Credited by Rolling Stone as crucial to the start of the singer/songwriter era, Tom Rush has been performing on stage for fifty years, always relying on word-of-mouth success. When Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Jackson Browne were starting out, Rush was their biggest supporter, and would perform covers of their songs at coffee shops across the country, bringing attention to the blossoming world of singers who write and play their own tunes.
Excellent examples of this can be found on the 1970 album The Circle Game, which was a folk album that featured Rush’s versions of songs by Mitchell and Taylor. In subsequent years, Rush recorded may albums such as Ladies Love Outlaws, and Merrimack County, in which Rush touched upon blues, country, rock and folk to create his own distinctive musical style.
2009 brought Rush’s first album in 30 years, called What I Know. Widely praised, the album features the spirited Rush back on top. A year later, he experienced the wonders of the internet firsthand with a video of the performance of Steven Walters’ “The Remember Song” going viral on YouTube, now with more than 5 million views. He said, “I felt terrible at first, thinking I was being accused of being a musical equivalent of Ebola, but my children explained to me that this was a good thing." Embracing the web, he just started a Kickstarter.com campaign to raise enough money to perform a guest-filled concert at Boston’s Symphony Hall in December. After less than 10 days, he is more than half way there.
“He hasn't recorded a studio album in more than 30 years, but you'd never guess that he'd been away so long, from the lithe spirit in his voice on these 15 tracks.” LA Times, on What I Know