Tom Rush - Legendary Folk Musician

Tom Rush legendary folk musician and advisory board member for the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame, talks about his 60+ year career in music, his new album, and keen observations around the FARHOF inaugural class of inductees.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome back to What's at Risk.I'm Mike Christian. For the next couple
of weeks, we'll continue to showcaseBoston's Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame,
otherwise known as Farhoff, and itsinaugural class of inductees. Located in the

(00:24):
world famous and historic Wang Theater inBoston. Varhoff celebrates the history of Folk
Americana and roots music through displays,memorabilia, artifacts, multimedia lectures, concerts,
and special curated exhibits from the museumcollective. Through education and music,

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Varhoff also helps us understand our commonhistory, appreciate our differences, and become
more open minded, engaged citizens.Tom Rush's impact on the American music scene
has been profound. He helped shapethe folk revival in the sixties and the
Renaissance of the eighties and nineties,his music having left its stamp on generations

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of artists. His early recordings introducedthe world to the work of Joni Mitchell,
Jackson Brown, and James Taylor.Taylor told Rolling Stone Tom was not
only one of my early heroes,but also one of my main influences.
Tom is also on the advisory boardfor Farhoff Today. Tom lives in Massachusetts.

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When he's not touring, his voicehas grown even richer and more melodic
in his music, Like fine winehas matured and ripened in the blending of
traditional and modern influences. He's writtena number of new songs. He's doing
what he loves and what audiences lovehim for, writing and playing passionately,

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tenderly knitting together the musical traditions andtalents of our time. We're honored to

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have Tom Rush here as our guesttoday. Tom, how you doing Living
the dream? Mike Live in thedream, But thank you so much for
joining us. You know, we'retalking about the Folk Americana Roots Hall of
Fame to some extent, but wealso wanted to talk about you and your
career. I thought maybe for ourlisteners would be great if you could tell

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them a little bit about your backgroundand mostly Coolear early influences were in music.
I know you've been in the musiclife for a long time, so
great to hear that. Yes Ihave. I've decided that twenty twenty four
is actually my sixty third annual farewelltour, and that's astounding, and I'm

(02:54):
it's pretty good. I saw that, Did I see that you performed at
Symphony Hall in nineteen fifty eight.I'll take your word for it. I've
played there many times over the years. I don't know the eight, but
that sounds if it was fifty eight, it actually would have been with the
Grouten School Choir or the Groten School. Yeah, that's probably what that was.

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Well, nonetheless, still you don'thave to overqualify it. You're still
there in nineteen fifty eight. That'sa pretty good. That's a pretty good
and you're still on the road.You're still doing it. That's awesome,
still doing it, still having alot of fun doing it. I'd love
playing for people and seeing no reasonto not do that. Basically, my
job is to have fun. It'sabout that's about as good as it gets.

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Yeah, and you make it funfor everyone else too. I've seen
you play a couple of times,well hopefully hopefully so. Yeah. So
you've been you've been at the forefrontof the folk world for a long time.
How'd you get started and who weresome of your early influences. Well,
going way way back, Paul Robesand my my parents had some Paul
Robes and seventy eights, and Ijust at a very early age Decaturday.

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I wanted to sing just like PaulRobesen, but my voice hadn't changed yet
and he was an operatic baritone,so that didn't work out well. And
then I learned to play the guitar, and I wanted to be a rock
star because this was the late fiftieswhen all the Elvis and the Everly Brothers
and Chuck Berry and Fats Domino were, you know, at the top of

(04:25):
the charts. That didn't work outwell either. And then I heard a
Josh White recording and that actually turnedme totally around because I had never heard
a guitar played like that. Inever heard songs like that, and that's
where I got introduced to folk music. But then when I got to Cambridge,
there was this to go to college. I got there was this really

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hot folk scene going on, andI was told no, no, no,
Josh White is commercial. We wantethnic, We want people who live
in a cabin in the woods andbuilt their own instrument. I got kind
of swept up into that. Therewas a little bit of irony there,
Mike with a bunch of Harvard studentssitting around singing about how tough it was

