Otis Rush – Right Place Wrong Time (Pure Pleasure)

Remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio

Recorded in San Francisco in 1971, Right Place, Wrong Time was inexplicably shelved by Capitol records for five years before Otis Rush finally self-released it. This was just another unpleasant twist in a recording career that saw him create a series of landmark recordings for the Cobra label between 1956 and 1958, only to stagnate over the next decade under a series of foundering labels and a host of poor management decisions. For example, during one five year period in the ’60’s, his entire recorded output consisted of a single 45 — just two songs.

A musician’s musician, Rush has over time been accorded legendary bluesman status, and is generally acknowledged as a prime architect of the Chicago blues sound. His muscular guitar and assured singing mark his sound, which has a level of finish that escapes most blues records. Every note from Rush’s guitar hits its mark, like raindrops falling into a pond. He and his band don’t blast through their material — this isn’t breakneck, frantic, or wailing blues — so much as they saunter through it.

Right Place, Wrong Time is two sides of pure pleasure, without a nanosecond of filler or a single bum note. “Lonely Man” hums with the purr and confidence of a guy who doesn’t expect to be lonely for long, “Take A Look Behind” is a master blues guitar workout, and the title track is quite possibly the finest song that Rush has ever recorded. There are many other highlights here, waiting to be heard.

The album title could also serve as the name of his biography, but Otis Rush was able to overcome a career filled with bad breaks and create a number of underappreciated blues masterpieces. First and foremost among those is Right Place, Wrong Time. Rush’s guitar playing here 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.

Format : Vinyl Record

1 Lp