This recording session was not released until five years after it was done. One can imagine the tapes practically smoldering in their cases, the music is so hot. Sorry, there is nothing "wrong" about this
blues
album at all.
Otis Rush
was a great
expander, a man whose guitar playing was in every molecule pure
. On his solos on this album he strips the idea of the
down to very simple gestures (i.e., a bent string, but bent in such a subtle way that the seasoned
listener will be surprised). As a performer he opens up the
form with his chord progressions and use of horn sections, the latter instrumentation again added in a wonderfully spare manner, bringing to mind a master painter working certain parts of a canvas in order to bring in more light.
Blues
fans who get tired of the same old song structures, riff, and rhythms should be delighted with most of
Rush
's output, and this one is among his best. Sometimes all he does to make a song sound unlike any
one has ever heard is just a small thing -- a chord moving up when one expects it go down, for example. The production is particularly skilled, and the fact that
Capitol Records
turned this session down after originally producing it can only be reasonably accepted when combined with other decisions this label has made, such as turning down
the Doors
because singer
Jim Morrison
had "no charisma." This record doesn't mess around at all. The first track takes off like the man they fire out of a cannon at the end of a circus, a perceived climax swaggeringly representing just the beginning, after all. Some of the finest tracks are the ones that go longer than five minutes, allowing the players room to stretch. And that means more of
's great guitar playing, of course. For the final track he leaves the
behind completely for a moving cover version of
"Rainy Night in Georgia"
by
Tony Joe White
. ~ Eugene Chadbourne