(05:08):
in the coal mines, but wefigured we could make up with sincerity what
we lacked and authenticity. Now youhad some Your first album actually had some
moody Guthrie ballads on it, didn'tit. Maybe San Francisco Bay Blues,
which maybe was Jesse Fuller. Yeah, I remember that album, Yeah it
did. I remember actually reading somewherethat Arlow Arlow Guthrie said he first heard

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his father's songs on my recordings,which was a bit odd, but yeah,
I was. I was doing traditionalfolk for quite a while. Finally,
around the time of the Circle Gamealbum, I got more into the
singer songwriter side of things. ACircle Game actually was the introduced Joni Mitchell,
James Taylor, and Jackson Brown tothe public. They hadn't been recorded

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before, and that was Urge forGoing was the song that you had on
that right, Jerge for Going andCircle Game and another one called ten Angel.
There were three Joni songs, GotIt? Got It? How did
you just out of curiosity, becausethat would put you right at the forefront
of sort of that singer songwriter era. How did you find those free Wood

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are now iconic artists. I wasactually accused by Rolling Stone of ushering in
the singer songwriter era. They neverproved anything. I was never indicted,
no pictures, no jony. Imet in a club in Detroit, Michigan.
She came in, I was playingthere. I played there for two

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weeks every summer. She just startedwriting songs. Came in and asked the
boss if she could do a quickguest set so I could hear some of
her songs, maybe record them.Got up and did four tunes, the
last of which was the Urge forGoing, and just totally knocked my socks
off. And that was all thesongs she had at that moment. But

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I asked her for more, andshe said, sent me a tape.
A few weeks later that ended.She actually apologized on the tape, apologized
for the upcoming tune. Just finishedwriting this is not much good. I'm
so embarrassed here it is. Itwas the circle game. I remember hearing
urch were going. I thought youwrote it. Actually, for a long
time, I was going to Iwas going to write it. She beats

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you to it, me to it. So you're on the board of Advisors
for the Folk Americana Roots Hall ofFame. We call it Farhoff for short,
and the induction ceremony is this weekfor the inaugural class of inductees,
and it's pretty much what you wouldexpect, sort of a who's who of

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fifties, sixties and seventies musicians,although I believe Paul Robeson and Josh Whide
are both on that list if I'mnot mistaken, big main influences right there.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.What'd you think of the of the
choices? What was your first impressionwhen you saw that? I thought it
was a great, a great lineup, especially because they they included some non

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performers like Betsy Siggins, who hada lot to do with the whole folks
scene back in the club forty sevendays, and she'll be she'll be given
a short short talk somewhere during theduring the ceremonies. But no, I
think it was I think it's agreat lineup. And they've got people that
are descended from or related to someof the artists who you know can't be

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there because they're dead or otherwise.You know, do you think I think
that some of Leadbelly's relatives will bethere going way back right, I'm looking
forward to meeting them. I knowJosh White Junior, I considered to be
a friend and a colleague, workedwith him on stage several times in the

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past. Yeah, that's great.I was talking to Don Wise, who
I know you would know. He'salso on the board of advisors for far
Off and he's worked with many ofthose artists and many many great artists like
The Stones and Dwan, Wayne Shorter. You can the list is long.
But he said, the thing thatunites all of these artists is that they

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understand the value of storytelling. Whatdo you think about that, Well,
I think that's he's absolutely right aboutthat. I learned at an early age,
playing at the Club forty seven,that if I tell a story and
he can get the audience engaged,they're much more likely to like the song

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I'm about to do. So Itell I tell a lot of stories,
and I regard the songs as stories. Actually, you know, in almost
every case it's a story being putto music because we're we love stories.
You know, that goes back thousandsof years. Stories hold us together,
for sure, and I think ourhistory is often told through songs. Yeah,

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you know, that goes all theway back. Also, especially folk
songs. Yeah, folk folks songsto me. I'm a bit of a
stickler here from a literary background,but folk music, that's songs that were
nobody wrote songs like Barbarie Allen thatjust every village had a different version of
it. None of them was thecorrect version, and they would evolve over

