Bobby Rush started playing with Delta blues guitarists Boyd Gilmore and Elmore James in Arkansas during the early ’50s before migrating to Chicago. Bobby’s “Sock Boo Ga Loo” on the tiny Starville label was picked up by Chess Records in 1967, propelling the singer into the big leagues of R&B. BOBBY RUSH BIO In 1971, Bobby broke through on the national charts with the lowdown funk grinder “Chicken Heads” for Galaxy Records. “That was the first big record I ever had,” notes Rush. The song has since been featured in the film Black Snake Moan, HBO’s Ballers, and more. Calvin Carter, the producer of “Chicken Heads,” put out Rush’s ’72 followup “Gotta Be Funky” on his own On Top logo and then sold Bobby’s contract to Stan Lewis’ Jewel Records in Shreveport, La. Lewis issued several Rush singles before Bobby made the major label leap in 1974 with “Get Out of Here” for Warner Bros. The sparkling album Rush Hour for Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff ’s Philadelphia International empire should have made Bobby a huge star in 1979 but didn’t receive its proper praise until the 2000s, when Rolling Stone recognized it as one of the best blues albums of the ’70s. An encore LP was summarily shelved, and before long Rush moved back south to Jackson, Mississippi, where his legion of fans eagerly embraced him. The lascivious “Sue” didn’t chart for him in 1983 on the LaJam imprint, but it blasted out of countless ghetto jukeboxes and sold over a million records. His reputation for spectacular live performances growing exponentially as he did a minimum of 200 shows a year. His mainstream recognition campaign commenced when he earned his first Grammy nomination for his 2000 album Hoochie Man, followed by an appearance in the Martin Scorsese-produced 2003 PBS docu-series The Blues with his own segment in the episode The Road to Memphis. To date Bobby has earned 12 Blues Music Awards and 48 nominations, including the prestigious B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award and Album of the Year. Rush co-starred in the 2014 documentary Take Me to the River alongside Terrence Howard, Snoop Dogg, and Mavis Staples. That same year, Bobby joined Dan Aykroyd on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to perform two songs, marking his first late-night television appearance. In 2019 the feature film Dolemite Is My Name about Rudy Ray Moore making cult classic film Dolemite, was released in select theaters and on Netflix, starring Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key and with a cameo by Bobby Rush. BOBBY RUSH BIO
