Bobby Rush was a journeyman blues singer, most famous for the novelty hit "Chicken Heads." On this album, however, he took his decades of his experience and his close study of Howlin' Wolf and made an urban blues album for his times, incorporating touches of Philadelphia soul, street-corner harmonies, and the rhythms of the pulpit. He tackled modern injustice ("Evil Is") alongside Seventies sexual mores ("I Can't Find My Keys"); Rush Hour was the first album in a sequence of ever-stranger "folk-funk" explorations.

What We Said Then: "Rush Hour is so weird that it's a wonder George Clinton didn't think of it first. . .What emerges is outrageous and stunning. . .In a time when most black pop music sounds machine crafted, this record is more than an anomaly. Rush Hour is a tribute to resilience-a sign that the lessons Howlin' Wolf and his peers learned and taught have been neither lost nor forgotten. You're going to need something like this to get you through the Eighties."

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff produced Rush Hour, Bobby Rush's belated full-length debut album, for the Philadelphia International label. By that time, their patented Philly soul sound was out of favor, and they wisely chose not to impose it on Rush. Nevertheless, the album is considerably slicker than any of his Ichiban albums. Oddly, this is hardly a problem, since Rush always favored soul more than blues and had a fondness for funk. The only real flaw with the record is that the material is a bit uneven, but the quality of the performances carries it over rough spots and helps make the record one of the best in his catalog.



Tracklist:

01. I Wanna Do The Do (4:42)
02. I Can't Find My Keys (3:57)
03. Let's Do It Together (4:15)
04. Intermission (2:24)
05. Nickname (4:49)
06. Evil Is (5:09)
07. No Axe Ta' Grind (5:28)
08. Hey Western Union Man (Send a Telegram) (3:25)
09. I Wanna Do The Do (extended Remix) (6:34)