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time. If you couldn't remember thethird verse of the song, your grandmother
taught you, you'd maybe make upa replacement verse, and if it was
good enough, maybe your kids wouldremember it. It was kind of musical
Derwinism. Yeah. When you thinkabout songwriting and your songwriter and you've written
some memorable songs, no regrets tome comes to mind. Where did those

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songs come from? I've heard manyartists say many different things, But where
do they come from? I can'twrite a song. You could, Sure
you could, You just have to. You have to give it a try
and then try again and try again. I should have said a good song.
Well, I'm still working on gettingclose. I'm getting closer. I've

(11:01):
got a new album that just cameout that I wrote. All the songs
on. A couple of them goway back. One goes back over fifty
years, and one I wrote formy daughter when she was a baby.
She's now twenty five. Anyway,they all come from different places, and
I actually, for the most part, can't remember writing the song. I

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think it's a right brain left brainthing, the right brain being the creative
side and the left brain being moreadministrative. And when I was actually disciplined
and trying to do it right,I would get up in the morning and
before I was really awake, Iwould start trying to write, just play
the guitar and whatever came into myhead. I'd scribble it down, and
then after the third cup of coffee, the editor would show up. The

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left brain would kick in and I'dstart saying, well, that line sucks,
but that one's pretty good, andit kind of goes with this other
one over here. No regrets youmentioned. It's probably the song of my
It has been recorded the most byother It is the song of mine that's
been recorded the most by other artists. I just learned that Harry Belafani did
it. I didn't know that,but you two did it, and Emmy

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Lou Harris has a really pretty version. Waylon Jennings recorded it on and on
and on. But that one,it's about the end, folks of a
long love affair where the guy issaying, I have no regrets, there's
no tears, goodbye, I don'twant we don't want to get back together.
We'd only cry again and say goodbyeagain. That tune, I do
remember where it came from. Iwas deeply enamored of a young lady named

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Jill Lumpkin who came up from NewYork City to Cambridge and spent the weekend
with me. And I'd never spentthat much time with anybody before. And
I took her out to Logan Airporton Monday morning, put her on a
plane, and it felt strange walkingaway alone. And I went back to
my apartment and wrote the song fromthe perspective of a long love affair picking

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up instead of a hot weekend.And in fact it did in fact come
true. Over the some years later, we did part company and it was
okay, it was great. Willit lasted right? Well, at least
you had the song. Yeah.In anticipation put my first two kids through
college. That song did. Yeah, there you go, Well you're really

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that's a wonderful song. I'm allkidding aside, I have to say,
you know another thing that I seethat runs through all these inductees, is
their their focus on cultural impacts,social issues, equality, change, you
know, socially Jone bias that socialissues loom larger than the music. What
are your thoughts about that? Whydo you think? And in particularly in

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this group of inductees, there's there'sa large maybe even a majority of them
have been well known not just fortheir music, but for other things doing
good in the world. And Iand I applaud that. I for my
own part, I never took thesocial issues on stage. I try to
avoid that because my feeling was thatI want my shows to be a little

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bit of a vacation from whatever's botheringyou, so I don't get political on
stage. I did, do youknow, benefit concerts and showed up at
rallies and stuff like that supporting thecauses that, you know, at least
in my mind, were pretty prettyobvious, the right side of things,
you know, equality, and butI never took it on stage. And

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I'm actually wondering, Mike, whatwhere where are those songs now? You
know, when there's so much goingon that needs to be needs to be
held up to the light. Whywhy are the younger generation not writing those
kind of songs and taking those positions. Yeah, I think that's a great
point, and I never really eventhought about it that way. I think

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I think the younger generation of musicians, there's some great talent there. I
don't have to tell you because you'vespent almost your whole career finding finding great
young talent. But I think thoseiconic songs that really express what's going on
in the world. You're probably right. Yeah, it's a mystery. You.
You mentioned Bessie Seggins in Club fortyseven, which was an amazing place.

