Welcome to the October 2018 edition of BLUES JUNCTION.

We begin this month’s dog and pony show with a feature entitled The Inland Empire Strikes Back. It is our coverage of a relatively new Southern California tradition, the Riverside West Coast Blues Festival. Read my musings on this event and, more importantly, enjoy the terrific photography of Brad Elligood. 

Our Monthly Artist Spotlight shines on a great vocalist by the name of Marina Crouse. She is part of Jim Pugh’s Little Village Foundation’s family of artists.

Our Monthly Album Spotlight is Complicated Mess by Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones. Additionally, we have three other albums which are reviewed this month by Anthony Geraci, Blue Largo & Raphael Wressnig.

We have yet another installment of our Recommended Listening feature. Once again, we focus on ten brand new and soon to be released albums which have made it into our library here at the JUNCTION.

Enjoy another installment of Charlie’s Re-Issue Rodeo.

On September 29^th we lost a giant in the blues world. Otis Rush left us at the age of 84.

In 2002, I saw Otis Rush for the last time. He was playing in front of a massive crowd of 12,000 people at the now long-gone Long Beach Blues Festival. At the dawn of the digital revolution not everybody was a photographer. I’m still not, but since everyone else is, there is no shortage of images of every single musician on every single stage. In those days I used to carry a disposable camera in my pocket for this event and might take the allotted 24 shots over the weekend. I took this one of Otis Rush from the side of the stage.

In 2004, Otis Rush suffered a massive stroke from which he never fully recovered. His recording and live performance career ended abruptly. That image and my memory of his music had been all I had to remember that stunning performance until last Tuesday morning. Charlie Lange played some Otis Rush music from that Labor Day weekend in Long Beach on his weekly radio show (see our links page). It was as I had remembered…just stunning. Without any visual distractions the music was even more thrilling than my memory.

Otis Rush became one of the most important figures to rise from the Chicago blues firmament in the 1950’s, despite his rather sporadic recording career and his almost complete shunning of any of the traditional trappings of show business. His influence on electric blues guitar players can’t be overstated. He was an inspiration to anyone who heard his music. It is virtually impossible to discuss the music of Otis Rush without engaging in an avalanche of superlatives.

I thought I’d share with you a piece I wrote a few years ago for the liner notes on a vinyl reissue of The Essential Otis Rush: The Complete Cobra Recordings 1956-1958. That album was to coincide with Rush’s 80^th birthday. The project was scrapped when this hip hop record mogul decided it was beneath him to keep putting out old blues records. Nevertheless, I was still very proud to be asked to participate in what would have been a very exciting project. Since Otis Rush’s music never grows old, hopefully neither do my comments relating to this one of a kind artist.  

It was great visiting with so many of our readers last week at the Riverside West Coast Blues Festival. Thanks always for the kind words. It means a lot to me. Until we meet again, be well and be in touch.

- David Mac



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