Bobby Rush is an American musical treasure, a high-energy, nonagenarian blues guitarist, harmonica player, singer, producer, songwriter, and actor. Rush is above all a solid bluesman who is not afraid to incorporate contemporary sounds – funk, R&B, rap - into his music, all while staying true to his own roots, well-spiced with with sly humor and the uncensored honesty of an elder statesman who has seen it all. He is currently touring with blues-rock powerhouse Kenny Wayne Shepherd in support of their 2026 duo album, Young Fashioned Ways and shows no signs of slowing down.
Rush cut his young chops with legends like Elmore James and Muddy Waters, and has been a stalwart in blues clubs and juke joints– most notably the Southern “chitlin circuit” – across his 75+-year career. After years of hard touring, a series of popular, late-career recordings and film appearances brought Rush mainstream attention and well-deserved international acclaim, especially when he won his first (of three…so far) Grammy in 2017 at the young age of 83 – yes, 83 - for his album Porcupine Meat.
Born in 1933 in Homer, Louisiana, a very young Rush (born Emmett Ellis, Jr.) began playing music using a sugarcane syrup bucket and a broom-wire diddley bow. In the mid-1940s, the family moved to Arkansas, where Rush connected with Elmore James and Pinetop Perkins and started his first band, then Chicago, where Rush fell in with the robust blues scene that included Waters, Etta James, Little Walter, and Jimmy Reed. Rush’s heart lay in the South, however, and he toured relentlessly, eventually earning the title “King of the Chitlin Circuit” from Rolling Stone and a reputation as a top entertainer. Although he spent a good part of his life headquartered in Chicago, in recent years he’s made his home in Jackson, MS.
His first gold record came in 1971 with his song, "Chicken Heads", (which charted again 30 years later when it was included in the soundtrack to the hit movie Black Snake Moan); a steady stream of singles and albums over the years range from his 1979 breakout album Rush Hour, including the hit single "I Wanna Do the Do," to the 2001 Hoochie Man, (which earned him his first Grammy nomination), the stellar 2014 Down in Louisiana, to the Grammy winners: Porcupine Meat (2017), Rawer than Raw (2021) and All My Love for You (2024).
He has earned a slew of honors, including 16 Blues Music Awards, several Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame inductions, and a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. He has played with just about every major name in the blues pantheon, and with stars like Snoop Dogg, Mavis Staples, and Dan Ackroyd. He appeared in the Martin Scorsese documentary, The Road to Memphis, with Eddie Murphy in the Netflix film Dolomite is My Name, and in the more recent Take Me to the River. His autobiography, I Ain’t Studdin’ Ya: My American Blues Story, was recently published, and, in between tours, he’s working on a musical with eyes on Broadway.