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Did you You played there when youwere young before it became pass ran
the Club forty seven. Yeah,and it was an amazing place, partly
because they not only hosted the kids, myself included, but they also brought
in the legends and you could sitin this little eighty seat room and listen
to Maybelle Carter, the Carter Family, Flat and Scrugs played there. Bill

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Monroe played there on and on alot of the old blues guys played there.
And part of the remarkable thing tome, you know, as a
beginner, was that you could goup to these legends and ask them how
do you do that thing you do? And they would, they would tell
you, they'd show you. Theywere very approachable for the most part,
not one hundred percent, but forthe most part you could really chat with

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them and ask them questions. Itwas very cool. You sort of replicated
that down through the years, andyou have a a it was it called
a Club forty seven series or somethinglike that. Yes, showcased new musicians.
They still show up from time totime, and the theme of my
Club forty seven shows is basically havinga couple of well known artists and a

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couple of newcomers who are brilliant.You've never heard of them, but they'll
knock your socks off, and it'sa lot of fun. I was doing
a series at Symphony Hall actually everybetween Christmas and New Years every year for
about five or six years. Igot in there because Symphony Hall was closed
between Christmas and New Year's because everybodyknew that nobody goes out between Christmas and

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New Year's. And they finally allowedme to have one night there and sold
it out to my surprise, toeverybody's surprise, and then I was selling
out three nights in a row bythe end of it. And finally the
Boston Pop said wait a minute.People do go up between Christmas and New
Year, and they started booking thatentire week for themselves, so I was
locked out. Who are some ofthe artists that you showcased in that Club

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forty seven. Nancy Griffith, youknow, was a newcomer, Sean Colvin
was a newcomer, a lot ofthe Baiez played, Bonnie Ray played Taj
mahal on and on and on.It was. I've got a couple of
pages of Symphony Hall Club forty sevenguests. But I actually ended up owning

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the name Club forty seven because whenI did the first show it was it
was actually I think the third thethird year in I decided I wanted to
do a Club forty seven reunion andinvite Biez and all the folks I just
mentioned, And my lawyer said,do you have permission to use the name?
And I said, well, Iwouldn't know who to ask. He
came back and he said the nameis unencumbered, and if I were you,

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I would encumber it. The Clubforty seven that location is now Club
Passing, which is a wonderful organization. Yeah, but not genetically related.
Club forty seven closed down. Itwas vacant. The building was vacant for
eighteen months or two years. Itwas a ducaca's headquarters for a while,
campaign headquarters. Oh interesting. ThenBob and Ray and donaland showed up and

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opened the club, opened the ClubPasseeene. And they would actually get very
annoyed if you came down the stepsand said, is this the Club forty
seven? No, this is apass em. They were very irritated by
the Club forty seven. Well,if you get if you want to find
something to do, you know,a little later in your career, you
can just reopen the Club forty seven, can't There you go? There you

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go with Passim is Passim is afabulous organization and play you know, has
the same sort of music, thesame sort of mission as the Club forty
seven did. So. Your friendJoe Spalding, who's the CEO longtime CEO
of the Box Center of the WangTheater and also quite frankly, the founder
of Farhof Folk American Roots Hall ofFame. It was his sprain child and

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he's wanting to put it together andassembled everything, and I think it's a
brilliant, brilliant move on his part. But he always says, music and
the arts bring us together and makeus a civilized society. What are you
What are your thoughts about that?Well, I think I think he's absolutely
right. I mean, it goesgoes way way back in our history,

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you know, sitting around the fireand the jungle, playing drums for each
other, and you know, it'sit's not something that we've made up recently.
It's definitely a unifying, unifying thing, particularly in a world like we
have today. Down through the years, the world has often a bit like
this, but we could use wecould use that music to make us more

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civilized society right now, I thinkwe can hope. So, you have
a new album out. You alludedto it before. It's called Gardens Old
Flowers New. I love the name. According to my producer, I'm the
old garden and the new songs arethe new flower. But it's a line.
It's a line that actually appears andtwo of the songs on the album,
uh one for one that I waswriting for my daughter when she was

