
singer.
“I have been cast out of places where they said
I had no business being there. I have been told to
my face, ‘Bobby Rush, we don’t want you in our
town.’ They have said they didn’t want me in their
community because white women would like me.
But I want the white women to like me, I want
Black women to like me. I want white men and
Black men to like me. I am an entertainer. I want
to be loved and liked by everyone.
“An artist said to me a couple of years ago, he
was going to record a song he thought Black peo-
ple would like, or record a song he thought white
people would like. But it’s not a Black and white
issue with me. It’s about music that everybody can
like,” he said.
We asked how his music is influenced by the
Age of Obama, and, conversely, how his music
influences contemporary culture.
“What I have been saying in my music and
what I stood for is where Obama is now. In my
music I stated that if I keep doing what I am doing,
someday, I would get here. That I would cross over
to the white audience without having to cross out
that Black audience that is my base. I want to cross
over but I don’t want to cross out my people.
I want to continue to be myself. So now, at this late
date, and with my current success, I am thankful
that white audiences do accept me being who I am.
And I am praying and hoping that the world will
accept Obama, being himself, a Black man, and
president of the United States of America.”
Bobby Rush marched with Martin Luther
King, Jr. in the Chicago campaigns, but his call to
activism formed when he was 11, when his preach-
er father sent him on a clandestine mission into the
heart of the enemy camp to “bring back news.”
“I was with Martin Luther King’s movement
and marches in Chicago. In 1963 Martin Luther
King came to Chicago for the fist time. My son
was seven-years-old at the time. We drove to see
him at 47th and Halsted where he was speaking
that night. It was me, Little Milton, The Howling
Wolf, and Marvin Gaye. He was a young man just
getting noticed in the music industry at that time.”
“I got there early to park my car. And when I
parked my car, the white people ran us away. I did-
n’t have time to get away in the car. They chased
us on foot. I looked back to see they had turned my
car over and burned it up. I went to the police sta-
tion and reported the crime, the incident. The
police said: ‘Niggers, you ain’t got no business
being over here! Get out of our station!’
“I remember in 1951 or 52, I was playing in
Chicago at a place called Apex. Muddy Waters
was playing on Wednesday and I was playing on
Thursday and Friday. We had a mark on the floor.
We stood on this marked spot. There was a curtain
between us and the audience. They wanted to hear
our music, but they didn’t want to see our faces.
These are the kinds of things that I remember.”
A tear collected in the entertainer’s right eye as
he was seeing what he experienced in southern
Illinois. “In 1965 I went to Peoria, IL. My drum-
mer and I were in an accident on the highway. We
were in this station wagon. Ten trucks hit me in
from the rear. All ten trucks blew up. All ten driv-
ers burned up. My drummer and I were pinned in
the crumpled station wagon. We clawed our way
into a snow bank in the sub-zero freezing cold.
When the sheriff’s’ department came at about 4 am
or 5 am in the morning, they shined a light on us.
We called out for help. Someone said, ‘is anybody
else out there?’ The Sherriff’s department said,
‘Naw, just two niggers already dead or almost
dead. Leave ‘em there.’
“I have been through a lot of changes. It’s a
hurting situation. So I got involved with the march
and the movement. I would take my tour bus and
get people out to the voting polls,” Bobby Rush
said.
“I am not where I should be or where I want to
be. But I am thankful because I have come so far.
We, as a people, have come a long way, but still,
not far enough. I have a song called “How long?
How Long?”
If anybody is confused about what I am talking
about,
All I am talking about is my 40 acres and a mule.
Martin Luther King died waiting for justice.
So did my mother and dad, and grandma.
The truth of the matter is, since they all died wait-
ing,
What about me and you. How long?
“I have so many things I can cry about, but I have
so many things I can shout about. God has deliv-
ered me. God has been good to me and given me
some knowledge,” he said.
“I remember coming to my daddy’s church as
a boy. Out of the 10 children, I was kind of the
leader of my family. At the age of 11, my father
told me to go to work at the cotton gin. He said
they won’t pay you but $3 a week. ‘You go and
work and bring me the news.’
“I didn’t ask my daddy anything, I understood
him. My job was to go to the center of commerce
and get the information that my daddy needed to
give our people. As a race, we didn’t know any-
thing about the stock market, Dow Jones and the
like. But the white people would sit around the
table and talk about the price of commodities,
when they would sell, how they would sell, and
what they would sell. The price of cotton would be
up or down. They would say, ‘we can’t sell cotton
because the niggers still got cotton in the field, so
let’s keep the price down.’
