Tom Rush at Natick Center for the Arts
TCAN Performance Delights Audience
By: David Wilson - Jul 01, 2010
Tom Rush who performed to a sold-out house, Saturday evening, June 26th at the Natick Center for the Arts, holds an unusual status in the New England folk scene. If anyone can be designated as its current patriarch it is he. I know of no one else that comes close to meeting the requirements with the possible exception of Chris Smither.
Fifty years ago when he came to Cambridge to attend Harvard, the popularity of folk music was just blossoming and Tom began his involvement as host of a weekly show on the Harvard campus radio station, WHRB. He began as a performer, the story goes, as an impromptu participant at hoot night in the legendary if brief lived Golden Vanity. Low in those days on the totem pole of area performers which included Eric Von Schmidt, Rolf Cahn, Joan Baez, Bill Wood and Jackie Washington, he has outlasted and outpaced all save Joan.
Within a few short years of performance he rose through the ranks, replacing Jackie Washington in the annual Broadside readers poll to become the area’s most popular male folk-singer. I doubt that in the years since then that he has ever been deposed.
Cultivating the art of recognizing unique talent he developed associations with unknown but exceptional songwriters, and was the first to introduce their works to wider audiences. Joni Mitchell is perhaps the most prominent of such, but only one of many. Mastering his instrument, the guitar, likewise is the result of recognizing those with exceptional talent, observing carefully, and incorporating only the best ideas into his own skill set.
Throughout the performance on Saturday night he, as always, was generous with praise and acknowledgement for those whose material he uses. I dare say that many in the audience consider themselves to be his friend and many in the audience also consider him to be their friend. The warmth and intimacy of his delivery encourages them to feel so. His asides, quips and introductions are ironic, never mean-spirited and are revealing, poignant and hilarious in turn.
His voice, straddling the cusp between bass and baritone is rich with overtones and expressive of complex and multi-stranded sensibilities. In performance his presentation ranges from recitation through chant to full song though in current performance he uses the latter a bit less than I remember from past years.
He proclaimed his support for the Natick Arts Center, declared his intent to himself become a member that night, and urged non-members in the audience to join him in doing the same.
From his opening full throttle rendition of Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues” to his windup, a wound-up rendition of "Bo-Diddly" and another standing ovation, he presented us with a polished and seamless experience. He included among his numbers, longstanding classics from the 60’s, vocals of “Ladies Love Outlaws,” and “The Circle Game,” and instrumentals, “Panama Limited” and “Mole’s Moan.” Some of his patter was apocryphal, but then as he clearly illustrates in “The Remember Song” it could just be lapses in memory.
Tom’s latest CD, “What I Know,” was designated folk album of the year by the Folk Alliance International. Media luminaries such as Stuart MacLean of CBC’s Vinyl Café speak of him with praise and affection. Loyal audiences in many parts of the country and the English speaking world as well as here in New England clearly appreciate him and flock to his concerts. If Tom is not our patriarch, no one is.