Tom Rush - No Regrets: The Very Best Of Tom Rush

Though not as celebrated as many of the artists he preceded and, indeed, introduced to the world, Tom Rush stands as one of the chief architects of the singer-songwriter boom of the early 1970s. Though he began recording in 1962 as a blues-influenced folkie, Rush came into his own later in the decade when he uncovered tunes by a slew of nascent songwriters, including Jackson Browne ("Jamaica, Say You Will"). Rush came across an unknown Joni Mitchell in a Detroit nightclub and promptly included three of her songs on his popular The Circle Game record. The 17-song No Regrets spans Rush's career, closing with a tasty 1999 recording featuring Shawn Colvin. Rush handpicked the tracks for this retrospective and he's reestablished his signature tunes with a care that old fans and newcomers alike will appreciate. --Steven Stolder Amazon.com

Great Songs

As a long time Tom Rush fan, I agree with all the reviewers here of "No Regrets". It really is a fabulous collection! His voice has such a soothing effect on me. I just lay back and close my eyes and for a little while, I am transported to a serene place. When my mother had died suddenly when I was 15, I remember my older sister (who got me interested in Tom Rush) always played his music. Well, "Drivin' Wheel" had just come out, I believe, and I grabbed her LP of Tom Rush's when she was out one night and played that song loud. I could just picture the guy's car broken down and he's in the middle of a snowstorm, calling his wife/girlfriend on a pay phone, to tell her he loves her and he is trying to get to her. ("I gave my promise I'd be there with you by Saturday night".) And at that minute, even at the young age of 15, I realized that with my mother gone, I did "feel like some old engine that lost my driving wheel." June 25, 2008

Great songs endure. Only the date changes.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

When Joni Mitchell showed those lyrics to Tom Rush, she was a 23-year-old nobody. He was the most famous folk singer ever to graduate from Harvard --- the king of a category of one. But he had a record deal, and she was two years away from one. And so, when it came time for him to go into the studio again, he not only used three of Mitchell's songs, he took "The Circle Game" as the title of that 1968 record.

1968. If you're of a certain age, that year sparks so many memories. But if you're younger, just the opposite --- you're almost surely sick of hearing about "The Sixties". Well, here's a surprise. I'm of a certain age, and I published a book about my generation in 1968 --- Notes from the New Underground, if you must know --- and, believe me, I too am way over that terrible/wonderful year.

Or was, until I started listening to Tom Rush again. "The Circle Game", his first record to get a big label push, was released late in 1968, and it sure fit the mood of my gang. Rush was a baritone, his voice reassuring as oatmeal. He was as unhurried and relaxed as Leonard Cohen. But he was a folkie who was only gently electric; this was no Dylan, rocking your world at every turn. And Rush had an ear for talent. In addition to Joni Mitchell, he more or less discovered the as yet unrecorded James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

But there was something more. Tom Rush was just 27, but he seemed to... know stuff. For "The Circle Game" was a song cycle. Not trippy like "Sgt. Pepper" but oddly mature, charting the enthusiasms of youth --- love and energy and what Joni Mitchell calls the "urge for going" --- and then moving on to breaking up with a lover and leaving your parents and being okay about being alone. And maybe, given the title song, even looking down the road a few years. Or decades.

Now the decades have passed, and Tom Rush is still at it. In his 60s, he has a young daughter --- "I thought I'd have my own grandchild and cut out the middle man" --- and gives a sane number of concerts a year. He has impressive restraint. He made ten albums in the first dozen years of his career, but either the stream dried out or he became allergic to recording. No matter. New material is unimportant when we're talking about Tom Rush; the old more than suffices.

You have only to watch the video of "Remember", the novelty song that is a winner when he performs and is closing in on four million viewers on YouTube, to grasp his appeal. The guy who more or less invented the persona of the laid back singer/songwriter --- the performer who was James Taylor before there was a James Taylor --- is an evergreen. His voice holds up. His guitar is still spare and evocative. He still has the wry wit that would go so well with a mug of coffee and a thin smoke around a campfire.

That Tom Rush still has it has to be reassuring to his aging audience. His confident survival sends the clearest possible message: "You're not getting older, you're getting better." But the coin has another face. We are, as the song says, "captive on the carousel of time." And so, when boomers consider who we were when we first heard certain songs and who we are now, we blink and ask ourselves: Why do I need glasses and wear relaxed-fit pants --- where did the years go? So every Rush concert is an irony; his fans are people who first heard his music when they were leaving home and are now the ones being left.

Tom Rush isn't flashy. He never had the hit song everyone can hum. But if you're looking for a Harvard man who knows how you feel and wouldn't mind singing your feelings for you... well, here's an overlooked boomer god tipping his hat and inviting you to settle in for a listen.

January 10, 2008

The Very Best of Tom Rush

For all Tom Rush fans of old and new this really IS the very best! August 23, 2007

One or two regrets (but not big ones)

I can't add much to the other reviews, but I'll have to second another reviewer's comment that the lushly orchestrated version of "No Regrets" that was included in the record was inferior to the stark, spare version Mr. Rush originally issued. And I, too, miss Bo Diddly's "Who Do You Love?" and wish that Mr. Rush could have found room for it.
But this CD would be a keeper for the "Lost my Driving Wheel" track alone, largely thanks to the incomparable David Bromberg, whose masterful slide guitar slices right through to the heart of the piece; I simply can't imagine the song without it. And thanks for "Urge for Going" ... the definitive version of the song, even though I find Dave van Ronk's take on it equally compelling (although neither version is ever likely to be mistaken for the other). March 26, 2007

Can it get any Better?

I have been a long time fan of Tom Rush having 5 of his albums on vinyl. It was time to have his most popular songs on CD without the scratches and pops. I couldn't resist spending the money on Tom Rush - Tom Rush and The Circle Game. Now my life is complete. All are 5 stars! July 15, 2006

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