Otis Rush: Right Place Wrong Time-1976 Bullfrog 1st Pressing Stereo 12" Record

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1976 Bullfrog First Pressing Stereo Release of bandleader/Composer/Guitar Master/Pioneering Blues Vocalist Otis Rush Entitled Right Place Wrong Time, Produced by Nick Gravenites & Otis Rush, Liner Notes by Dick Shurman, Album Recorded at Wally Heider's Studio in San Francisco, CA February of 1971 - "Breaking into the R&B Top Ten his very first time out in 1956 with the startlingly intense slow blues "I Can't Quit You Baby," southpaw guitarist Otis Rush subsequently established himself as one of the premier bluesmen on the Chicago circuit. Rush was often credited with being one of the architects of the West Side guitar style, along with Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. It was a nebulous honor, since Rushplayed clubs on Chicago's South Side just as frequently during the sound's late-'50s incubation period. Nevertheless, his esteemed status as a prime Chicago innovator was eternally assured by the ringing, vibrato-enhanced guitar work that remained his stock in trade and a tortured, super-intense vocal delivery that could force the hairs on the back of your neck upwards in silent salute. If talent alone were the formula for widespread success, Rush would certainly have been Chicago's leading blues artist. But fate, luck, and the guitarist's own idiosyncrasies conspired to hold him back on several occasions when opportunity was virtually begging to be accepted. Rush came to Chicago in 1948, met Muddy Waters, and knew instantly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. The omnipresent Willie Dixon caught Rush's act and signed him to Eli Toscano's Cobra Records in 1956. The frighteningly intense "I Can't Quit You Baby" was the maiden effort for both artist and label, streaking to number six on Billboard's R&B chart. His 1956-1958 Cobra legacy is a magnificent one, distinguished by the Dixon-produced minor-key masterpieces "Double Trouble" and "My Love Will Never Die," the tough-as-nails "Three Times a Fool" and "Keep on Loving Me Baby," and the rhumba-rocking classic "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)." Rush apparently dashed off the latter tune in the car en route to Cobra's West Roosevelt Road studios, where he would cut it with the nucleus of Ike Turner's combo. After Cobra closed up shop, Rush's recording fortunes mostly floundered. He followed Dixon over to Chess in 1960, cutting another classic (the stunning "So Many Roads, So Many Trains") before moving on to Duke (one solitary single, 1962's "Homework"), Vanguard, and Cotillion (there he cut the underrated Mike Bloomfield-Nick Gravenites-produced 1969 album Mourning in the Morning, with yeoman help from the house rhythm section in Muscle Shoals). Typical of Rush's horrendous luck was the unnerving saga of his Right Place, Wrong Time album. Laid down in 1971 for Capitol Records, the giant label inexplicably took a pass on the project despite its obvious excellence. It took another five years for the set to emerge on the tiny Bullfrog label, blunting Rush's momentum once again (the album was later made available by HighTone). An uneven but worthwhile 1975 set for Delmark, Cold Day in Hell, and a host of solid live albums that mostly sound very similar kept Rush's gilt-edged name in the marketplace to some extent during the '70s and '80s, a troubling period for the legendary southpaw. In 1986, he walked out on an expensive session for Rooster Blues (Louis Myers, Lucky Peterson, and Casey Joneswere among the assembled sidemen), complaining that his amplifier didn't sound right and thereby scuttling the entire project. Alligator picked up the rights to an album he had done overseas for Sonet originally called Troubles, Troubles. It turned out to be a prophetic title: much to Rush's chagrin, the firm overdubbed keyboardist Lucky Peterson and chopped out some masterful guitar work when it reissued the set as Lost in the Blues in 1991. Finally, in 1994, the career of this Chicago blues legend began traveling in the right direction. Ain't Enough Comin' In, his first studio album in 16 years, was released on Mercury and ended up topping many blues critics' year-end lists. Produced spotlessly by John Porter with a skin-tight band, Rush roared a set of nothing but covers, but did them all his way, his blistering guitar consistently to the fore. Once again, a series of personal problems threatened to end Rush's long-overdue return to national prominence before it got off the ground. But he remained in top-notch form, fronting a tight band that was entirely sympathetic to the guitarist's sizzling approach. Rush signed with the House of Blues' fledgling record label, instantly granting that company a large dose of credibility and setting himself up for another career push. However, his touring and recording were brought to a halt following a debilitating stroke in 2003. His album Live... and in Concert from San Francisco was released by the Blues Express label in 2006, having been recorded in 1999. On September 29, 2018, Otis Rush died from complications arising from the stroke; he was 83 years old." - "This recording session was not released until five years after it was done. One can imagine the tapes practically smoldering in their cases, the music is so hot. Sorry, there is nothing "wrong" about this blues album at all. Otis Rush was a great blues expander, a man whose guitar playing was in every molecule pure blues. On his solos on this album he strips the idea of the blues down to very simple gestures (i.e., a bent string, but bent in such a subtle way that the seasoned blues listener will be surprised). As a performer he opens up the blues form with his chord progressions and use of horn sections, the latter instrumentation again added in a wonderfully spare manner, bringing to mind a master painter working certain parts of a canvas in order to bring in more light. Blues fans who get tired of the same old song structures, riff, and rhythms should be delighted with most of Rush's output, and this one is among his best. Sometimes all he does to make a song sound unlike any blues one has ever heard is just a small thing -- a chord moving up when one expects it go down, for example. The production is particularly skilled, and the fact that Capitol Records turned this session down after originally producing it can only be reasonably accepted when combined with other decisions this label has made, such as turning down the Doors because singer Jim Morrison had "no charisma." This record doesn't mess around at all. The first track takes off like the man they fire out of a cannon at the end of a circus, a perceived climax swaggeringly representing just the beginning, after all. Some of the finest tracks are the ones that go longer than five minutes, allowing the players room to stretch. And that means more of Rush's great guitar playing, of course. For the final track he leaves the blues behind completely for a moving cover version of "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Tony Joe White." - Spectacular Personnel for the Large Group Features Legendary Composer Otis Rush on Guitar and Vocals, John Wilmeth on Trumpet, Hart McNee on Alto Saxophone, Ron Stallings on Tenor Saxophone, Fred Burton on Rhythm Guitar, the Brilliant Mark Naftalin on Piano, Ira Kamin on Organ, Doug Kilmer or John Kahn on Bass & Bob Jones on Drums! - Selections on Side One Are Tore Up, Original Otis Rush Compositions Right Place Wrong Time, Easy Go, Three Times a Fool and the Tony Joe White Classic Rainy Night in Georgia - Tracks for Side Two Consist of Natural Ball, Mel London's I Wonder Why, Deadric Malone's Your Turn to Cry, Milton Campbell's Lonely Man & the Otis Rush Penned Take a Look Behind - Used Copy, Cover Is Slightly Faded with a Medium Surface Ring, Side One Has some Marks and Scuffs, Side Two Very Good++ - Stereo Recording, Product Code 301 - California Residents Add 9.75% Sales Tax - International S & H Extra -