4 March : Tom Rush

I first encountered Tom Rush at a Cambridge Folk Festival. I can’t remember which one, but it would be in the early eighties as I haven’t been to one since 1985. I don’t remember too much about his set, though I have a vague memory of it being pleasant enough. He wasn’t one of the acts I followed up when I got home.

This self-titled album from 1970 was his seventh, released in the US in March 1970. Rush was certainly capable of writing songs (he wrote No Regrets, best known in Scott Walker’s version), but all the songs on this album are covers.

Although Rush came out of the folk scene, the material on this record sits at that very American junction between folk and country. No harm in that, of course, but, just like my vague recollection from Cambridge, there isn’t much here to grab me. It’s well-produced, played and sung: professional, tasteful, and dull.

All on Spotify (and I think in bits and pieces on YouTube).