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a baby, seeing his playing inthe garden, and this garden's old.
The flower is new, meaning watchingyour child learn about the world is something
that's happened millions of times, buteach time is different. The garden being
watching your child is old, butthe child and what she's experiencing is new

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every time. Yeah. Matt Nakoa, who's been my accompanist for about ten
years now, is an absolutely brilliantmusician and turns in turns out to be
a brilliant record producer as well.I think he just got tired of hearing
me talk about, well, maybesomeday we'll make an album, and he
hired a studio and booked some brilliantplayers and next thing I know, we're

(20:52):
I'm having the time of my lifein this converted barn in Connecticut. I'm
very very pleased with it available atthe time, rushed folks. The other
thing I've been up to, Mike, is when the pandemic shut down all
the shows, I started an onlineseries called Rockport Sundays, and again it's
available at tom Rush dot com.But it's about a fifteen minute video clip

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that we post every Sunday. Theystay up for eight weeks. You don't
have to watch them on Sunday,but it's usually me and a guest telling
some stories and each singing a songand that's it for this week. But
Tom Paxson and Jonathan Edwards and abunch of my old buddies have been guests.
But also a bunch of kids thatI had never heard of even,

(21:37):
who are absolutely brilliant. So it'sa good way again of helping introduce new
talent to a wider audience. Yeah, that's great. Did anybody strike you
any of these new musicians coming up? Anybody that you are particularly struck by.
Well, Matt mccoaugh I mentioned asmy accompanist. He's got his own

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career going, Matt. If thiswas if this is forty years ago,
Mike, he would be playing stadiums, and I'm hoping when he does play
stadiums he lets me open the shows. Yes, but he's he's got his
own career building up seth Glear isanother guy who's occasionally my accompanist, who
is a brilliant player. But there'sa lot of great, great music out

(22:25):
there. I think going actually goingto club pass see is the best way
to hear some of those folks.Yeah, there's no question. I went
to the Focalion conference a few weeksago in Kansas City and saw a bunch
of people I never heard of.As you said, and some of them
just blew me away. Yeah,incredible. Yeah, it's very, very
hard to get to get started thesedays. Yeah, I'm very lucky in

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that I had. When I startedout, you didn't exist if you didn't
have a record contract, because therecord company was what got you on the
radio and on TV and in thenewspapers and so forth. Nowadays it's all
on the internet, and the recordcompanies have become kind of irrelevant, and
any kid with a laptop can makemusic in their bedroom and put it up

(23:14):
on YouTube. And most of it'sterrible, but some of it's brilliant.
And the way artists make money thesedays is touring, which was exactly the
opposite of when I started going tosee music in the sixties. Well,
it's harder and harder. You know, if you get a thousand plays on
Spotify, you get paid something likea penny, So it's tough. Especially

(23:37):
the rationale as well, that justwill get people come into your concerts.
But what if you're just a songwriterand don't do concerts, you're kind of
out of luck. Artists still needgood songs, yep, songwriter profession is
completely dead. Yet well listen,Tom, it's been a delightful talking to
you. I think your next stepshere or did it go out on tour?

(24:00):
If I'm not mistaken, they're keepingyou so, they're keeping me very
busy, which I enjoyed. Ienjoyed the travel less and less, but
the time on stage is really atreat for me and hopefully for the audience.
Well, listen, I wish youall the best time. Thank you
so much for joining us. We'llhave this as part of the Barhoff series
of interviews, I think in thenext few weeks. Thanks for including me.

(24:25):
Mike all right man, thank youso much. Thank you. It's

(25:03):
not a bass back to back andsays that ballot. Well, that's all

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for this week. I'm Mike Christianinviting you to join us again next week
on What's at Risk. Also checkout our podcast at Wbznewsradio dot iHeart dot
com what's on your mind? Sendus your thoughts, comments and questions to
What's at Risk at gmail dot com. That's one word, What's at Risk

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at gmail dot com. Thank you. A big thank you to our producer,
Ken Carberry of Chart Productions.