“I had a rag and a handful of sand in my pock-
et. I would thump sand onto the table or onto the
white men’s shoes so I would have a reason to
wipe it off…so I could hear the news. So when I
got home my daddy would say, ‘what’s the news?’
I would say you shouldn’t sell beans, but you can
sell the peanuts now. You should sell this or wait
about a week before you sell that. And my daddy
would get the entire community into the church.
His was the biggest Black church in the area.
He would tell the people what to do and what not
to d, based on my information. He pastored Free
Will Baptist Church.
Page 3
He was pastor of one church for 45 years and pas-
tor of another for 40 years. His name was Emmett
Ellis, Sr. I am Emmett Ellis, Jr. I changed my name
to Bobby Rush only because of the respect I have
for my Daddy and his work in the Ministry.”
“I did look at a variety of names for about a
year and a half before I named myself Bobby
Rush. I first named myself Eisenhower because it
sounded big. I thought about naming myself after
President Truman. When I finally settled on this
name Bobby Rush, nobody called me Bobby.
Nobody called me Mr. Rush. They all said Bobby
Rush…it just rolls off the lips so easily.”
Bobby Rush has great respect for the Black
Press. “What you say about me is what people per-
ceived me to be. I don’t claim to be anything other
than and upright man seeking to do unto others as
I want them to do unto me. My wish is to carry
forth my music, demonstrating the goodness of it,
educating people about what I am really about -
helping others. It’s not about me. It’s all about
helping others.”
We asked about his family lineage. How much
did he know? Was it important?
“It is important,” he said. “On dad’s side we go
back to my granddad, from there to Africa. On my
mother’s side, we go two generations back to
Indian and white.
“My great grandmother was born in
Mississippi. I understand that my great grandmoth-
er was a maid to this white man named Van Spivey.
Page 4
Van Spivey also was married. He had six kids by
his white wife and five by my great grandmother,
his maid in his house, and his woman, too.
“I understand that one of the six kids, when he got
18- or 19-years-old, stole his five half-brothers and
sisters, including my grandma, from his daddy and
mama, and carried them to Eudora, AK and
dropped them in a barn where they raised them-
selves.
“We were told as a family, don’t ever go back
to Mississippi because our great granddaddy want
to do harm to us. We found out a hundred years
later that he was not trying to do harm, but was try-
ing to set things right. He had equally divided the
estate between the 11 children giving land to each.
But of course, the five from our side were no
longer in the picture,” said Bobby Rush.
“My mother had blue eyes and blond hair. My
daddy drove up one day and said, ‘I got to go to
Homer, LA to get some hay.’ That was about 4-5
miles in a wagon. I was a little boy with my broth-
er in the back of a buckboard wagon. My father
had gone into the store and my mother was sitting
with us in the wagon when three guys rode up on
horseback and said to my mother, ‘Mattie, what
you doing with this nigger?’ She said, ‘I’m a nig-
ger, too.’
“Because you couldn’t tell whether she was
white or Black, they said, ‘Aw naw.’ She said, ‘If
you don’t believe me, ask Mr. Baer.’ She had to go
inside the store and get the store owner to come
outside. He said Mattie is one of Van’s kids. I did-
n’t know who Van was, though he was my great
granddaddy. But he must have been some big shot
because the white men stumbled back and cleared
out hastily, as if they knew they were messing with
the wrong people.
“When my daddy, my mother’s husband, came
out, my mother never told him what happened. He
never know about the incident,” said Bobby Rush.
“One day my brother and I were in the front yard
at home shooting marbles. The ice man came. We
lived in this big house, a plantation style house that
our boss had given us. Apparently, whites should
have been living there because it was a nice house.
He came to the house, look at us, and yelled out,
‘You want some ice?’ then he yelled louder, ‘You
want some ice?’ My mother came to the door and
the iceman apologized for his rude manner: ‘I’m
sorry, ma’am. I thought niggers lived here’, he said
looking at us.
“It’s said that my mama had to play these roles
to navigate in that society. When people turned my
daddy down, my mama could go and get anything
she wanted.
“A lot has changed. But the more things have
changed, the more they remain the same. Honestly,
I don’t see much change. I see a change in direc-
tion: they not coming at us from this direction, they
coming at us from that direction.
“Yet, I am hopeful that we will emerge anew as
one people,” he said.