LESSON } BLUES

Phil Short looks at perhaps the most criminally undersung of all modern electric blues guitarists, Mississippi’s ‘other’ upside-down leftie legend.

Brought to you by…

Otis Rush playing many bluesers’ favourite guitar, the Gibson ES-355

PAUL NATKIN / GETTY IMAGES

Many people would have first noticed Otis Rush’s name as composer of the song All Your Love, the opening track on John Mayall’s legendary Beano album with Eric Clapton on guitar. Perhaps one of the blues world’s most unsung heroes, Rush hailed from Mississippi, but moved toChicago in the late 40s, still in his teens, and made a name for himself on the local circuit. He signed a deal with Cobra records and released his first single, I Can’t Quit You Baby in 1956. He had some initial success with this, getting to number 6 on Billboard’s R&B chart. He was with Cobra for almost a decade, but the label went bankrupt, so in 1960 he moved to Chess, where he released a number of recordings, including a compilation alongside the great Albert King (with whom he shared the unusual trait of playing his guitar left-handed and upside down).